It was in this spirit that Hugh of Avalon, I take it, made his stand: other prelates might waive the point, in consideration of the king's necessities, but he, at least, would never allow a standing exemption to be broken through and thus impaired for all time.

His attitude, we are told, proved fatal to the scheme, compelling the king and his ministers to abandon it in impotent wrath. But perhaps his biographer exaggerates the defeat, for the Bishop of Salisbury, we know, had to purchase the king's pardon for his action by a heavy fine, while the Abbot of St Edmund's had to compromise the matter by the payment of a large sum.¹⁸ It seems probable that similar compromises would be arranged in other cases where the request was not complied with.

If, then, I am right in the solution I offer, St Hugh must have taken the narrowest ground, and have acted on behalf of ecclesiastical privilege, and only incidentally even for that, his protest being limited to his own church.¹⁹ And, further, it follows that, like St Thomas, he was acting strictly on the defensive. To say that his action affords 'the first clear case of the refusal of a money grant demanded directly by the crown, and a most valuable precedent, for later times',²⁰ is, I submit with all respect, to set it in a quite erroneous light. In 1197, as in 1163, the crown was trying to infringe on well-established rights, and St Hugh like St Thomas, resisted that infringement, so far as his own rights were concerned, just as he would have resisted an attempt of the crown to deprive his see of a Manor, of feudal services, or of goods. The crown might take its pound of flesh, but more than that it should not have; never, through any action of his, should his church be deprived of its prescriptive rights.²¹

Here this article originally closed; but I am tempted to refer to one touching on the same subject which appeared a year later in the pages of the same review.²² Alluding to 'the question of foreign service' as a prominent grievance under John,²³ I wrote:

Ralf of Coggeshall, and Walter of Coventry, assert that the northern barons denied their liability to foreign service in respect of lands held in England. John retorted that the principle had been admitted in the days of his father and his brother, and therefore claimed it tanquam debitum. This justifies the fears expressed sixteen years before by St Hugh of Lincoln, and explains what I termed, in examining his action, the mediaeval dread of creating a precedent.²⁴

The final loss of Normandy had, of course, altered the case, but even while it still formed part of an English King's possessions, there must always have been scope for argument as to feudal obligations. To quote once more from the same article:

The question must have been complicated by the growth of the king's dominions. Did the feudatories owe service to the king, as their lord, in whatever war he was engaged? Or were they only bound to follow him as King of England? Or were they, as holding a conquestu, only bound to serve in the dominions of the Conqueror who enfeoffed them, i.e. in England and Normandy?²⁵

On the death of the Conqueror, the question would arise for the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans were no longer one and the same. It comes to the front accordingly in a gathering of the barons at Winchester, which Mr Freeman assigns to Easter, 1090.²⁶ Orderic, here his authority, places it under 1089, and although his chronology is not to be always blindly followed, there is no ground for supposing here that the date is wrong. When he is following out a story or carried on by allusion, Orderic, like other chroniclers, anticipates or wanders in his dates; but this gathering has no connection with what precedes or follows; there is, therefore, nothing to account for his placing it under 1089, if it really belonged to 1090.

But the point to which I would call attention is the nature and intention of this gathering. Orderic writes:

Confirmatus itaque in regno, turmas optimatum ascivit, et Guentoniæ congregatis, quæ intrinsecus ruminabat sic ore deprompsit.

Mr Freeman attaches to the speech that follows no small importance. Holding that the king 'was now ready to take the decisive step of crossing the sea himself or sending others to cross it', he pointed out that:

even William Rufus, in all his pride and self-confidence, knew that it did not depend wholly on himself to send either native or adopted Englishmen on such an errand. He had learned enough of English constitutional law not to think of venturing on a foreign war without the constitutional sanction of his kingdom. In a Gemot [sic] at Winchester, seemingly the Easter Gemot of the third year of his reign, he laid his schemes before the assembled Witan [sic], and obtained their consent to a war with the Duke of the Normans.²⁷

Of course, in reading Mr Freeman's works we must reconcile ourselves to 'Gemot' and 'Witan' being thrust upon us at every turn, however radically false a conception these words may convey. At the close of his dealing with this episode, he refers us, as a parallel, to the 'full Gemot' of 1047, in which 'the popular character of the assembly still', we learn, 'impresses itself on the language of history'. Now Orderic describes those who were summoned to our Winchester gathering as 'turmas optimatum'; he makes William begin his speech 'nostri egregii barones'; and he places in his mouth language essentially feudal and Norman:

Nunc igitur commoneo vos omnes, qui patris mei homines fuistis, et feudos vestros in Normannia et Anglia de illo tenuistis²⁸ ... cœnobia quæ patres nostri construxerunt in Neustria ... Decet ergo ut, sicut nomen ejus [i.e. Willelmi] et diadema gero, sic ad defensionem patriæ inhæream ejus [i.e. Normanniæ] studio.

Mr Freeman expressed astonishment and delight at William's 'constitutional language', and declared that though, in its actual wording, the speech, of course, was Orderic's:

the constitutional doctrines which he has worked into his speech cannot fail to set forth the ordinary constitutional usage of the time. Even in the darkest hour in which England had any settled government at all, etc., etc.²⁹

And then follows the usual lament for 'the days of King Eadward', when it was not a 'cabinet', but a crowd, that dealt with the delicate question of peace or war.

Now even the late Professor's most ardent followers cannot represent my criticism here as 'trifling', or unimportant. Mr Freeman, I hold, had misconceived the matter altogether. The whole thing is sheer delusion. William's appeal, as set before us, was not the fruit of studies in English 'constitutional law': it was the appeal of a feudal lord to 'barons' holding by feudal tenure. Should there be any one who feels the slightest doubt upon the question, let him turn to Mr Freeman's own account of the great 'Assembly of Lillebonne'. He could not himself avoid a passing glance at the parallel, when he wrote that 'William the Red had as good reasons to give for an invasion of Normandy as his father had once had to give for an invasion of England'.³⁰ Contrasting that Assembly (1066) with an English Gemot, he wrote that 'in William's Assembly we hear of none but barons'.³¹ Precisely. But that remark is equally true of his son's Assembly at Winchester.³² And when we learn, a few years later, the composition of his Assembly, we find it admittedly restricted to tenants-in-chief.³³ Of the two Assemblies, that of Lillebonne revealed a more active opposition, showed more 'parliamentary boldness', than that of Winchester.³⁴ The latter merely applauded, we read, the King's appeal. Like his father, he appealed to his barons to follow him on foreign service; like him also, he pleaded his wrongs and the justice of his righteous cause.

Of the two, the father seems, as I have said, to have met with more opposition than the son. One might therefore produce an argument ad absurdum, and contend that, on Mr Freeman's showing, an English King was not less, but more, absolute than a Norman Duke. In any case we have now seen that the ideas about 'constitutional usage', and so forth, imported here by Mr Freeman, were nothing but a figment of his brain. The Assembly of Winchester no more resulted from 'English constitutional law' than did the Assembly of Lillebonne, convened for a similar purpose. William Rufus had to deal with barons who could not be anxious to invade Normandy merely to make him Duke of the Normans. If they had any preference in the matter, it would be rather for Robert than for William, for a weak rather than a strong ruler; but, apart from preference, the barons would be loth to engage in internecine warfare merely for the personal advantage of one brother or the other. This was seen in the peaceful close of the invasion by Duke Robert, as with that of Duke Henry half a century later. The question, in short, that arose in 1066, when a Duke of the Normans asked his barons to make him King of the English, arose once more in the days of his son, when a King of the English asked his barons to make him Duke of the Normans.

It was here no question of 'the laws and rights of Englishmen':³⁵ it was to no folkmoot that William Rufus spoke. When we read of the King in his court, composed of his tenants-in-chief,³⁶ as surrounded by 'no small part of the nation',³⁷ when we hear of the mass of 'the Assembly ... crying Yea, yea';³⁸ when we learn that 'a great numerical proportion, most likely a numerical majority, were natives',³⁹ we are fairly prepared for the astounding statement that:

The wide fields which had seen the great review and the great homage in the days of the elder William, could alone hold the crowd which came together to share in the great court of doom which was holden by the younger.⁴⁰

For we see that in all these fantasies of a brain viewing plain facts through a mist of moots and 'witan', we have what can only be termed history in masquerade.

¹ Stubbs' Const. Hist. (1874), i. 510.

² ibid., p. 577.

³ Select Charters (1870), pp. 28-9. So too, preface to Rog. Hoveden (1871): 'It may be placed on a par with St Thomas's opposition to Henry II in 1163' (iv., pp. xci-xcii). So also Early Plantagenets (1876), p. 126, and Const. Hist., i. 510.

⁴ Norm. Conq., v. 675, 695.

⁵ See above, p. 377.

⁶ Early Plantagenets, p. 126.

⁷ Const. Hist., i. 509.

⁸ ibid., p. 510, and pref. to Rog. Hoveden, iv., pp. xci-xcii.

⁹ England under the Angevin Kings, ii. 350.

¹⁰ Early Plantagenets, p. 126.

¹¹ 'Precepit rex Ricardus omnibus episcopis et abbatibus Angliae ut de suis baroniis novem milites facerent decimum, et sine dilacione venirent ad eum in Normanniam, cum equis et armis in auxilium contra Regem Franciae. Unde et abbatem oportuit respondere de iiii. militibus mittendis' (ed. Camden Soc, p. 63).

¹² 'Præparavit maximam expeditionem ita ut duo milites de tota Anglia tertium pararent ad opprimendum Gualenses.' Robert de Torigni.

¹³ 'Tertium cum omnibus armis totius Angliae militem die nominato mandavit venire Wintoniam.' Ric. Devizes (Rolls Series), p. 409.

¹⁴ 'Cumque summoneri fecisset omnes milites suos, et eos inde convenisset, responderunt feudos suos, quos de Sancto Ædmundo tenuerunt, hoc non debere, nec se nec patres eorum unquam Angliam exisse, set scutagium aliquando ad praeceptum regis dedisse' (ibid.).

¹⁵ 'Abbas vero in arcto posito, hinc videns libertatem suorum militum periclitari, illinc timens ne amitteret saisinam baronie sue pro defectu servicii regis, sicut contigerat Episcopo Lundonensi [? Lincolnensi] et multis baronibus Angliæ, statim transfretavit, et ... in primis nullum potuit facere finem cum rege per denarios. Dicenti ergo se non indigere auro nec argento, sed quatuor milites instanter exigenti', etc. (ibid.).

¹⁶ 'In quibis conservandis sive exhibendis hactenus fere per tredecim annos a rectis praedecessorum meorum vestigiis non recessi' (Magna Vita).

¹⁷ 'Ad publicam rem tuendam' (Abingdon Cart., ii. 3).

¹⁸ 'Quatuor milites stipendiarios optulit abbas. Quos cum rex recepisset, apud castellum de Hou misit. Abbas autem in instanti eis xxxvi. marcas dedit ad expensas xl. dierum. In crastino autem venerunt quidam familiares regis, consulentes abbati ut sibi caute provideret, dicentes werram posse durare per annum integrum vel amplius, et expensas militum excrescere et multiplicari in perpetuum dampnum ei et ecclesiae suae. Et ideo consulebant ut, antequam recederet de curia, finem faceret cum rege, unde posset quietus esse de militibus predictis post xl. dies. Abbas autem, sano usus consilio, centum libras regi dedit pro tali quietantia' (Jocelin, p. 63). It is noteworthy that thirty-six marcs would represent just three shillings a day (for forty days) for each knight, the very sum named by Hoveden. In 1205 the pay named in John's writ was two shillings a day (home service), but both these sums are largely in excess of the eight pence a day paid, as we have seen, under Henry II, the discrepancy being incomprehensible, unless the higher wage implied a larger following.

¹⁹ Dr Stubbs held [1870] that he acted 'not on ecclesiastical but on constitutional grounds' (Select Charters, p. 28), though he subsequently [1871] doubted whether 'the grounds of the opposition' were 'ecclesiastical or constitutional' (Pref. to Hoveden, iv., p. xci), and even admitted that 'the opposition of St Hugh was based not on his right as a member of the national council, but on the immunities of the church' (Const. Hist., i. 578).

²⁰ Hoveden, iv., xcii.

²¹ 'Antiquas immunitates perdendo.'

²² 'An Unknown Charter of Liberties.' English Historical Review, viii. 288 et seq.

²³ See Dr Stubbs' Pref. to W. Coventry, p. lxiv.

²⁴ English Historical Review, viii. 293.

²⁵ ibid.

²⁶ Will. Rufus, i. 222.

²⁷ ibid., i 222.

²⁸ Mr Freeman quotes this passage and duly renders it in his text (i. 232).

²⁹ ibid., i. 22.

³⁰ ibid., i. 222.

³¹ Norm. Conq., iii. 290.

³² 'Turmas optimatum'—'barones'. Cf. supra, pp. 247, 262.

³³ Will. Rufus, ii. 56-7.

³⁴ Norm. Conq., iii. 294-6, 298.

³⁵ Supra, p. 398.

³⁶ At Salisbury, January 13, 1096.

³⁷ Will. Rufus, ii. 57.

³⁸ ibid., 59.

³⁹ ibid., 57.

⁴⁰ ibid., 56.

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 witnessed in the domain of history has been the rebuilding of the historical fabric on the relatively sure foundation of original and contemporary authorities, studied in the purest texts. Chronicles, however, are not inexhaustible: for many periods they are all too few. The reaper has almost done his work; the turn of the gleaner has come. The smaller quellen of history have now to be diligently examined and made to yield those fragments of information which will supplement, often where most needed, our existing stock of knowledge.

But this is not our only gain as we leave the broad highways trodden by so many before us. Those precious fragments which are to form our spoils will enable us to do more than supplement the statements of our standard chroniclers: they will afford the means of checking, of testing, by independent evidence, these statements, of submitting our witnesses to a cross-examination which may shake their testimony and their credit in a most unexpected manner.

As an instance of the results to be attained by archæological research, I have selected Richard the First's celebrated change of seal. Interesting as being the occasion on which the three lions first appear as the Royal arms of England—arms unchanged to the present day—it possesses exceptional historical importance from the circumstances by which it was accompanied, and which led, admittedly, to its adoption.

Historians have agreed, without the least hesitation, to refer this event to the year 1194, and to place it subsequent to the truce of Tillières or about the beginning of August. 'That Richard I,' writes a veteran student,¹ 'adopted a new seal upon his return from the Holy Land is a matter of notoriety.' Speed, in fact, had shown the way. We are told by him that 'the king caused [1194] a new broad seale to be made, requiring that all charters granted under his former seale should be confirmed under this, whereby he drew a great masse of money to his treasurie'.² The Bishop of Oxford, with his wonted accuracy, faithfully reproduces the statement of Hoveden (the original and sole authority we shall find for the story), telling us that 'Amongst other oppressive acts he [Richard] took the seal from his unscrupulous but faithful chancellor, and, having ordered a new one to be made, proclaimed the nullity of all charters which had been sealed with the old one.'³ Mr Freeman similarly places the episode just before 'the licenses for the tournaments' (August 20, 1194), and consistently refers to Dr Stubbs's history.⁴ Miss Norgate, in her valuable work, our latest authority on the period, assigns the event to the same date, and tells us that 'Rog. Hoveden's very confused account of the seals is made clear by Bishop Stubbs'.⁵ Mr Maitland, in his noble edition of 'Bracton's Note-book', gives a case (ii. 69) in which a charter sealed 'secundo sigillo Regis Ricardi' was actually produced in court (1219), and explains that 'Richard had a new seal made in 1194', referring to Hoveden for his authority.⁶

It should be observed that all these writers rely merely on Hoveden, none of them throwing any light on the process of confirmation, or telling us how it was effected, and whether any traces of it remain. An independent writer, M. Boivin-Champeaux, in his monograph on William Longchamp, discusses the episode at some length, and asserts that the repudiated documents were 'assujettis, pour leur revalidation, à une nouvelle et coûteuse scellure'. Like the others, however, he relies on the authority of Hoveden, and consequently repeats the same date.

In the course of examining some ancient charters, I recognized one of them as nothing less than an actual instance of a confirmation consequent on this change of seal. But its incomprehensible feature was that the charter was confirmed on August 22, 1198, having originally been granted, 'sub primo sigillo', so recently as January 7th preceding. How could this be possible if the great seal had been changed so early as August 1194, and if the first seal, as stated by Dr Stubbs, was 'broken' on that occasion? Careful and prolonged research among the charters of the period (both in the original and in transcripts) has enabled me to answer the question, and to prove that (as, of course, the above charter implies) the change of seal did not take place in 1194, but 1198, and between January and May of that year.

Original charters under the second seal, confirming grants under the first, are distinctly rare. I have found, as yet, but one in the Public Record Office, and only two at the British Museum. But of originals and transcripts together I have noted twenty-eight. The dates of the original grants range from September 5, 1189, to January 7, 1198 (1197-8), and of the confirmations from May 27, 1198, to April 5, 1199.⁷

In a single instance there is fortunately preserved not only the text of the confirmation charter, but also that of the original grant.⁸ From this we learn that the charter of confirmation did not necessarily give the wording, but only the gist ('tenor') of the original grant. We are thus brought to the instructive formula invariably used in these charters:

Is erat tenor carte nostre in primo sigillo nostro. Quod quia aliquando perditum fuit, et, dum capti essemus in alem[anniâ], in aliena potestate constitutum, mutatum est. Huius autem innovationis testes sunt Hii, etc., etc.

We may here turn to the passage in Hoveden [ed. Stubbs, iii. 267] on which historians have relied, and see how far the reasons for the change given in the charters themselves correspond with those alleged by the chronicler.

Fecit sibi novum sigillum fieri, et mandavit, per singulas terras suas, quod nihil ratum foret quod fuerat per vetus sigillum suum; tum quia cancellarius ille operatus fuerat inde minus discrete quam esset necesse, tum quia sigillum illud perditum erat, quando Rogerus Malus Catulus, vicecancellarius suus, submersus erat in mari ante insulam de Cipro, et præcepit rex quod omnes qui cartas habebant venirent ad novum sigillum ad cartas suas renovandas.

In both cases we find there are two reasons given; but while one of these is the same in both, namely the temporary loss of the seal when Roger Malchael was drowned, the other is wholly and essentially different. The whole aspect of the transaction is thus altered. To illustrate this I shall now place side by side the independent glosses of the Bishop of Oxford and of M. Boivin-Champeaux:

Thus both writers assume that there were two seals, one which remained in England with the chancellor, and one which accompanied the king to the east. They further (though Dr Stubbs is somewhat obscure) hold that the two excuses given refer respectively to the two seals, thus discrediting both. But when we turn to the charters themselves, we find but one seal mentioned, and to that one seal alone both the excuses refer. The king explains that on two occasions it was, so to speak, 'out on the loose'—(1) when his vice-chancellor was drowned; (2) when he himself was captured in Germany. This was, of course, the seal which accompanied him to the east.⁹ The king makes no allusion to any other or to the chancellor. Such charters and grants as are known to us all proceed from the king himself, either before he left Messina or after he had reached Germany on his return. No charter or grant of Longchamp, as representing him, is known. In short, the whole of our record evidence points one way: the charters which the king proclaimed must be confirmed, and which we find brought to him for that purpose were those which he had himself granted, and no other. Lastly, even had we nothing before us but the passage in Hoveden which all have followed, I contend that it may, and indeed ought to be, read as referring to a single seal. But it is, as Miss Norgate justly observes, 'very confused', from its allusion to the chancellor's use of the seal. That allusion, however, would most naturally refer to the truce of Tillières, and not to the use of a separate seal in England. Therefore even if we accepted, which I do not, Hoveden's statement, it would not warrant the inference that has been drawn.

Again, when Miss Norgate writes of the 'withdrawal of the seal from William', and when Dr Stubbs tells us that the king 'took the seal from' him, these statements may have two meanings. But M. Boivin-Champeaux is more precise: 'L'emploi de ces procédés emportait le mépris et la violation non seulement de tous les actes étrangers au chancelier, mais encore de tous ceux où il avait mis la main. Il ne pouvait décemment conserver les sceaux. Le roi les lui enleva.' This is a distinct assertion that Longchamp was deprived of his office. Yet all our evidence points to the conclusion that he remained chancellor to the day of his death.

Dismissing Hoveden for the time, and returning to the testimony of the charters, we have seen that they point to the event we are discussing having taken place in 1198, between January 7, at which date the first seal was still in use, and May 27, when charters were already being brought for confirmation under the second seal. Passing now from the charters to the seals still in existence, we learn from Mr Wyon's magnificent work¹⁰ (which has appeared since I completed my own investigation) that the first seal was still in use on April 1, 1198,¹¹ while an impression of the second is found as early as May 22, 1198.¹² Thus our limit of time for the change is narrowed to April 1-May 22, 1198.¹³ The evidence of the charters and of the seals being thus in perfect harmony, let us see whether this limit of date corresponds with a time of financial difficulty. For, so desperate a device as that of the king's repudiation of his charters would only have been resorted to at a time of extreme pressure. What do we find? We find that the time of this change of seal corresponds with the great financial crisis of Richard's reign. The Church had at length lost patience, and had actually in the Council at Oxford (December 1197) raised a protest. The 'want of money', in Miss Norgate's words, was 'a difficulty which ... must have seemed well-nigh insurmountable'. Preparations were being made for a huge levy at five shillings on every ploughland. It was at this moment that the desperate king repudiated all the charters he had granted throughout his reign, and proclaimed that they must be 'brought to him for confirmation; in other words ... paid for a second time'.¹⁴

Let us now look at the other chroniclers. R. Coggeshall is independent and precise:

Accessit autem ad totius mali cumulum, juxta vitæ ejus terminum, prioris sigilli sui renovatio, quo exiit edictum per totum ejus regnum ut omnes cartæ, confirmationes, ac privilegiatæ libertates quæ prioris sigilli impressione roboraverat, irrita forent nec alicujus libertatis vigorem obtinerent, nisi posteriori sigillo roborarentur. In quibus renovandis et iterum comparandis innumerabilis pecunia congesta est (p. 93).

This is in complete accordance with the now ascertained fact that Richard changed his seal, and regranted the old charters, within the last year of his life. Similarly independent and precise evidence is afforded by the Annals of Waverley:

mcxcviii. Anno x. regis Ricardi præcepit idem rex omnes cartas in regno suo emptas reformari, et novo sigilli sui impressione roborari, vel omnes cassari, cujuscunque dignitatis aut ordinis essent, qui vellent sua protectione defensari, vel universa bona sua confiscari.¹⁵

Further, we read in the Annals of Worcester¹⁶ and in the Historia Major of M. Paris (ii. 450-451)¹⁷ that in 1198, 'circaque festum sancti Michaelis, mutatæ sunt carte quas prius fecerat rex Ricardus, novo sigillo suo'. Now this Michaelmas fell just in the heart of the period within which the process of confirmation is proved to have been going on.

We see, then, that the evidence (1) of the seals, (2) of the charters, (3) of the circumstances of the time, (4) of other chroniclers, all concur in pointing to the spring of 1198. And now we will lastly appeal to Hoveden against himself. After telling us of the king's proclamation on the refusal of the religious to contribute to the carucage in the spring of 1198, he adds:

Præterea præcepit idem rex ut omnes, tam clerici quam laici, qui cartas sive confirmationes habebant de sigillo suo veteri deferrent eas ad sigillum suum novum renovandas, et nisi fecerint, nihil quod actum fuerat per sigillum suum vetus ratum haberetur (iv. 66).

This passage, which ought to be compared with Coggeshall, is merely ignored by Dr Stubbs. Miss Norgate, however, boldly explains it as 'a renewal of the decree requiring all charters granted under the king's old seal to be brought up for confirmation under the new one' (ii. 356). But the passage stands by itself, as describing a new measure.¹⁸

The only conclusion to be drawn from this cumulative evidence is that the earlier passage in Hoveden (1194) which has been so universally accepted, must be rejected altogether. Against the facts I have adduced it cannot stand.

Incredible though it may seem that a court official, a chronicler so able and well informed, indeed, in the words of his editor, 'our primary authority for the period',¹⁹ should have misstated so grossly an event, as it were, under his own eyes, we must remember that 'Hoveden's personality is to a certain degree vindicated by a sort of carelessness about exact dates'.²⁰ Yet even so, 'few are the points', our supreme authority assures us, 'in which a very close examination and collation with contemporary authors can detect chronological error in Hoveden'.²¹ Nor, of the eight anachronisms laboriously established by Dr Stubbs, does any one approach in magnitude the error I have here exposed. The importance of every anachronism in its bearing on the authorship of the chronicle is by him clearly explained.

How far does the rejection of this statement on the change of seal affect the statement which precedes it as to the Truce of Tillières? Hoveden places the latter and the former in the relation of cause and effect:

Deinde veniens in Normanniam moleste tulit quicquid factum fuerat de supradictis treugis, et imputans cancellario suo hoc per eum fuisse factum, abstulit ab eo sigillum suum, et fecit, etc. (iii. 267).

This is rendered by Dr Stubbs in the margin: 'He annuls the truce and all the acts of the chancellor passed under the old seal.' The passage has also been so read by M. Boivin-Champeaux (p. 221); but if that is the meaning, which I think is by no means certain, Hoveden contradicts himself. For he speaks five months later of the truce ('Treuga quæ inter eos statuta fuerat duratura usque ad festum omnium sanctorum') as not having stopped private raids on either side.²² R. de Diceto, mentioning the truce (ii. 120), says nothing of it being annulled, nor does R. Newburgh in his careful account. On the contrary, he implies that it held good, though the terms were thought dishonourable to Richard (ii. 420). I should, therefore, read Hoveden as stating simply that Richard was much annoyed at ('moleste tulit') its terms, and was wroth with the chancellor for accepting them.

In addition to correcting the received date for Richard the First's change of seal, the evidence I have collected enables us, for the first time, to learn how and to what extent the confirmation of the charters was effected. We find that it was no sweeping process, carried out on a single occasion, but that it was gradually and slowly proceeding during the last eleven months of the king's life. Here, then, is the explanation of another fact (also hitherto overlooked), namely that only a minority of the charters were ever confirmed under the second seal.²³ For the king's death abruptly stopped the operation of that oppressive decree which was being so reluctantly obeyed.

It should be superfluous for me to add that, in thus correcting previous statements, I have not impeached the accuracy of our greatest living historian, who could only form his judgment from the evidence before him. The result of my researches has been to show that the evidence itself breaks down when submitted to the test of fact.

¹ Canon Raine, Historiæ Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres (Surtees Soc.), p. 379.

² Speed's History (1611).

³ Const. Hist., i. 506.

⁴ Norman Conquest, v. 693. Compare The Office of the Historical Professor, pp. 16, 17: 'In a long and careful study of the Bishop of Chester's writings ... I have never found a flaw in the statement of his evidence. If I have now and then lighted on something that looked like oversight, I have always found in the end that the oversight was mine and not his.'

⁵ England under the Angevin Kings, ii. 343.

⁶ I have been able to identify this very charter.

⁷ This is the only confirmation I have found later than March 3. If the date can be relied on, it is of special interest as being the day before the king died.

⁸ Charters to W. Briwere, June 22, 1190, and March 11, 1199 (1198-9), transcribed in the Great Coucher (Duchy of Lancaster)

⁹ Dr Stubbs, indeed, writes, as we have seen, that 'the seal that was now broken must have been the one which the chancellor had used during the king's absence'. But Longchamp had been ejected from the chancellorship in October 1191, whereas Richard limits the period of abuse to the duration of his captivity, which did not begin till December 20, 1192.

¹⁰ The Great Seals of England (Stock), p. 149.

¹¹ Its impression is attached to a charter tested at Tours, now at Lambeth Palace. If the date of this charter is correctly given, it is an important contribution to the Itinerary of Richard.

¹² ibid., p. 19.

¹³ It is singular that Mr Wyon, while giving these data, should himself assign the change to 'circ. 1197', and still more singular that he should elsewhere (p. 20) accept the usual passage from Hoveden (iii. 267).]

¹⁴ Miss Norgate (1194), ii. 343.

¹⁵ Annales Monastici, ii. 251.

¹⁶ ibid., iv. 389 (Vespasian E, iv.).

¹⁷ Faust A. 8. fo. 136. It is a striking instance of the confusion and blundering to be met with even in our best chronicles that M. Paris (Chron. Maj., ii. 356) has an independent allusion to the king's change of seal (as a 'factum Ricardi regis enorme') in which he gives us a circumstantial account of the event and of the prior of St Alban's going over to France to secure the confirmation, 'cum effusione multæ pecuniæ et laboris', but assigns it to the year 1189. Hoveden's error pales before such a blunder as this, which has been accepted without question by the learned editor, Dr Luard.]

¹⁸ Hoveden, by placing it wrongly (p. 66) after Hubert's resignation (p. 48), to which it was some two months previous, has misled Miss Norgate into the belief that it was the work of his successor, Geoffrey.]

¹⁹ Stubbs' Hoveden, iv., xxxii.

²⁰ ibid., p. xxv.

²¹ ibid., p. xxxi.

²² iii. 276. This distinctly implies that the truce had been nominally in full force. Note that it is here spoken of as 'till All Saints', while in the document itself (iii. 259) it is made for a year from All Saints. Miss Norgate (ii. 367) speaks of it as 'till All Saints' (1195), but I think it was made from July 1194 to All Saints 1195.]

²³ I have not found a single charter of municipal liberties, though the reign was so rich in them, among these confirmations. Nor since this article first appeared, in 1888 (Arch. Rev., vol. i.), have I found more than four additional cases of resealed charters, raising the total to twenty-eight. Of these a detailed list is given on pp. 442-15.]

²⁴ 'Scilicet die secunda coronationis nostræ.'

²⁵ 'December' in Cart. Ant., which date is accepted in Gibson's 'Monastery of Tynmouth'.

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 clear:

Si maior sic electus officium suum recipere noluit, primo et secundo et tercio monitus, tota communitas ibit ad capitale messuagium suum, si habuerit proprium, et illud cum armis omnimodo quo poterit prosternat usque ad terram.... Similiter quicunque juratus fuerit electus, et jurare noluerit, simile judicium.¹

Although the custom of house demolition is apparently, as I have said, peculiar in England to the Cinque Ports, it was of widespread occurrence abroad. Thither, therefore, we must turn our steps in order to investigate its history.

It is in Flanders and in Northern France, and in Picardy, most of all, that we find this singular custom prevailing, and discover its inseparable connection with the institution of the Commune. It would seem that the penalty of house demolition was originally decreed for offences against the commune in its corporate capacity. Thierry, basing his conclusions mainly on the charters of the commune of Amiens and the daughter-charter of Abbeville writes:

Celui qui se soustrait à la justice de la Commune est puni de banissement, et sa maison est abattue. Celui qui tient des propos injurieux contre la Commune encourt la même peine. Voilà pour les dispositions communes aux chartes d'Amiens et d'Abbeville, c'est-à-dire pour celles qui authentiquement sont plus anciennes que l'acte royal de 1190. Si l'on ne s'y arrête pas et qu'on relève dans cet acte d'autres dispositions, probablement primitives aussi, on trouvera les peines du crime politique, l'abatis de maison et le banissement, appliquées à celui qui viole sciemment les constitutions de la Commune et à celui qui, blessé dans une querelle, refuse la composition en justice et refuse pareillement de donner sécurité à son adversaire.

Une peine moindre, car elle se réduit à ce que la maison du délinquant soit abattue s'il n'aime mieux en payer la valeur, est appliquée à celui qui addresse des injures au Maire dans l'exercice de ses fonctions, et à celui qui frappe un de ses Jurés devant les magistrats, en pleine audience. Ainsi l'abatis de maison, vengeance de la Commune lésée ou offensée, était à la fois un châtiment par lui-même et le signe qui rendait plus terrible aux imaginations la sentence de banissement conditionnel ou absolu. Il avait lieu dans la plupart ... des communes du nord de la France avec un appareil sombre et imposant; en présence des citoyens, convoqués à son de cloche, le Maire frappait un coup de marteau contre la demeure du condamné, et des ouvriers, requis pour service public, procédaient à la démolition qu'ils poursuivaient jusqu'à ce qu'il ne restât plus pierre sur pierre.²

The public character of the ceremony, which was no less marked at Sandwich (vide supra), is well illustrated in the Ordonnances of Philip of Alsace (circ. 1178) on the powers of his baillis in Flanders:

Domus diruenda Judicio Scabinorum, post quindenam a scabinis indultam, quandocunque comes præceperit, aut ballivus ejus, diruetur a communia villæ, campana pulsata per Scabinos; et qui ad diruendam illam non venerit, in forisfacto erit, etc., etc.

This ringing of the communal bell—parallel to the moot-bell of England—is an important feature in the matter. Without insisting upon a stray allusion, one may ask whether an entry in the Colchester records in the sixteenth century, threatening that if an offending burgess does not make amends, the town will 'ring him out of his freedom', may not be explained by this practice.

There are plenty of other early instances of this house demolition in recognized Communes. At Bruges we read (circ. 1190): 'Si scabini voluerint domum eius prosternere, poterunt', etc., etc. So, too, at Roye, the charter (circ. 1183) provides: 'Domus forisfactoris diruetur si Major voluerit, et si Major redempcionem accipiet de domibus diruendis', etc., etc.... 'Si quis extraneus ... forisfactum fecerit ... Major et homines ville ad diruendam domum ejus exeant; quæ si sit adeo fortis ut vi Burgensium dirui non possit, ad eam diruendam vim et auxilium conferemus'.³ So essential was the power of distraint, as we might term it, given to the community over its members, by the possession of a house, that it was sometimes made compulsory on a new member to become possessed of a house within a year of his joining. This was the case at Laon, one of the oldest of the Communes, the charter of Louis VI (1128) providing that 'Quicunque autem in Pace ista recipiatur, infra anni spatium aut domum sibi edificet, aut vineas emet ... per que justiciari possit, si quid forte in eum querele evenerit'. Where, in the absence of such provision, the culprit had no house to be demolished, it would seem that, in some cases, he had to procure one, for the express purpose of being demolished, before he could be restored to his membership. Thus, at Abbeville, the charter of Commune provides that 'si domum non habuerit, antequam villam intret, domum centum solidorum, quam communia prosternat, inveniet'.

Thierry pointed out how the 'commune' of north-eastern France found its way, through its adoption in Normandy, to the opposite corner of the country 'sur les terres de la domination Anglaise'.⁴ The form 'jurats' adopted by the Cinque Ports for the members of their governing body suggests, indeed, some connection with Gascony, to which region, as Thierry observed, it more especially belongs.⁵ I was much struck, when visiting Bayonne, with its interesting municipal history. Thierry alludes to its peculiar character;⁶ and, as the town had commercial relations with the Cinque Ports, and illustrates, moreover, the tendency of a commercial port to adopt, from other regions, a constitution peculiar to itself, I shall here give from its local customs the provisions as to house demolition.

Appended to John's charter granting a communa to Bayonne (April 19, 1215) we find a code of communal ordinances based partly on those in the Rouen and Falaise charters and partly on the customs of La Rochelle. In this code the penalty of destroying the offender's house was decreed for a magistrate who accepted bribes,⁷ for a citizen who shirked his military service,⁸ for a perjured man,⁹ for a thief.¹⁰

It again appears as the penalty for receiving bribes in the local Custumal assigned to 1273: 'La soe maison sera darrocade, et que jameis ed ni son her no hage juridiccion en le communi.' In the foundation-charter granted to Sanabria by Alphonso IX of Leon, in 1220, we find this penalty similarly assigned to perjury ('que la su casa sea derribada por esta razon'); but when the charter was altered by Alphonso X (September 1, 1258), the penalty was commuted for a pecuniary fine of sixty 'sueldos', on the ground that the destruction of the house was an injury to the city and to himself.¹¹ This is important as affording an instance of the actual introduction of commutation.

Now, my contention is that, as the practice of communal house demolition wandered down into Gascony, and thence actually crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, so—in the opposite direction—it crossed the channel and established itself in the Cinque Ports. As these movements become better understood, we are learning to treat them scientifically, and to trace them through their growth to their origin. In the case of the commune, the principle of filiation enables us to accomplish this with remarkable success.

But, it may be asked, is there any instance, on the other side of the channel, of house demolition being the penalty prescribed for refusal to accept office as Mayor or Jurat? It is, I reply, at Amiens the very penalty prescribed for that offence! The Custumal of Amiens contained these two clauses:

Et convient que chis qui pris est faiche le serment de le mairie; et se il ne veult faire, on abatera se maison, et demourra en le merchy du roy au jugement de esquevins.

Derekief se li maires qui eslus seroit refusoit le mairie et vausist souffrir le damage, jà pour che ne demouerroit qu'il ne fesist l'office; et se aucuns refusoit l'esquevinage, on abateroit sa maison et l'amenderoit au jugement de esquevins, et pour chou ne demoureroit mie que il ne fesist l'office de l'esquevinage.¹²