Part 1

THE COMMUNE OF LONDON

THE COMMUNE OF LONDON AND OTHER STUDIES

BY J. H. ROUND M.A.

AUTHOR OF ‘GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE’, ‘FEUDAL ENGLAND,’ ETC.

With a Prefatory Letter by Sir Walter Besant

WESTMINSTER ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS 1899

BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON.

Prefatory Letter

Dear Mr. Round,

I have to thank you for kindly letting me see the advance proofs of your new book. It is difficult for me to explain the very great advantage which the study of your books has been to me in my endeavour to get at the facts, especially those of the 12th century, connected with the history of London. For instance, I have found in your pages for the first time a working theory of the very difficult questions connected with the creation of the municipality. I have adopted your conclusions to the best of my ability with, I hope, an adequate expression of thanks to the source from which they are derived.

I would also point out the great service which you have rendered to the history of the City by giving, for the first time, the exact truth regarding the conveyance of the Portsoken to the Priory of the Holy Trinity, an event which has been hitherto totally misunderstood.

Thirdly, I must acknowledge that it is only from your pages, especially a certain appendix to ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville,’ that one can understand the ordinary position of the clergy of the City of London in the 12th century.

It is unnecessary for me to enumerate many other obligations which I owe to your pages.

I remain, dear Mr. Round, Very faithfully yours, WALTER BESANT.

OFFICE OF THE SURVEY OF LONDON, _July 6th, 1899_.

Contents

I

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SOUTH-SAXONS AND EAST-SAXONS 1

II

INGELRIC THE PRIEST AND ALBERT OF LOTHARINGIA 28

III

ANGLO-NORMAN WARFARE 39

IV

THE ORIGIN OF THE EXCHEQUER 62

V

LONDON UNDER STEPHEN 97

VI

THE INQUEST OF SHERIFFS (1170) 125

VII

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 137

VIII

THE POPE AND THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND 171

IX

THE CORONATION OF RICHARD I 201

X

THE STRUGGLE OF JOHN AND LONGCHAMP (1191) 207

XI

THE COMMUNE OF LONDON 219

XII

THE GREAT INQUEST OF SERVICE (1212) 261

XIII

CASTLE-WARD AND CORNAGE 278

XIV

BANNOCKBURN 289

XV

THE MARSHALSHIP OF ENGLAND 302

Preface

The paper which gives its title to this volume of unpublished studies deals with a subject of great interest, the origin of the City Corporation. In my previous work, ‘Geoffrey de Mandeville’ (1892), and especially in the Appendix it contains on ‘The early administration of London,’ I endeavoured to advance our knowledge of the government and the liberties of the City in the 12th century. In the present volume the paper entitled “London under Stephen” pursues the enquiry further. I have there argued that the “English Cnihtengild” was not the governing body, and have shown that it did not, as is alleged, embrace a religious life by entering Holy Trinity Priory _en masse_. The great office of “Justiciar of London,” created, as I previously held, by the charter of Henry I., is now proved, in this paper, to have been held by successive citizens in the days of Stephen.

The communal movement, which, even under Stephen, seems to have influenced the City, attained its triumph under Richard I.; and the most important discovery, perhaps, in these pages is that of the oath sworn to the Commune of London. From it we learn that the governing body consisted at the time of a Mayor and “Échevins,” as in a continental city, and that the older officers, the Aldermen of the Wards, had not been amalgamated, as has been supposed, with the new and foreign system. The latter, I have urged, is now represented by the Mayor and Common Council. That this communal organization was almost certainly derived from Normandy, and probably from Rouen, will, I think, be generally admitted in the light of the evidence here adduced. This conclusion has led me to discuss the date of the “Établissements de Rouen,” a problem that has received much attention from that eminent scholar, M. Giry. I have also dwelt on the financial side of London’s communal revolution, and shown that it involved the sharp reduction of the ‘firma’ paid by the City to the Crown, the amount of which was a grievance with the citizens and a standing subject of dispute.

The strand connecting the other studies contained in this volume is the critical treatment of historical evidence, especially of records and kindred documents. It is possible that some of the discoveries resulting from this treatment may not only illustrate the importance of absolute exactitude in statement, but may also encourage that searching and independent study of ‘sources’ which affords so valuable an historical training, and is at times the means of obtaining light on hitherto perplexing problems.

The opening paper (originally read before the Society of Antiquaries) is a plea for the more scientific study of the great field for exploration presented by our English place-names. Certain current beliefs on the settlement of the English invaders are based, it is here urged, on nothing but the rash conclusions of Kemble, writing, as he did, under the influence of a now abandoned theory. In the paper which follows, the value of charters, for the Norman period, is illustrated, some points of ‘diplomatic’ investigated, and the danger of inexactitude revealed.

Finance, the key to much of our early institutional history, is dealt with in a paper on “The origin of the Exchequer,” a problem of long standing. On the one hand, allowance is here made for the personal equation of the author of the famous ‘Dialogus de Scaccario,’ and some of his statements critically examined, with the result of showing that he exaggerates the changes introduced under Henry I., by the founder of his own house, and that certain alleged innovations were, in truth, older than the Conquest. On the other, it is shown that his treatise does, when carefully studied, reveal the existence of a Treasury audit, which has hitherto escaped notice. Further, the office of Chamberlain of the Exchequer is traced back as a feudal serjeanty to the days of the Conqueror himself, and its connection with the tenure of Porchester Castle established, probably, for the first time. The geographical position of Porchester should, in this connection, be observed.

In two papers I deal with Ireland and its Anglo-Norman conquest. The principal object in the first of these is to show the true character of that alleged golden age which the coming of the invaders destroyed. It is possible, however, of course, that a “vast human shambles” may be, in the eyes of some, an ideal condition for a country. Mr. Dillon, at least, has consistently described the Soudan, before our conquest, as “a comparatively peaceful country.”[1] In the second of these papers I advance a new solution of the problem raised by the alleged grant of Ireland, by the Pope, to Henry II. As to this fiercely contested point, I suggest that, on the English side, there was a conspiracy to base the title of our kings to Ireland on a Papal donation of the sovereignty of the island, itself avowedly based on the (forged) “donation of Constantine.” No such act of the Popes can, in my opinion, be proved. Even the “Bull Laudabiliter,” which, in the form we have it, is of no authority, does not go so far as this, while its confirmation by Alexander III. is nothing but a clumsy forgery. The only document sent to Ireland, to support his rights, by Henry II. was, I here contend, the letter of Alexander III. (20th September, 1172), approving of what had been done. That he sent there the alleged bull of Adrian, and that he did so in 1175, are both, I urge, although accepted, facts without foundation.[2]

The method adopted in this paper of testing the date hitherto adopted, and disproving it by the sequence of events, is one which I have also employed in “The Struggle of John and Longchamp (1191).” The interest of this latter paper consists in its bearing on the whole question of historic probability, and on the problem of harmonising narratives by four different witnesses, as discussed by Dr. Abbott in his work on St. Thomas of Canterbury. This is, perhaps, the only instance in which I have found the historic judgment and the marvellous insight of the Bishop of Oxford, if I may venture to say so, at fault; and it illustrates the importance of minute attention to the actual dates of events.

Another point that I have tried to illustrate is the tendency to erect a theory on a single initial error. In “The Marshalship of England” I have shown that the belief in the existence of two distinct Marshalseas converging on a single house rests only on a careless slip in a coronation claim (1377). A marginal note scribbled by Carew, under a misapprehension, in the days of Elizabeth, is shown (p. 149) to be the source of Professor Brewer’s theory on certain Irish MSS. Again, the accepted story of the Cnihtengild rests only on a misunderstanding of a mediæval phrase (p. 104). Stranger still, the careless reading of a marginal note found in the works of Matthew Paris has led astray the learned editors of several volumes in the Rolls Series, and has even been made, as I have shown in “the Coronation of Richard I.,” the basis of a theory that a record of that event formerly existed, though now wanting, in the Red Book of the Exchequer.

* * * * *

The increasing interest in our public records--due in part to the greater use of record evidence in historical research, and in part, also, to the energy with which, under the present Deputy-Keeper of the Records, their contents are being made available--leads me to speak of the contributions, in these pages, to their study.

A suggestion will be found (p. 88) as to the origin of the valuable “Cartæ Antiquæ,” of which the text too often is corrupt, but which, it may be hoped, will soon be published, as they are at present difficult to consult. In the paper on “The Inquest of Sheriffs” I have proved beyond question the identity of the lost returns discovered at the Public Record Office, and so lamentably misunderstood by their official editor. But the most important, and indeed revolutionary, theory I have here ventured to advance deals with what are known as the Red Book Inquisitions of 12 and 13 John. It is my contention that this Inquest, the existence of which has not been doubted,[3] though it rests only on the heading in the Red Book of the Exchequer, never took place at all, and that these ‘Inquisitions’ are merely abstracts, made for a special purpose, from the original returns to that great Inquest of service (as I here term it) which took place in June, 1212 (14 John). It is singular that this conclusion is precisely parallel with that which experts have now adopted on another great Inquest. “Kirkby’s Quest,” it is now admitted, having been similarly misdated in an official transcript, and again, in our own time, by an officer of the Public Record Office, was similarly shown by a private individual to consist, as a rule, “of abridgments only of original inquisitions” ... “extracts from the original inquisitions made for a special purpose.”[4] Thus, under John, as under Edward I., “the enquiry itself was a much wider one” than would be inferred from the Red Book Inquisitions and “Kirkby’s Quest” respectively. And, in both cases, its date was different from that which has been hitherto assigned.

I cannot doubt that the theory I advance will be accepted, in course of time, by the authorities of the Public Record Office. In the meanwhile, I have endeavoured to identify all the material in the ‘Testa de Nevill’ derived from the returns to this Inquest, and thus to make it available for students of local and family history.

It is needful that I should say something on the Red Book of the Exchequer. One of the most famous volumes among our public records, it has lately been edited for the Rolls Series by Mr. Hubert Hall, F.S.A., of the Public Record Office.[5] The inclusion of a work in the Rolls Series thrusts it, of necessity, upon every student of English mediæval history. It also involves an official _cachet_, which gives it an authority, as a work of reference, that the public, naturally, does not assign to the book of a private individual. That a certain percentage of mistakes must occur in works of this kind is, perhaps, to be expected; but when they are made the vehicle of confused and wild guesswork, and become the means of imparting wanton heresy and error, it is the duty of a scholar who can prove the fact to warn the student against their contents.[6] It is only, the reader must remember, a stern sense of duty that is likely to compel one to turn aside from one’s own historical researches and devote one’s time and toil to exposing the misleading theories set forth in an official publication issued at the national expense. A weary and a thankless task it is; but in Mr. Eyton’s admirable words: “the dispersion of error is the first step in the discovery of truth.”

In my ‘Studies on the Red Book of the Exchequer,’ issued last year for private circulation only, and in two special articles,[7] I have partially criticised Mr. Hall’s work and the misleading theories it contains. Of these criticisms it need only be said that the ‘English Historical Review,’ in a weighty editorial notice, observes that “The charges are very sweeping, but in my opinion they are made out.... I am bound to say that, in my opinion, Mr. Round has proved his case.”[8] The further exposures of this official work, contained in these pages[9]--especially in the paper on “the Inquest of Sheriffs,” which illustrates its wanton heresies--justify my demand that the authorities should withdraw it, till revised, from circulation.

The paper on “Castle-ward and Cornage” not only proves that the two were distinct, and gives the real explanation of their juxtaposition in the ‘Red Book,’ but contains novel information, to which I would invite attention, on the constableship of Dover Castle. The early history of this important office has been altogether erroneous.

Lastly, I must speak, very briefly, of the criticism to which my work has been exposed, although I do so with much reluctance. Honest criticism one welcomes: difference of opinion one respects. But for that uncandid criticism which endeavours to escape from facts, and which is animated only by the wish to obscure the light, no excuse is possible. The paper on “Anglo-Norman Warfare” will illustrate the tactics to which I refer; and the weight to be attached to Mr. Oman’s views may be gathered from that on “Bannockburn.” But, apart from the necessity of these exposures in the cause of historical truth, the papers which contain them will, I trust, be found of some service in their bearing on the tactics and poliorcetics of mediæval England, and on the introduction, in this country, of tenure by knight service. It is the object also of the “Bannockburn” paper to illustrate the grossly-exaggerated figures of mediæval chroniclers, a point which, even now, is insufficiently realized. Here, and elsewhere, it has been my aim to insist upon the value of records as testing and checking our chronicles, placing, as they do, the facts of history on a relatively sure foundation.

I

The Settlement of the South-and East-Saxons

I would venture, at the outset, to describe this as a “pioneer” paper. It neither professes to determine questions nor attempts to exhaust a subject of singular complexity and obscurity. It is only an attempt to approach the problem on independent lines, and to indicate the path by which it may be possible to extend our knowledge in a department of research of which the importance and the interest are universally recognised.

It is the fine saying of a brilliant scholar, I mean Professor Maitland, that “the most wonderful of all palimpsests is the map of England, could we but decipher it.”[10] But the study of place-names has this in common with the study of Domesday Book. The local worker, the man who writes the history of his own parish, is as ready to explain the name it bears as he is to interpret the Domesday _formulæ_ relating to it in the Great Survey, without possessing in either case that knowledge of the subject as a whole which is required for its treatment in detail. On the other hand, the general student, from the very wideness of his field, is deprived of the advantage conferred by the knowledge of a district in its details. In the hope of steering a middle course between these two dangers, I have specially selected two counties, both of them settled by the Saxon folk--Sussex, with which I am connected by birth; and Essex, with which are my chief associations. And further, within these two counties I restrict myself to certain classes of names, in order to confine the field of enquiry to well-defined limits.

The names with which I propose to deal are those which imply human habitation. And here at once I part company with those, like Kemble and other writers, who appear to think it a matter of indifference, so long as a name is formed from what they term a patronymic, whether it ends in-ham or-ton, or in such suffixes as-hurst,-field,-den, or-ford. To them all such names connote village communities; to me they certainly do not. If we glance at the map of Domesday Sussex,[11] we see the northern half of the county practically still “backwoods” eight centuries ago.[12] If we then turn to the Domesday map prefixed to Manning and Bray’s Surrey, we find the southern half of that county similarly devoid of place-names. In short, the famous Andredswald was still, at the time of the Conquest, a belt, some twenty miles in width, of forest, not yet opened up, except in a few scattered spots, for human settlement. The place-names of this district have, even at the present day, a quite distinctive character. The _hams_ and _tons_ of the districts lying to the north and the south of it are here replaced by such suffixes as _-hurst_, _-wood_, _-ley_, and _-field_, and on the Kentish border by _-den_. We may then, judging from this example, treat such suffixes as evidence that the districts where they occur were settled at a much later time than those of the _hams_ and _tons_, and under very different conditions. The suffix _-sted_, so common in Essex, is comparatively rare in Sussex, and we cannot, therefore, classify it with the same degree of certainty.

Taking, therefore, for our special sphere, the _hams_, the _tons_, and the famous _ings_, let us see if they occur in such a way as to suggest some definite conclusions. The three principles I would keep in view are: (1) the study, within the limits of a county, of that distribution of names which, hitherto, has been studied for the country as a whole; (2) a point to which I attach the very greatest importance, namely, the collection, so far as possible, of _all_ the names belonging to this class, instead of considering only those which happen to be now represented by villages or parishes; (3) the critical treatment of the evidence, by sifting and correcting it in its present form. The adoption of these two latter principles will gravely modify the conclusions at which some have arrived.

There is, as Mr. Seebohm’s work has shown, nothing so effective as a special map for impressing on the mind the distribution of names. Such a map is an argument in itself. But although I have constructed for my own use special maps of Sussex and Essex, they cannot here be reproduced.

I now proceed to apply the first principle of which I spoke, that of examining a single county in the same way as others have examined the maps of England as a whole. I doubt if any county would prove more instructive for the purpose than that of Sussex, of which the settlement was developed in isolation and determined by well-defined geographical conditions. Whatever may be said of other suffixes, Mr. Seebohm has shown us that, even allowing for a large margin of unavoidable error, the terminations _-ing_ and _-ham_ are not distributed at random, but are specially distinctive of that portion of England which was settled by the earliest immigrants and settled the most completely. As a broad, general conclusion, this is virtually established. Now, if we turn to the map of Sussex and ask if this general principle can also be traced in detail, the first point to strike us, I think, is the close connection existing between the _hams_ and the rivers. The people, one might say, who settled the _hams_ were a people who came in boats. Although at first sight the _hams_ may seem to penetrate far inland, we shall find that where they are not actually on the coast, they almost invariably follow the rivers, and follow them as far up as possible; and this is specially the case with the Arun and its tributary the Western Rother. Careful examination reveals the fact that, while to the south, round Chichester Harbour and Selsea Bill, we find several _hams_, and find them again to the north in the valley of the western Rother, there are none to be found in the space between, which shows that the men who settled them found their way round by the Arun and not overland. I need hardly observe that the rivers of those days were far larger than the modern streams, and their water level higher.

It is anticipating somewhat to point out that the same examination shows us a large group of _tons_ covering this district away from the river, where we find no _hams_. Evidently these suffixes do not occur at random.