Part 18

Comes Albemarlie j militem et Comes Albemarlie tenet dimidium in Severnestoke, pro Savernestokede dono regis Ricardi qua et Kenemertone et Botintone per servicium j militis et in Gloucestresyra Rex acquietat dimidii pro qua et pro Kenemerton abbatem Westmonasterii de iij et Botinton in Glouc[estresyra] militibus (‘Liber Rubeus,’ p. dominus Rex acquietat abbatem 567). Westmonasterii de iij militibus (‘Testa de Nevill,’ p. 43).

It will be obvious, from the verbal concordances, that instead of representing, as Mr. Hall holds, two “independent” returns made in different years these texts are derived from one and the same return. But instead of being, as in the case of Middlesex, arranged in the same order, they are here found, in the respective texts, arranged in very different order. The explanation of this is that the ‘Testa’ records the Inquest by Hundreds, while the ‘Red Book’ groups the fees under the barons’ names and the sergeanties apart at the end. This is particularly interesting from the parallel of Domesday Book, where the Inquest, of which the original returns were drawn up hundred by hundred, was rearranged in Domesday Book in similar fashion. I was led to suspect that this great Inquest was, generally at least, drawn up by Hundreds, from Mr. Hall’s remark that

There is a marginal note in the Red Book returns for Wilts, now partially illegible, but (_sic_) which clearly records the loss of the Inquisition of several of the Hundreds of that county, while a precisely similar note is entered on the dorse of one of the original returns for Norfolk in the _Testa_ (p. ccxxiv.).[533]

The view I advance at once explains and is confirmed by the remarkable allusion to this Inquest in the ‘Annals of Waverley’:

(1212) Idem (rex) scripsit vicecomitibus ut _per singulos hundredos_ facerent homines jurare quæ terræ essent de dominico prædecessorum suorum regum antiquitus, et qualiter a manibus regum exierint, et qui eas modo tenent et pro quibus servitiis.

There can, in my opinion, be no question whatever that this refers to the writ ordering the great Inquest of service in 1212. This is printed in the ‘Testa’ (p. 54), and as an appendix to the ‘Red Book’ (p. cclxxxv.). It is too lengthy to be quoted entire, but in it are found these words:

De tenementis omnibus quæ antiquitus de nobis aut de progenitoribus nostris regibus Angliæ teneri solent, quæ sint data vel alienata ... et nomina illorum qui ea teneant et per quod servitium.

The only difference is that the writ leaves the method of inquest to the sheriff’s discretion (“sicut melius inquiri poterit”) while the chronicler says it was to be made Hundred by Hundred, which, as we have seen, was probably the method adopted.

In the ‘Testa’ the writ is not dated, but the copy printed by Mr. Hall is dated June 1 (1212) at Westminster. This seems but short notice for a return due on June 25, but it is remarkable that the ‘Annals of Waverley’ mention it in conjunction with a writ dated June 7, which certainly favours the statement. This latter writ directs an enquiry as to the ecclesiastical benefices held under gift of the prelates lately exiled from the realm.[534] It is remarkable that the Worcester returns to the great Inquest of service in 1212 are followed by a return made to such an enquiry:

Inquisicio ecclesiarum. Maugerius episcopus dedit ecclesiam de Rippel’ Willelmo de Bosco clerico suo et vicariam ejusdem ecclesie dedit Ricardo de Sancto Paterno clerico suo. Qui Ricardus reddit predicto Willelmo x marcas de pensione. Ecclesia autem integra valet per annum L marcas.

Idem episcopus dedit ecclesiam de Hambur’ juxta Wych magistro Ricardo de Cirencestra, que valet per annum x marcas (‘Testa,’ p. 44).

Bishop Mauger died in the very month of the Inquest (June, 1212). The Notts and Derbyshire returns (p. 18) include two similar entries relating to the archbishop of York, and those for Somerset and Dorset contain two at least relating to the bishop of Bath (pp. 161 _b_, 162 _a_). The Sussex and Surrey returns similarly contain two entries (p. 226 _a_) relating to Surrey churches to which the archbishop of Canterbury had presented. In this last case the annual value of the livings is deposed to, it should be noted, by six men of each parish.[535]

Having now dealt with Middlesex and Worcestershire, I pass to Lancashire, another county cited by Mr. Hall for comparison. The magnificent return for this county in 1212[536] is noteworthy for several reasons. In the first place, it is headed:

Hec est inquisicio facta per sacramentum fidelium militum de tenementis datis et alienatis infra Limam in comitatu Lancastrie, scilicet per Rogerum Gerneth, etc., etc.

This is a good illustration of the principle of “sworn inquest.” In the second, it leads off with the entry: “Gilbertus filius Reinfri tenet feodum unius militis.” Although this was a well-known man, _jure uxoris_ a local magnate, the ‘Red Book’ text leads off with the gross corruption: “Gilfridus filius Rumfrai i militem” (568). Mr. Hall, in his index (p. 1183), identifies him with the “Galfridus filius Reinfrei” of another ‘Red Book’ return (p. 599)--where the ‘Testa’ has, rightly, “Gilbertus”--and fails to recognise in him the above Gilbert. This is a striking comment on his views expressed at the outset as to the inferiority of the ‘Testa’ text. So also is the fact that the ‘Red Book’ reads “Thomas de Elgburgo” at the foot of the same page, where the ‘Testa’ has “Thomas de Goldebur[go]” (p. 406), the correctness of the latter reading being proved by the “Thomas de Goldeburgo” of the ‘Red Book’ itself (p. 69) in its extract from the Pipe Roll of 1187. Yet the editor ignores the ‘Testa’ form, and gives ‘Elgburgo’ in the Index.[537]

A third point is that the ‘Red Book’ compresses here into a skeleton nearly thirteen columns of the closely printed ‘Testa de Nevill.’ The text of the latter is of value not only for its wealth of information and its witness to the detailed and far-reaching character of this Inquest, but for such expressions as “pro herede Theobaldi Walteri qui est in custodia sua” (_i.e._ regis). Theobald had died more than five years before the Inquest was made; and yet in the ‘Red Book’ text he appears as the living tenant.

This instance is of some importance in its bearing on apparent contrasts in the ‘Testa’ and ‘Red Book’ versions. For Mr. Hall, believing them to represent two successive returns, observes that

In the Inquisitions ... of the years 1210–11 entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, Walter Tosard is returned as holding his land in Banningham.... In the original return, dated 1212, from which the earliest list of Feudal services in _Testa de Nevill_ was compiled, we find that Walter Tosard _held_ this serjeanty, and that Avicia Tosard still holds it (p. ccxxviii.).

The apparent discrepancy of the two returns is explained, exactly as in the case of Theobald Walter, by the fact that the full return mentioned Walter Tosard as dead, while the brief and inaccurate abstract of it, in the Red Book of the Exchequer, gives his name as if he were alive.

Passing over the elaborate entry for Bradwell, Essex,[538] the two versions of which, it will be found, are clearly derived from the same original, I pass, in conclusion, to the return for Northumberland (‘Testa,’ 392–3). Although not among the counties cited above by Mr. Hall, its return to the “Inquisicio facta de tenementis, etc., que sunt data vel alienata,” etc.,[539] is specially full and valuable for comparison. Its text appears to reproduce the original _in extenso_. Now any one comparing this return with the meagre list in the ‘Liber Rubeus’ (pp. 562–4) will perceive at once that the latter is derived from the same original. The names occur in identical order. The only discrepancy is that the ‘Red Book’ shows us “Sewale filius Henrici” in possession of land (Matfen and Nafferton)--held by the interesting serjeanty of being coroner--while the ‘Testa’ reads “Philippus de Ulkotes tenet terram que fuit Sewall’ filii Henrici.” It might be urged, as is done by Mr. Hall in the case of the serjeanties and the Boulogne Inquest (pp. ccxxviii., 575), that this proves the ‘Testa’ return to be the later of the two. But here, again, the real explanation is that--as in the case of Lancashire, where Theobald Walter’s name, we saw, is given in the ‘Red Book’ when he was dead--the appearance of Sewal is merely due to the carelessness, in the ‘Red Book,’ of the scribe. This, indeed, is evident from his similar appearance in a list which is, according to Mr. Hall, later than either.[540] How essential it is to collate these parallel lists is shown by the very first entry, relating to the interesting tenure of earl Patrick (of Dunbar). According to the ‘Testa’ (the right reading) he held “iij villas in theynagio.” The ‘Red Book’ makes him hold “iii milites (!) in theynagio,” a reading which its editor accepts without question. Another no less striking correction is afforded by the ‘Testa,’ in its entry relating to the porter of Bamborough Castle and his tenure: “Robertus Janitor de Bamburg’ tenet.” In Mr. Hall’s text we find him as “Robertus, junior” (!), and, as such, the unfortunate man is indexed, although he appears elsewhere, both in the ‘Red Book’ and the ‘Testa,’ as “Robertus Portarius.”[541] From these instances it will be evident that though (in the printed text at least) the ‘Testa’ is not perfect, the ‘Red Book’ list, for Northumberland, is, when compared with it, worthless.

Indeed, the marvellously elaborate returns for Somerset and Dorset, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, etc., printed in the ‘Testa de Nevill,’ with which the meagre lists in the ‘Liber Rubeus’ cannot be compared for an instant, make one read with absolute amazement Mr. Hall’s statement, when comparing the two, that

one or the other is in its present form lamentably incomplete. This deficiency chiefly exists on the side of the _Testa_, for it will be evident at once that the isolated and fragmentary membranes which formed the sole surviving contents of Nevill’s _Testa_ in the reign of Edward I. cannot be satisfactorily compared with the relatively complete returns preserved in the Red Book (p. ccxxiv.).

It is evident that the editor has no conception how many and how long are the returns in the ‘Testa’ relating to this great Inquest.[542] This may be due to his conception that they are there headed “De Testa de Nevill” (p. ccxxv.), an idea which he repeated in a lengthy communication to the ‘Athenæum’ (10th Sept., 1898) on the “Testa de Nevill.” Mr. Hall wrote:

The really important point about the whole matter is one which seems to have been entirely overlooked, namely that not only does the title ‘Testa de Nevill’ refer to certain antique lists alone, which, indeed, form but a small percentage of the whole register, but that the greater part of the lists thus headed appear to have been made at a certain date in the fourteenth year of John.... ‘_De_ Testa de Nevill’ is the invariable heading of these lists (p. 354).

The very point of the matter is that, on the contrary, the greater portion of these lists have no such heading, but are hidden away among later returns, from which they can only be disentangled by careful and patient labour.[543] The result of my researches is that I believe the printed ‘Testa’ to contain no fewer than a hundred columns (amounting to nearly an eighth of its contents) representing returns to this Inquest. At the close of this paper I append a list of these columns, of which only thirty-eight are headed (or included in the portion headed) “De testa de Nevill.”

To resume. For the great Inquest of 1212 (14 John) we have (1) mention in a chronicle, (2) the writ directing it to be made, (3) the record of a sworn verdict of jurors who made it. For the alleged Inquests of 1210–12 (12 and 13 John) we have nothing at all.[544] We have, further, the fact that, when collated, the returns said to belong to these “independent” Inquests are found to be clearly derived from a single original. In spite, therefore, of the ‘Red Book’ and its editor, it may safely be asserted that there was but one Inquest, that of the 14th year, the returns to which were handed in on 25th June (1212).

Thus “the remarkable circumstance,” as Mr. Hall terms it (p. ccxxiii.), that the ‘Testa’ compilers know nothing of “the original returns of the 12th and 13th years,” while, “on the other hand, the scribe of the ‘Red Book’ had not access to the returns of the 14th year,” is at once accounted for: they both used the same returns, those of 1212.[545]

As my criticism has, at times, been deemed merely destructive, I may point out that, here at least, it has established the facts about an Inquest worthy to be named, in future, by historians in conjunction with those of 1086 and 1166, while the rough list I shall append of its returns, as printed in the ‘Testa,’ will, one may hope, enable its evidence to be more generally used than it has been hitherto. The unfortunate description of the ‘Testa,’ on its title-page, as “_temp._ Henry III. and Edward I.,” has greatly obscured its character and misled the ordinary searcher.

Historically speaking, this Inquest may be viewed from two standpoints. Politically, it illustrates John’s exactions by its effort to revive rights of the Crown alleged to have lapsed.[546] Institutionally, it is of great interest, not only as an instance of “the sworn inquest” employed on a vast scale, but also for its contrast to the inquest of knights in 1166, and its points of resemblance to the Domesday inquest of 1086. Of far wider compass than the former--for it dealt in detail with the towns[547]--it was carried out on a totally different principle. Instead of each tenant-in-chief making his own return of his fees and sending it in separately, the sheriff conducted the enquiry, Hundred by Hundred, for the county; and out of these returns the feudal lists had to be subsequently constructed by the officials. Lincolnshire is not among the counties named by Mr. Hall for comparison, but it shows us well how the inquest was made Wapentake by Wapentake, and then the list of fees within the county extracted from the returns and grouped under Honours. This, I believe, is what was done in Middlesex also.[548] It is noteworthy that in the case of Middlesex the returns of 1212 were made the basis for collecting the aid “for the marriage of the king’s sister,”[549] in 1235, the same personal names occurring in both lists. If, as this implies, they formed a definitive assessment, we obtain a striking explanation of the fact that 1212, as Mr. Hall observes, seems to mark a terminal break in Swereford’s work (pp. lxii.-iii.). Personally, however, I am not sure that “the Scutages,” as Mr. Hall asserts, “concluded abruptly” in 1212. My reckoning being different from his, I make the last scutage dealt with by Swereford to be that which is recorded on John’s 13th year roll, that is, the roll of Michaelmas, 1211.

The following list represents an attempt to identify the returns to this great Inquest in the ‘Testa,’ and to give the relative abstracts in the ‘Liber Rubeus.’ Out of 39 English counties (then recognised), the ‘Testa’ seems to have returns or fragments for 25, and the ‘Liber Rubeus’ abstracts for 31.

NOTTS AND DERBYSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 17_b_-19_a_. Liber Rubeus, p. 565.

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.

Testa, p. 36. Liber Rubeus, p. 532.

WORCESTERSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 43–4. Liber Rubeus, p. 566.

SALOP AND STAFFORDSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 54–6. Liber Rubeus,[550] p. 509.

HEREFORDSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 69_b_-70_b_. Liber Rubeus, p. 495.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 77_a_.

OXFORDSHIRE AND BERKSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 115,[551] 128_a_-129_a_,[552] 129_a_-131_b_,[553] 133_b_-134_b_.[554]

SOMERSET AND DORSET.

Testa, pp. 160_b_-166_a_. Liber Rubeus, p. 544.

DEVON.

Testa, pp. 194–195.

SURREY.

Testa, pp. 224_b_-226_a_. Liber Rubeus, p. 560.

SUSSEX.

Testa, pp. 226_b_[555]-227_b_. Liber Rubeus, p. 553.

HANTS.

Testa, pp. 236_a_,[556] 239_b_.[557]

ESSEX AND HERTS.

Testa, pp. 269_b_[558]-271_a_.[559] Liber Rubeus, p. 498.

NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK.

Testa, pp. 293_a_-296_a_. Liber Rubeus, p. 475.

LINCOLNSHIRE.

Testa, pp. 334_b_[560]-348_a_.[561] Liber Rubeus, p. 514.

MIDDLESEX.

Testa, p. 361. Liber Rubeus, p. 541.

CUMBERLAND.

Testa, pp. 379_a_[562]-380_a_. Liber Rubeus, p. 493.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

Testa, pp. 392_a_-393_b_.[563] Liber Rubeus, pp. 562–4.

LANCASHIRE.

Testa, p. 401_b_-408_a_. Cf. Liber Rubeus, p. 568.

The above list can only be tentative, and does not profess to be exhaustive. It is believed, however, that genealogists and topographers will find it of considerable assistance.

XIII

Castle-ward and Cornage

I propose to deal in this chapter with two subjects which are wholly distinct, but which it has now been proposed, by a singular confusion, to connect. Speaking of certain miscellaneous returns in the ‘Red Book of the Exchequer,’ Mr. Hall writes:

The first group in importance comprises the so-called Castle-guard Rents,’ lists of military services in connection with the Constableship of Dover Castle ... the Constableship of Windsor Castle, the Wardship of Bamburgh Castle, and the Cornage Rents of Northumberland (p. ccxxxvi.).

The corrupt but curious list of the Dover “wards” and their fees is printed virtually in duplicate on pages 613, 717, though dated by the editor in the former instance ‘1211–12’ throughout, and in the latter, ‘1261–2,’ and even ‘_Temp._ Edw. I.’ (pp. 721–2). The first of these, from internal evidence, is probably the right date; the remaining list (pp. 706 _et seq._), though headed in the MS. 46 Hen. III., is merely this old list rearranged, with a money payment substituted for the military service. I mention this because, as printed, these lists are most misleading to any one unacquainted with their real date.

The ‘Constable’s Honour,’ for which, alone, we have six or seven slightly varying returns, is one of the most interesting in the whole Book, and leads me to say something on this important subject, on which a wholly erroneous belief has hitherto prevailed.

The first point to which I desire to direct attention is that the nine wards (_custodiæ_), named in the ‘Red Book’ lists--The Constable’s, ‘Abrincis,’ Foubert de Dover,[564] Arsic, Peverel, Maminot, Port, Crevequer, and Adam Fitz William[565]--are all reproduced in the names still attached to towers, including even Fulbert’s Christian name. This coincidence of testimony leads one to believe that these names must have become fixed at a very early period, and to enquire what that period was. Looking at the history of the families named, it seems probable that this period was not later, at least, than the reign of Henry II.

But it is in the Constable’s “Ward” that the interest centres. For the time-honoured belief, preserved by Lyon, and reproduced by Mr. Clark, is that “three barons of the house of Fiennes held the office under the Conqueror, Rufus, and Henry I.” After stating that these barons “held the office of constable” under Henry II., Mr. Clark informs us that “of these lords, the last, James Fiennes, was constable at the accession of Richard I., and in 1191 received, as a prisoner in the castle, Geoffrey, Henry II.’s natural son.”[566] Professor Burrows repeats, though guardedly, the old story:

William (I.) is now said to have conferred the guardianship of the coast, as an hereditary fief on a certain John de Fiennes, whose name, however, does not appear in any contemporary record. John was to do service for his lands as Constable of the Castle and Warden of the Ports.... The office of Constable and Warden ceased to be hereditary in the reign of Richard I.[567]

Mr. Hall has now revived the old legend in full:

In the valuable register formerly belonging to the Priory of Merton ... a similar but shorter list is found, with an interesting description of these services, which will be presently referred to (p. ccxxxvii.).

The constitutional significance of the tenure itself has not been perfectly realised. The Merton Register mentioned above informs us, under the heading “De Wardis Castri Dovorræ,” that the Conqueror granted the constableship of the castle there to the Lord of Fienes, with the service of fifty-six knights, who kept guard each month in turn, some four or five at once. Besides these, other knights were assigned to that constableship, for so many weeks in the year, by the neighbouring Lords of Chilham and Folkestone, and other barons mentioned in the later returns. Thus the Castle-ward was performed down to the reign of John, when it was thought advisable that such an important fortress should be committed to the keeping of a royal constable and a permanent garrison....

Hubert de Burgh was appointed constable during pleasure, and the office has continued to the present day in the patronage of the Crown (p. ccxxxviii.).

[NOTE.] William de Fesnes, the last baronial Constable, appears to have received the honour of Wendover by way of compensation (‘Testa,’ ii. 158).

Now, how much truth is there in this story? Fifty-six knights, we see, are assigned to John de Fiennes, as first Constable, and fifty-six knights’ fees (plus or minus 1/10 fee) are assigned in the ‘Liber Rubeus’ to the “Warda Constabularii.” But the history of these fees, the “Honor Constabularii,” can be traced with absolute certainty. They are those which had last been held by Henry de Essex, “the Constable,” whose tragic fate is familiar, which had been previously held by Robert de Ver “the Constable,” in right of his wife, a Montfort, and the possession of which can be traced back by Domesday to no other than Hugh de Montfort.[568] We learn then that “the Honour of the Constable” (which we should not otherwise have known) was connected with the custody of Dover Castle, the “clavis et repagulum Angliæ”; and we learn more. For when we turn to the story of the attack on Dover Castle in 1067, we find Hugh de Montfort “the immediate commander of the castle”;[569] and are thus able to trace the “Warda Constabularii” back to the Conquest itself.

Thus the legend of John de Fiennes and his heirs, constables of the castle, together with its “constitutional significance,” is blown, as it were, into space, and should never, henceforth, be heard.

The “Honour of the Constable” passed to the Crown on the forfeiture of Henry of Essex (1163); and as for the alleged action of “James Fienes” as constable in 1191, it is well known that the constable at the time was a brother-in-law of Longchamp, the king’s representative. I have suggested in a paper on “Faramus of Boulogne”[570] a possible origin for the Fiennes story in the castle being held by Faramus at the close of Stephen’s reign, a fact which may account for the late tradition about “quodam comite Boloniæ qui erat ejusdem Castri Constabularius.”[571] For the Fienes family were his heirs, through his daughter; and it was through him, and not on the ground suggested by Mr. Hall, that they obtained Wendover. To Faramus himself, however, it may have been given in compensation.

* * * * *

Thus far I have been dealing with a question of castle-ward. I now pass to the ‘cornage rents’ and to the new theory of their origin. This theory is one of the features of Mr. Hall’s Introduction, in which he devotes to it ten pages; and it follows immediately on his remarks upon “the constableship of Dover.”