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Title: The Normans in England - 1066-1154
Author: Bland, A. E.
Language: English
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BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS
_General Editors_: S. E. WINBOLT, M.A., and KENNETH BELL, M.A.
THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND
BELL’S ENGLISH HISTORY SOURCE BOOKS.
_Volumes now Ready, 1s. net each._
=449-1066.= =The Welding of the Race.= Edited by the Rev. JOHN
WALLIS, M.A.
=1066-1154.= =The Normans in England.= Edited by A. E. BLAND, B.A.
=1154-1216.= =The Angevins and the Charter.= Edited by S. M. TOYNE,
M.A.
=1216-1307.= =The Growth of Parliament, and the War with Scotland.=
Edited by W. D. ROBIESON, M.A.
=1307-1399.= =War and Misrule.= Edited by A. A. LOCKE.
=1399-1485.= =York and Lancaster.= Edited by W. GARMON JONES, M.A.
=1485-1547.= =The Reformation and the Renaissance.= Edited by F. W.
BEWSHER, B.A.
=1547-1603.= =The Age of Elizabeth.= Edited by ARUNDELL ESDAILE, M.A.
=1603-1660.= =Puritanism and Liberty.= Edited by KENNETH BELL, M.A.
=1660-1714.= =A Constitution in Making.= Edited by G. B. PERRETT, M.A.
=1714-1760.= =Walpole and Chatham.= Edited by K. A. ESDAILE.
=1760-1801.= =American Independence and the French Revolution.=
Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.
=1801-1815.= =England and Napoleon.= Edited by S. E. WINBOLT, M.A.
=1815-1837.= =Peace and Reform.= Edited by A. C. W. EDWARDS, M.A.,
Christ’s Hospital.
=1837-1856.= =Commercial Politics.= By R. H. GRETTON.
=1856-1876.= =Palmerston to Disraeli.= Edited by EWING HARDING, B.A.
=1876-1887.= =Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone.= Edited by R. H.
GRETTON, M.A.
* * * * *
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University.
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THOMSON, M.A.
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M.A.
LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND
(1066-1154)
COMPILED BY
A. E. BLAND, B.A.
(PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE)
[Illustration]
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1914
INTRODUCTION
This series of English History Source Books is intended for use with
any ordinary textbook of English History. Experience has conclusively
shown that such apparatus is a valuable--nay, an indispensable--adjunct
to the history lesson. It is capable of two main uses: either by
way of lively illustration at the close of a lesson, or by way of
inference-drawing, before the textbook is read, at the beginning of
the lesson. The kind of problems and exercises that may be based on
the documents are legion, and are admirably illustrated in a _History
of England for Schools_, Part I., by Keatinge and Frazer, pp. 377-381.
However, we have no wish to prescribe for the teacher the manner in
which he shall exercise his craft, but simply to provide him and his
pupils with materials hitherto not readily accessible for school
purposes. The very moderate price of the books in this series should
bring them within the reach of every secondary school. Source books
enable the pupil to take a more active part than hitherto in the
history lesson. Here is the apparatus, the raw material: its use we
leave to teacher and taught.
Our belief is that the books may profitably be used by all grades
of historical students between the standards of fourth-form boys
in secondary schools and undergraduates at Universities. What
differentiates students at one extreme from those at the other is not
so much the kind of subject-matter dealt with, as the amount they can
read into or extract from it.
In regard to choice of subject-matter, while trying to satisfy the
natural demand for certain “stock” documents of vital importance, we
hope to introduce much fresh and novel matter. It is our intention
that the majority of the extracts should be lively in style--that is,
personal, or descriptive, or rhetorical, or even strongly partisan--and
should not so much profess to give the truth as supply data for
inference. We aim at the greatest possible variety, and lay under
contribution letters, biographies, ballads and poems, diaries, debates,
and newspaper accounts. Economics, London, municipal, and social life
generally, and local history, are represented in these pages.
The order of the extracts is strictly chronological, each being
numbered, titled, and dated, and its authority given. The text is
modernised, where necessary, to the extent of leaving no difficulties
in reading.
We shall be most grateful to teachers and students who may send us
suggestions for improvement.
S. E. WINBOLT.
KENNETH BELL.
NOTE TO THIS VOLUME
The sources from which the extracts in this volume have been drawn are
contemporary, with the exception of the _Dialogus de Scaccario_, of
which two or three passages included here appear also in the succeeding
volume.
A. E. B.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DATE PAGE
. THE CHARACTER OF THE SAXONS AND NORMANS CONTRASTED 1
1069. THE HARRYING OF THE NORTH 3
1070. THE RESISTANCE IN THE FENS 5
1070. THE DEPRESSION OF THE ENGLISH 7
. NORMAN MEASURES AFTER THE CONQUEST, AND THE FUSION
OF THE RACES 8
. THE STATUTES OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 11
. THE ORDEAL OF THE GLOWING IRON 12
. ORDINANCE OF WILLIAM I., SEPARATING THE SPIRITUAL AND
TEMPORAL COURTS 13
1072. THE VINDICATION OF A SAXON SAINT 14
1072. ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL TOUCHING THE DISPUTE BETWEEN
CANTERBURY AND YORK AS TO THE PRIMACY 15
1074. THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM 17
1074. THE CONSPIRACY OF THE EARLS 18
_c._ 1080. THE CROWN AND THE PAPACY: THE CONQUEROR’S LETTER
TO HILDEBRAND 20
1083. NORMAN ABBOTS AND SAXON MONKS 21
1085. THE NATURE OF DOMESDAY BOOK 22
1085. THE DOMESDAY COMMISSION 23
1085. THE FORM OF THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 24
. THE DOMESDAY DESCRIPTION OF SHREWSBURY 24
1086. THE SALISBURY OATH OF FEALTY 26
. HOMAGE AND FEALTY 26
1087. THE ENDOWMENT OF BATTLE ABBEY 27
. CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AND OF HIS REIGN 30
. FORESTS AND THE ROYAL LOVE OF HUNTING 33
. THE TRAINING AND TEMPERAMENT OF WILLIAM RUFUS 34
1088. THE REBELLION OF BISHOP ODO 36
1088. ROYAL PROCEDURE AGAINST A BISHOP 39
1093. THE ILLNESS OF WILLIAM RUFUS, AND THE APPOINTMENT OF
ANSELM AS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 44
1093-94. THE QUARREL OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM 48
1095. THE FIRST CRUSADE 52
1097. THE PAWNING OF NORMANDY 54
1098. THE JEWS UNDER WILLIAM RUFUS 54
1100. THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS 56
. THE CHARACTER OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS 57
. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER BY STEPHEN
HARDING 58
. FASHIONS AT THE COURTS OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND HENRY I. 61
1101. THE CHARTER OF HENRY I. 61
1100. HENRY I.’S APOLOGY TO ANSELM FOR BEING CROWNED IN THE
LATTER’S ABSENCE 64
1100-1107. THE INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY 65
1105. OPPRESSIVE TAXATION UNDER HENRY I. 71
1106. THE BATTLE OF TENCHEBRAI 73
1107. CONSOLIDATION OF THE POWER OF HENRY I. 73
. CHARTER OF LIBERTIES TO THE CITY OF LONDON 74
1108. SOCIAL EVILS AND DRASTIC PUNISHMENTS 76
1120. THE SHIPWRECK OF WILLIAM, SON OF HENRY I. 77
. A NORMAN PRELATE 79
. THE ORGANISATION OF THE EXCHEQUER 81
. THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXCHEQUER PROCEDURE IN RELATION
TO ROYAL REVENUE 82
1126. THE OATH OF THE BARONS TO SUPPORT THE SUCCESSION OF
MATILDA THE EMPRESS 85
1123. THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF AN ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY 86
. THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HENRY I. 88
1135. THE ACCESSION OF STEPHEN 89
1135. THE PERJURY OF THE BARONS 92
1136. THE CORONATION OATH OF KING STEPHEN 92
. FEUDAL ANARCHY 94
1136. WALES AND THE WELSH 96
1138. THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARD 97
1139. STEPHEN’S ATTACK ON THE BISHOPS 101
. THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF ROGER, BISHOP OF SALISBURY 107
1141. THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN 110
1141. THE DEPOSITION OF STEPHEN 111
. THE CAREER OF GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE 114
. THE TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN STEPHEN AND HENRY 117
THE NORMANS IN ENGLAND
(1066-1154)
THE CHARACTER OF THE SAXONS AND NORMANS CONTRASTED.
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 306. (Rolls Series.)
In the process of time the study of letters and of religion decayed,
many years before the coming of the Normans. The clergy, content
with insufficient learning, could scarcely stammer the words of the
sacraments, and one who understood grammar was a cause of amazement
and wonder to the rest. The monks made a mock of their rule, wearing
fine garments and eating all kinds of food. The nobles, given over
to gluttony and lust, used not to attend church in the morning in
Christian fashion, but lay in bed till late hours and idly listened to
the service of matins and masses from the lips of a hurrying priest.
The people, unprotected in their midst, were the prey of the stronger
folk, who drained their substance or sold their persons into distant
lands, that they might heap up treasure upon treasure, albeit excess
of feasting rather than of wealth is the instinct of this race. Many
indulged the unnatural custom of selling their handmaids ... into
foreign slavery. They all used to drink in common, spending whole
nights and days in this practice. They consumed their whole substance
in small and mean houses, unlike the French and Normans, who live
moderately in large and noble dwellings. The vices that accompany
drunkenness and enfeeble the minds of men ensued. Hence it came to
pass that they encountered William with headlong rashness and fury
rather than with military skill, and by one battle, and that easily
won, doomed themselves and their country to slavery. Nothing is simpler
than rashness, but that which is impetuously begun speedily comes
to nought or is repressed. In short, the English at that time wore
garments reaching to the middle of the thigh, their hair was cut short,
their beards shaven, their arms laden with golden bracelets, their
skin pricked with pictorial designs; they used to eat till they were
surfeited, and drank till they were sick. These latter habits indeed
they have now passed on to their conquerors, for the rest, however,
adopting the others’ customs. I would not, however, be understood to
ascribe these vices universally to all the English; I know that there
were many clerks who at that time lived simply and trod the path of
holiness; I know that there were many laymen of the same nation, of
every sort and condition, who were pleasing to God. Let my narrative
escape injustice; all are not alike included in this condemnation;
but as in times of peace the wisdom of God full often cherishes the
evil with the good, so in times of captivity His sharp displeasure not
seldom constrains the good with the evil.
Now the Normans, to speak of them also, were at that time and still
are in dress bravely apparelled and in their food delicate but not
excessive; a people accustomed to warfare, and without it scarce able
to live. They are fierce in attacking the enemy, and where strength
fails, they achieve their end no less by craft and bribery. As I have
said, at home they live moderately in large dwellings, they envy their
equals, they would surpass their superiors, and while they plunder
their subjects, they protect them from others; faithful to their lords,
they lightly break faith for a slight offence. They weigh treachery
with its prospect of success, and change their policy for a bribe. They
are, however, the kindliest of all nations and honour strangers equally
with themselves; they also marry with their subject peoples. At their
coming they raised the standard of religion, everywhere lifeless in
England; on all sides you might see churches rising in the villages,
and monasteries in the towns and cities, built in a new style; you
might see renewed services enrich the whole country, so that every man
of means counted that day lost which was not marked by some great and
glorious act.
THE HARRYING OF THE NORTH (1069).
=Source.=--Simeon of Durham, _Historia Regum_, ed. Arnold, vol. ii., p.
186. (Rolls Series.)
In the year 1069, the third year of his reign, king William sent earl
Robert Cumin against the Northumbrians in the country north of the
Tyne. But they had all united in one determination not to submit to the
lordship of an alien, and resolved either to slay him or to fall, all
of them together, by the edge of the sword. On his approach, Aegelwin,
bishop of Durham, met and forewarned him to be on his guard against
ambushes; but he, thinking that none would be so bold, despised the
warning. Entering Durham with a large force of knights, he allowed his
men to act with hostility in all quarters, and some peasants belonging
to the church were killed. He was received, however, by the bishop with
all courtesy and honour. But the Northumbrians, hastening all night to
Durham, at daybreak broke through the gates with great violence, and
on all sides surprised and slew the earl’s followers. The struggle was
fiercely waged; the knights were struck down in houses and streets,
and the combatants attacked the bishop’s house in which the earl
had been received, and since they could not endure the darts of the
defenders, burned down the house with all who were therein. So great
was the multitude of the slain, that almost every part of the city was
filled with blood; for out of seven hundred men only one escaped. This
slaughter took place on the 28th of February, the fourth day of the
week.
In the same year, before the Nativity of St. Mary, the sons of Sweyn,
king of the Danes, Harold and Canute, and their uncle earl Osbarn,
and Christian their bishop, and earl Turkill, came from Denmark with
240 ships and landed at the mouth of the river Humber. There they were
joined by Edgar Atheling, earl Waltheof and Marlesweyn and many others,
with a fleet which they had made ready. Earl Cospatric also came with
the whole strength of the Northumbrians, and all with one accord
joined forces against the Normans.... On Saturday, the 19th September,
the Normans who were holding the castles (at York), fearing that the
houses near the castles would be of aid to the Danes in filling up the
castle-moats, began to set them on fire, and the flames, increasing,
raged throughout the whole city and destroyed with it the minster of
St. Peter. But divine vengeance was speedily and disastrously wreaked
upon them. For before the whole city was burned down, the Danish fleet
arrived on the second day of the week, and the Danes on one side and
the Northumbrians on the other stormed and burst into the castles on
the same day. More than 3000 Normans were slain, the lives of William
Malet, who was sheriff at that time, and of his wife and two children,
and of Gilbert de Ghent and a few others, being spared; the Danes took
ship with their innumerable forces, and the Northumbrians returned to
their homes.
But when king William heard the news, he at once gathered an army and
hastened to Northumberland with exasperation at heart, and all the
winter without ceasing laid waste the country, cut men to pieces and
committed many other deeds of cruelty. Meanwhile he sent envoys to earl
Osbarn the Dane, and promised to give him secretly a large sum of money
and to allow his army freely to seize provisions along the sea-coasts,
on condition, however, that he should depart without fighting at the
close of winter. To these proposals he assented, in his greed for gold
and silver, with great dishonour to himself.
While the Normans were laying waste England, in Northumberland and
other districts in the preceding year, but in the present and following
year throughout the whole of England and especially in Northumberland
and the neighbouring provinces, so great a famine prevailed that men,
compelled by hunger, ate human flesh, and horses, dogs and cats,
and anything whatsoever that is loathsome to experience; some sold
themselves into perpetual slavery, so long as they could somehow
support a miserable existence; others leaving the country as exiles
gave up the ghost in the middle of their journey. It was horrible to
behold human corpses rotting in the houses and streets and highways,
swarming with worms and reeking with putrefaction. For there was none
left to bury them, all were cut off either by the sword or by famine,
or for hunger had abandoned their native land. And so for nine years
the land was destitute of tillers, and far and wide there extended a
barren waste. Between York and Durham never a town was inhabited; there
were only dens of wild beasts and robbers to terrify the heart of the
traveller.
THE RESISTANCE IN THE FENS (1070).
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 345.
(Rolls Series.)
1070. In this year earl Waltheof made peace with the king; and in
Lent the king caused all the monasteries that were in England to be
plundered. Then in the same year came Sweyn, king of Denmark, into
the Humber, and the country folk came to meet him and made peace with
him, deeming that he should overcome that country. Then came to Ely
Christian, the Danish bishop, and Osbarn the earl, and the Danish
housecarles with them; and the English folk from all the fenlands
came to them, deeming that they should win all the country. Then the
monks of Peterborough heard say that their own men would plunder the
monastery; that was Hereward and his company. That was because they
had heard say that the king had given the abbacy to a French abbot
named Turold and that he was a very stern man, and was then come to
Stamford with all his Frenchmen. Now there was a church-warden there
named Yware, who took by night all that he could, to wit, gospels,
mass-mantles, cantor copes and vestments, and such little things as he
could, and went forthwith, ere day, to the abbot Turold, and told him
that he sought his protection, and informed him how that the outlaws
were coming to Peterborough, and that he did all by the advice of the
monks. Then forthwith on the morrow came all the outlaws with many
ships, and would have entered the monastery; and the monks withstood
them, that they might not come in. Then they set fire thereto and
burned all the monks’ houses, and all the town but one house. Then
they came in through the fire at Bolhithe gate, and the monks came to
meet them, praying them peace. But they recked nothing thereof, went
into the monastery, climbed up to the holy rood, and then took the
crown from our Lord’s head, all of beaten gold; then they took the
foot-spur that was underneath His foot, which was all of red gold.
They climbed up to the steeple, and brought down the crosier that was
there hidden; it was all of gold and of silver. They took there two
golden shrines, and nine of silver, and they took fifteen great roods,
both of gold and of silver. They took there so much gold and silver,
and so many treasures in money and in raiment and in books, as no man
may tell another, saying that they did it out of reverence for the
monastery. Then went they to the ships, fared to Ely, and there put
all the treasures. The Danish men deemed that they would overcome the
Frenchmen; they then drove away all the monks, none being left there
but one monk, who was named Leofwine Lange; he lay sick in the sick
man’s ward.
Then came abbot Turold and eight score Frenchmen with him, and all
fully armed. When he came thither, he found all burned within and
without, save the church only. The outlaws were then all afloat,
knowing that he would come thither. This was done on the fourth of June.
The two kings, William and Sweyn, were reconciled; and the Danish men
went forth out of Ely with all the aforesaid treasures, and took the
same with them. When they came into the midst of the sea, there came
a great storm and scattered all the ships wherein the treasures were;
some fared to Norway, some to Ireland, some to Denmark, and all that
came thither were the crosier and some shrines and some roods and many
of the other treasures; and they brought them to a king’s town and put
it all there in a church. Then afterwards, through their heedlessness,
and through their drunkenness, the church was burned one night, and all
that was therein. On this wise was the monastery of Peterborough burned
and plundered. May God Almighty have compassion upon it of his great
lovingkindness. And on this wise came the abbot Turold to Peterborough,
and the monks came then again, and did Christ’s service in their
church, which had stood a full sennight without any sort of rite. When
bishop Aegelric heard tell thereof, he excommunicated all the men who
had done that evil deed.
THE DEPRESSION OF THE ENGLISH (1070).
=Source.=--Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii.,
pp. 4, 5.
In the season of Lent, by advice of William earl of Hereford and
certain others, king William ordered the monasteries of the whole of
England to be searched, and the money, which the wealthier English had
deposited therein on account of his severity and devastation, to be
taken from them and brought to his treasury. On the octave of Easter
(4 April) a great council was held at Winchester, by the command and
in the presence of king William, with the consent of Pope Alexander,
whose authority was represented by his legates Ermenfred bishop of
Sion, and John and Peter, cardinal priests of the apostolic see. In
this council Stigand archbishop of Canterbury was degraded on three
grounds; to wit, because he wrongfully held the bishopric of Winchester
with the archbishopric; and because, in the lifetime of archbishop
Robert, he had not only taken the archbishopric, but also for some
time in the celebration of mass had used his pall, which remained
at Canterbury, when he had been unjustly and forcibly expelled from
England; and because afterwards he received his pall from Benedict,
who had been excommunicated by the holy church of Rome for having
gained the apostolic see by bribery. His brother Agelmar, bishop of
East Anglia, was also degraded. Moreover several abbots were degraded
there, the king being bent on depriving as many of the English as
possible of their honours, and in their place he appointed persons
of his own race, to strengthen his hold on the kingdom which he had
newly acquired. Here also he deprived of their honours certain bishops
and abbots, whom neither synods nor secular laws condemned on any
obvious ground, and kept them in confinement to the end of their lives,
influenced simply, as we have said, by distrust on account of his new
kingdom.... After this the king summoned from Normandy Lanfranc, abbot
of Caen, a Lombard by birth, a man of the widest range of learning,
and with expert knowledge alike of all liberal and divine arts and of
secular literature, and equally wise in counsel and the administration
of temporal affairs; on the Assumption of St. Mary (15 August) he
appointed him archbishop of the church of Canterbury, and on the
Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June), being Sunday, caused him
to be consecrated archbishop at Canterbury. The ceremony was performed
by Giso bishop of Wells and Walter bishop of Hereford, who had both
been ordained at Rome by Pope Nicholas, when Aldred archbishop of York
received his pall, for they avoided ordination by Stigand, who was then
over the archbishopric of Canterbury, knowing him to have received his
pall uncanonically. Bishop Herman also, who had transferred his see
from Sherborne to Salisbury, was present with certain others at the
consecration; whereafter Lanfranc consecrated Thomas archbishop of York.
NORMAN MEASURES AFTER THE CONQUEST, AND THE FUSION OF THE RACES.
=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 99.
_Master._--The proper definition of “murder” is the secret killing of
a man whose slayer is unknown.... In the original condition of the
realm after the Conquest, the conquered English who were left used
to lie secretly in wait for the distrusted and hated Norman people,
and everywhere, when opportunity offered, killed them by stealth in
the woods and in remote places; and when, to avenge them, kings and
their ministers had for years with exquisite kinds of torture cruelly
entreated the English, and the latter none the less had not altogether
unlearned the habit, the following plan was devised; the so-called
“hundred,” in which a Norman was found thus killed, when the compasser
of his death was not found and through flight could not be traced, was
condemned to pay a large sum of tested silver to the treasury, some
36_l._, some 44_l._, according to the size of the district and the
frequency of the slaying. They say that this was done in order that the
infliction of a general penalty might ensure safety for travellers, and
that all men might make haste to punish a crime so great, or to bring
to justice the man through whom so enormous a loss fell on the whole
neighbourhood....
_Disciple._--Ought not the secret killing of an Englishman to be
reputed as murder equally with that of a Norman?
_M._--No, not by the original institution, as you have heard; but now,
through the dwelling together of the English and the Normans and by
intermarriage, the races have become so mixed that one can hardly tell
to-day--I speak of freemen--who is of English and who of Norman birth;
except in the case of those bound to the soil who are called villeins,
who are not free to change their condition against the will of their
lords. On that account almost always when any one is found so slain
to-day, it is punished as murder, except in the case of those whose
servile condition, as we have said, is apparent by obvious proofs.
_D._--I wonder that a prince of such unique excellence and a man of so
stern a mould should have shown such mercy towards the English people,
conquered and distrusted by him, that he not only saved harmless the
husbandmen by whom agriculture might be practised, but left even to the
nobles their estates and wide possessions.
_M._--These questions are not relevant to the matter in hand, to which
I am pledged; still I will gladly tell you what I have heard hereon
from the natives themselves. After the conquest of the realm, after
the just overthrow of the rebels, when the king himself and the king’s
barons traversed the new country, a careful enquiry was made touching
those who fought against the king in battle and saved themselves by
flight. To all of these, and to the heirs also of those who had fallen
in battle, all hope of the lands and estates and revenues which they
had before possessed was denied; they thought it much to enjoy the
privilege of continuing to live under their enemies. But as for those
who were summoned to the war and had not yet assembled, or had not
been present through domestic or any necessary occupations, when in
the course of time they had won the favour of their lords by devoted
service, they began to acquire possessions for themselves only, without
hope of passing them on to an heir, at the will of their lords. But as
time passed and they became hateful to their lords and were everywhere
driven from their possessions, with none to restore what had been
taken away, a general complaint of the natives reached the ear of the
king, that if they were thus hated of all and spoiled of their goods,
they would be forced to cross to alien peoples. Counsel was at length
taken hereon, and it was decreed that what their merits might earn
from their lords by a lawful covenant should be granted to them by
inviolable right, but that they should claim nothing for themselves by
right of heredity from the time of the conquest of the race. The wise
discretion of this provision is manifest, the more so as they would
thus be bound in every way in their own interests to strive henceforth
to win the favour of their lords by devoted service. So, therefore, any
member of the conquered people who possesses estates or any such thing,
has acquired them not because they were thought to be due to him by
hereditary right, but because he has gotten them by his merits or by
covenant.
THE STATUTES OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
=Source.=--_Bodleian Rawlinson_, C. 641, in Stubbs, Select Charters.
First, he desired that above all things one God should be worshipped
throughout the whole of his realm, one faith in Christ kept always
inviolate, and peace and security observed between the English and the
Normans.
We have decreed also that every freeman affirm by covenant and oath
that within and without England they will be loyal to king William, and
will keep his honour in all fealty with him, and defend him against his
enemies.
I will also that all men whom I have brought with me or who have come
after me be in my peace and quiet. And if any one of them be killed,
his lord shall have his murderer within five days, if he can; and if
not, he shall begin payment to me of 46 marks of silver, so long as
that lord’s possessions last. And when his possessions fail, the whole
hundred in which that murder was committed shall pay the residue in
common.
And every Frenchman who in the time of king Edward, my kinsman, was in
England, sharing the customs of the English which they call lot and
scot,[1] shall be paid for[2] according to the law of the English. This
decree was established in the city of Gloucester.
We forbid also that any live cattle be sold or bought except within
cities, and this before three trusty witnesses, and that none sell or
buy anything old without surety and warrant. And if any do otherwise he
shall pay and pay to the full, and shall afterwards pay a forfeiture.
It was also decreed there that if a Frenchman shall appeal an
Englishman of perjury or murder, theft, homicide, or “ran,” which
is the English term for manifest rape that cannot be denied, the
Englishman shall defend himself as he shall prefer, either by the
ordeal of iron or by battle. But if the Englishman be sick, he shall
find another to do it for him. The one who shall be vanquished shall
make amends in 40_s._ to the king. If an Englishman shall appeal a
Frenchman and refuse the proof of ordeal or battle, I will that the
Frenchman purge himself with an oath unbroken.
This also I command and will, that all men have and hold the law of
king Edward in lands and all other things, with those additions which I
have decreed for the benefit of the English people.
Every man who will be holden for a freeman shall have a surety, that
the surety may hold and bring him to justice, if he offend in aught.
And if any such make default, his sureties shall see to it that they
pay simply what is charged against him, and purge themselves of all
collusion in his default. The hundred court and the county court shall
be convened, as our ancestors decreed. And they who ought justly to
come and refuse to come, shall be summoned once; and if they refuse to
come the second time, one ox shall be taken, and they shall be summoned
a third time; and if they come not the third time, another ox shall be
taken; but if they come not a fourth time, there shall be rendered from
the goods of the man who shall refuse to come what is charged against
him, which is called “ceapgeld”; and further a forfeiture to the king.
I forbid any to sell a man out of the country on pain of full
forfeiture to me.
I prohibit also that any man be killed or hanged for any crime, but
his eyes shall be plucked out or his members cut off. And this command
shall not be violated on pain of full forfeiture to me.
THE ORDEAL OF THE GLOWING IRON.
=Source.=--Gengler, _Germanische Rechtsdenkmäler_, p. 759.
After the accusation has been lawfully made, and three days have
been passed in fasting and prayer, the priest, clad in his sacred
vestments with the exception of his outer garment, shall take with a
tongs the iron placed before the altar; and, singing the hymn of the
three youths, namely, “Bless him all his works,” he shall bear it to
the fire, and shall say this prayer over the place where fire is to
carry out the judgment: “Bless, O Lord God, this place, that there may
be for us in it sanctity, chastity, virtue and victory, and piety,
humility, goodness, gentleness and plenitude of law, and obedience to
God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”--After this, the iron
shall be placed in the fire and shall be sprinkled with holy water;
and while it is heating, he shall celebrate mass. And when the priest
shall have taken the Eucharist, he shall adjure the man who is to be
tried ... and shall cause him to take the communion.--Then the priest
shall sprinkle holy water above the iron and shall say: “The blessing
of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost descend upon this iron
for the discerning of the right judgment of God.” And straightway the
accused shall carry the iron to a distance of nine feet. Finally, his
hand shall be covered under seal for three days, and if festering blood
be found in the track of the iron, he shall be judged guilty. But if,
however, he shall go forth uninjured, praise shall be rendered to God.
ORDINANCE OF WILLIAM I., SEPARATING THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL
COURTS.[3]
=Source.=--_Ancient Laws and Institutes_, p. 213.
William by the grace of God King of the English, to R. Bainard and G.
de Mandeville, and P. de Valoines, and to the rest of my trusty men
of Essex and of Hertfordshire and of Middlesex, greeting. Know all of
you and the rest of my trusty men who remain in England, that in a
common council and by the advice of the archbishops and bishops, and
abbots, and of all the chief men of my kingdom, I have decided that
the episcopal laws, which up to my times in the kingdom of the English
have not been right or according to the precepts of the holy canons,
shall be amended. Wherefore I command, and by royal authority decree,
that no bishop or archdeacon shall any longer hold in the hundred court
pleas pertaining to the episcopal laws, nor shall they bring before the
judgment of secular men any cause which pertains to the rule of souls;
but whoever shall be summoned, according to the episcopal laws, in any
cause or for any fault, shall come to the place which the bishop shall
choose or name for this purpose, and shall there answer in his cause or
for his fault, and shall do right to God and his bishop not according
to the hundred court, but according to the canons and the episcopal
laws. But if any one, puffed up by pride, shall scorn or refuse to come
before the judgment seat of the bishop, he shall be summoned once and a
second and a third time; and if he come not even then to make amends,
he shall be excommunicated; and, if it be needful to give effect to
this, the power and justice of the king or the sheriff shall be called
in. And he who is summoned before the judgment seat of the bishop and
refuses to come shall, for such summons, make amends by the episcopal
law. This also I forbid and by my authority prohibit, that any sheriff,
or provost, or minister of the king, or any layman intermeddle with the
laws which pertain to the bishop, nor shall any layman summon another
man to judgment apart from the jurisdiction of the bishop. But judgment
shall be passed in no place except within the episcopal see, or in such
place as the bishop shall fix upon for this purpose.
THE VINDICATION OF A SAXON SAINT (1072).
=Source.=--Roger of Hoveden, _Chronica_, ed. Stubbs, vol. i., p. 126.
(Rolls Series.)
At the same time, to wit, when the king had returned from Scotland,
he built a castle in Durham, where the bishop and his men might enjoy
security from the (Scottish) invaders. And since some of the Normans
disbelieved that the blessed Cuthbert was a saint or that his body
was preserved there, at the feast of All Saints, while the bishop
was celebrating mass, the king ordered two chaplains to enter the
sanctuary, and opening the tomb to examine both by sight and touch,
whether the holy body was laid there. For the king had already resolved
that, if it were not there, all the elders should be put to the sword.
So, while all were terror-stricken, the chaplains proceeded to execute
his orders. Now at the time the weather was severely cold, but the
king meanwhile began to suffer from an intolerable heat and to sweat
profusely, and to be smitten with an overpowering horror. He therefore
sent quickly to the chaplains and ordered them not to presume to touch
the tomb. And forthwith he took horse and galloped at full speed until
he reached the Tees, and thereafter held the saint in great honour
and confirmed for perpetual observance the laws and customs of that
church, to be held as fully as ever in past times. And furthermore he
gave and granted and by his charter confirmed to God and St. Cuthbert
and the prior and monks there serving God, in pure and perpetual
almoin,[4] his royal manor, to wit, the town of Hemingburgh with all
the land of Brakenholm and all lands adjacent, with the church of the
town aforesaid and all things pertaining thereto in wood and plain,
moor and meadow, woods and marshes, waters, mills and fishponds ... and
all the right bounds thereof, as well and quietly and freely, with all
rights and customs thereof, as ever St. Cuthbert held other his lands,
together with all royal customs and liberties which the king himself
had therein, when he held the same in his own hand after the conquest
of England, and with the same bounds with which he himself or Tostig or
Siward held the manor.
ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL TOUCHING THE DISPUTE BETWEEN CANTERBURY AND
YORK AS TO THE PRIMACY (1072).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 349. (Rolls Series.)
GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE REALM OF THE ENGLISH TOUCHING THE RIGHT AND
PRIMACY OF THE CHURCH OF CANTERBURY.
In the year 1072 after the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
11th year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Alexander, and the
sixth year of the reign of William, the glorious king of the English
and duke of the Normans, by command of the same Pope Alexander and
by assent of the same king, in the presence of the king and of the
bishops and abbots, there was debated the cause of the primacy, which
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, claimed in right of his church over
the church of York, and of the ordination of certain bishops, whereon
there was no certainty to whom they ought specially to pertain; and
at length, by divers authorities of divers writings, it was proved
and shewn that the church of York ought to be subject to Canterbury,
and to obey the rulings of the archbishop thereof, as primate of all
Britain, in all the things that pertain to the Christian religion. But
the metropolitan of Canterbury granted to the archbishop of York and
his successors that they should hold subject the bishop of Durham, that
is, of Lindisfarne, and all the districts from the boundaries of the
bishopric of Lichfield and the great river Humber to the limits of the
border of Scotland, and whatever belongs of right to the diocese of
the church of York on this side of the aforesaid river; so that if the
archbishop of Canterbury would summon a council wheresoever he should
deem fit, the archbishop of York should attend the same at his bidding,
with all his suffragans, and obey his canonical rulings. Lanfranc,
archbishop of Canterbury, shewed also from the ancient custom of his
predecessors that the archbishop of York ought to make profession to
the archbishop of Canterbury, and that too with an oath; but out of
love for the king he released Thomas, archbishop of York, from the
oath and accepted a written profession only, without prejudicing his
successors, if they should wish to demand from the successors of Thomas
an oath with the profession. If the archbishop of Canterbury should
die, the archbishop of York shall come to Canterbury, and, with the
other bishops of the church aforesaid, shall of right consecrate him
who shall be elected. And if the archbishop of York should die, he who
is chosen to succeed him, after receiving from the king the gift of
the archbishopric, shall come to Canterbury or whither the archbishop
of Canterbury shall please, and shall receive canonical ordination
from him. To this constitution assented the aforesaid King, and the
archbishops, Lanfranc of Canterbury, and Thomas of York, and Hubert,
subdeacon of the holy church of Rome and legate of the aforesaid Pope
Alexander, and the rest of the bishops and abbots who were there.
This cause was first debated in the city of Winchester at the Easter
festival, in the royal chapel within the castle; and afterwards in
the royal town called Windsor, where also it was determined in the
presence of the King, the bishops and abbots of divers orders, who were
assembled at the Court on the feast of Whitsunday....
The profession of Thomas archbishop of York.--It becomes all Christians
to be subject to Christian laws, and not to contravene for any reasons
the things which have been soundly instituted by the holy fathers. For
hence come forth strivings, dissensions, envyings, contentions and the
like, which cast down those who love them into eternal pains. And the
more exalted be a man’s rank, the more exact should be his obedience
to commands. Wherefore I, Thomas, now ordained metropolitan of the
church of York, having heard and understood the argument, make absolute
profession of canonical obedience to you, Lanfranc, archbishop of
Canterbury, and to your successors; and whatsoever shall be justly and
canonically enjoined upon me by you or by them, I promise to observe. I
was doubtful upon this matter, while I was yet to be ordained by you,
and therefore it was I promised obedience unconditionally to you, but
to your successors conditionally.
THE REVIVAL OF MONASTICISM (1074).
=Source.=--Simeon of Durham, _Historia Regum_, ed. Arnold, vol. ii., p.
201. (Rolls Series.)
Three poor monks, sent by divine inspiration from the province of
Mercia to the province of Northumberland, came to York, and requested
Hugh son of Baldric, then sheriff, to find them a guide as far as
the place called Monkchester, now named Newcastle. They were brought
thither and stayed there for a time, but finding no trace of the
ancient community of Christ’s servants there, they passed on to
Jarrow, where amid the ruins, that hardly indicated what they had
been of old, they found many monastic buildings with churches half
destroyed; here they were received by bishop Walcher with the greatest
kindness, and supplied by him with necessaries.... These three
founded three monasteries in the country of the Northumbrians; one
at Durham, by the holy and uncorrupt body of the father Cuthbert, in
honour of St. Mary the Virgin; another at York, in honour of the same
Mary, mother of God; ... and the third in the place ... now called
Whitby.... Indeed, after the savage devastation of the heathen had
with fire and sword reduced to ashes the churches and monasteries,
Christianity was almost extinct, and scarcely any churches survived,
and those covered with twigs and thatch; and for two hundred years
no monasteries had been anywhere rebuilt. Faith in religion waxed so
faint, and religious services failed so utterly, that the name of monk
was unknown to the inhabitants, and they were struck with amazement
when they chanced to see any one of monkish garb and life. But when
these three men aforesaid began to dwell among them, they too began to
change their savage life and manners for the better, and to help them
in restoring the holy places, and of themselves to restore and repair
the half-ruined churches, and even to build new churches in places
where there was none before. And many abandoned the secular life for
the warfare of monks, though few of these were natives of the district,
many more coming from remote parts of England, drawn by reports to join
them heart and soul.
THE CONSPIRACY OF THE EARLS (1074).
=Source.=--Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii., p.
10.
Contrary to the command of king William, Roger earl of Hereford, son
of William, earl of the same county, gave his sister in marriage
to Ralph earl of the East Angles; they celebrated the wedding with
great magnificence amid a large gathering of nobles in the county
of Cambridge at a place called Exning, and there, with the assent of
almost all, entered into a great conspiracy against king William;
they also forced earl Waltheof, whom they had secured by a stratagem,
to join their conspiracy. He, however, as soon as he could, went to
Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury, and received absolution from him,
with the sacrament, for the crime of which he was guilty against his
will; and by his advice he sought out king William, who was then in
Normandy; and disclosing to him the whole matter from beginning to end,
threw himself on his mercy. Meanwhile the aforesaid authors of the
conspiracy, in furtherance of their designs, repaired to their castles,
and began with their supporters to strain every nerve to foment
rebellion. But Wulstan bishop of Worcester, with a large military
force, prevented the earl of Hereford from crossing the Severn and
joining earl Ralph with his army at the appointed place, and the bishop
was joined by Aegelwin abbot of Evesham, with his men, and summoned
to his aid Urse, the sheriff of Worcester, and Walter de Lacy, with
their forces, and a large company of the people. Earl Ralph, on the
other hand, camping near Cambridge, was met by Odo, bishop of Bayeux,
the king’s brother, and Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, with a large
force of both English and Normans ready for battle. Seeing that his
intentions were thwarted, and fearing the numbers of his opponents, he
fled secretly to Norwich, and entrusting the castle to his wife and his
knights, took ship and fled from England to Brittany; he was pursued by
his adversaries, who either slew or in divers ways disabled all of his
company whom they could take. Then the leaders of the king’s men for a
long time invested the castle, until peace was granted by the king’s
permission and the countess and her men allowed to leave England. After
these events the king returned from Normandy in autumn and put earl
Roger in prison, and earl Waltheof likewise, although he had sued for
the king’s mercy.... At Christmas following the king held his court
at Westminster, and of those who had risen against him he banished
some from England, and mutilated others by putting out their eyes or
cutting off their hands. As for the earls Waltheof and Roger, they were
condemned by a judicial sentence and committed to straiter imprisonment.
In the year 1075 earl Waltheof, by command of king William, was led
without the city of Winchester and there unworthily and cruelly
decapitated with an axe and buried on the spot. But in course of time
God so ordained it that his body was disinterred and carried with great
honour to Croyland and honourably buried there in the church. While he
was still in possession of life, though placed in strait confinement,
he bewailed unceasingly and remorsefully all that he had done amiss,
and by watchings, prayers, fasts and alms strove to make his peace with
God; men tried to blot out his memory on earth, but it is believed
that in truth he rejoices with the saints in heaven, on the faithful
testimony of the aforesaid archbishop Lanfranc, of pious memory, who
heard his confession and gave him absolution; for he asserted that the
earl was innocent of the charge imputed to him, to wit, the aforesaid
conspiracy, and that, like a true Christian, he had regretted with
tears of repentance whatsoever other sins he had committed; and
declared moreover that he himself should be blessed, if, at the end of
his own life, he should obtain a like blessed repose.
THE CROWN AND THE PAPACY: THE CONQUEROR’S LETTER TO HILDEBRAND (_c._
1080).
=Source.=--_Lanfranci Opera_, ed. Lucas d’Achéry, p. 304.
To the most excellent pastor of the Holy Church, Gregory, William by
the grace of God glorious king of the English and duke of the Normans,
greeting with affection.
Holy Father, your legate, Hubert, coming to me on your behalf, has
admonished me to do fealty to you and to your successors, and to take
better heed touching the money which my ancestors used to send to the
church of Rome. To the one request I consent, to the other I do not
consent. I have refused to do fealty, and I do refuse, because neither
did I promise it, nor, as I find, did my predecessors do fealty to your
predecessors. As to the money, it was negligently collected for nearly
three years, while I was in France, but now that I by divine mercy have
returned to my kingdom, that which has been collected by the aforesaid
legate is being sent, and the residue shall be despatched by the
messengers of our faithful archbishop Lanfranc, when opportunity shall
serve. Pray for me and for the estate of our realm, because we have
loved your predecessors and desire sincerely to love you before all
men, and obediently to hear you.
NORMAN ABBOTS AND SAXON MONKS (1083).
=Source.=--Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii., p.
16.
A disgraceful dispute arose between the monks of Glastonbury and abbot
Thurstan, unworthy of the name of abbot, a man of no tact, whom king
William had preferred to the said place from the monastery of Caen.
Among his other acts of stupidity he attempted to compel the monks
to forsake the Gregorian chant, which he despised, and to learn and
sing the chant of one William of Fécamp. When they took this ill, for
they had now grown old in the use of this chant and in the rest of
the ecclesiastical offices according to the practice of the church of
Rome, suddenly with a band of armed men he rushed one day into the
chapter-house, the monks suspecting nothing, pursued them as they fled
in terror into the church as far as the altar, and there the armed men,
piercing with darts and arrows the crosses and images and shrines of
the saints, even slew one of the monks with a spear, as he clung to
the holy altar, while another fell at the altar’s edge, pierced with
arrows, and the rest, driven by necessity, defended themselves with
benches and candlesticks, and though sorely wounded, drove the knights
back beyond the choir; in the result two of the monks were killed
and fourteen wounded, and some of the knights also were wounded. The
matter was brought to judgment, and since the greatest blame rested
on the abbot, the king removed him and sent him back to his monastery
in Normandy. Many of the monks, however, were dispersed by the king’s
command among bishoprics and abbeys, to be kept under guard. After the
king’s death, the same abbot again purchased his abbey from the king’s
son king William for 500_l._ of silver, and after wandering for some
years among the possessions of the church, wretchedly ended his life
far from the monastery itself, as he justly deserved.
DOMESDAY BOOK (1085).
=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 107.
The book of which you ask is the inseparable companion of the royal
seal in the treasury. The cause of this practice, as I have been told
by Henry, sometime bishop of Winchester, is as follows.
When the famous conqueror of England, king William, a kinsman by blood
of the same prelate, had subdued the further limits of the island to
his sovereignty and cowed the hearts of rebels by terrible examples,
he decreed that the subject race should submit to a written law and a
written code, to prevent thereafter the existence of an easy means of
error. The English laws, therefore, were laid before him, according
to their threefold diversity, to wit, Mercian law, Dane law, and West
Saxon law; some laws he denounced, others he approved, and added
thereto the foreign laws of Neustria which he thought most effectual
for the keeping of the peace of the realm. Finally, that nothing might
be thought lacking, he brought the whole of his far-seeing measures
to completion by despatching from his side his wisest men in circuit
throughout the realm. The latter made a careful survey of the whole
land, in woods and pastures and meadows, and arable lands also, which
was reduced to a common phraseology and compiled into a book, that
every man might be content with his own right and not encroach with
impunity on that of another. The survey is made by counties, by
hundreds and hides,[5] the king’s name being set down at the head, and
thereafter the names of the other lords appearing in turn according
to the dignity of their rank, those, namely, who hold of the king in
chief. Each name thus in the list is numbered in order, so that the
section concerning them can easily be found in its place below in the
book. This book is called “Domesday” by the natives, that is “the day
of judgment” by a metaphor; for just as the award of that last stern
and terrible trial cannot be evaded by any subtlety of pleading, so
when a dispute has arisen in the realm touching the things there noted,
once the book is referred to, its award cannot be derided or with
impunity defied. Therefore we have named it the book of dooms, not
because it makes awards on any matter in dispute, but because, like the
last judgment, it allows no sort of evasion.
THE DOMESDAY COMMISSION (1085).
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 352.
(Rolls Series.)
Then at Midwinter was the king at Gloucester with his witan and there
held his court five days, and thereafter the archbishop and clergy had
a synod three days.... After this the king had a great council and very
deep speech with his witan touching this land, how it was peopled or
with how many men. Then he sent his men over all England into every
shire, and caused to be learned how many hundred hides were in the
shire, or what land the king himself had and what cattle on that land,
or what manner of dues he ought to have for twelve months from the
shire. Also he caused to be written how much land his archbishops had,
and his bishops and his abbots and his earls, and, though I take long
to tell it, what or how much each man had, who was a land-holder in
England, in land or in cattle, and how much money it was worth. So
very straitly he caused it to be traced out that not a single hide nor
a yard of land, nor even--it is a shame to tell, though he thought
it no shame to do--an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was left that was
not set down in his writing. And all the writings were brought to him
thereafter.
THE FORM OF THE DOMESDAY INQUEST (1085).
=Source.=--_Inquisitio Eliensis_ (Domesday Book, vol. iii.).
Here below is written the inquest upon the lands, in what manner the
King’s barons make enquiry, to wit, by the oath of the sheriff of the
shire, and of all the barons and their Frenchmen, and of the whole
hundred, of the priest, the reeve, and six villeins of each town. Then
how the manor is named; who held it in the time of King Edward; who
holds it now; how many hides; how many ploughs on the demesne, and how
many men; how many villeins; how many cotters; how many serfs; how many
freemen; how many socmen;[6] how much wood; how much meadow; how many
pastures; how many mills; how many fishponds; how much has been added
or taken away; how much it was worth altogether; and how much now;
how much each freeman or socman there had or has. All this for three
periods; to wit, in the time of King Edward; and when King William
granted it; and as it is now; and if more can be had therefrom than is
had.
THE DOMESDAY DESCRIPTION OF SHREWSBURY.
=Source.=--_Domesday Book_, vol. i., p. 252.
In the city of Shrewsbury in the time of King Edward there were 252
houses, and as many burgesses in the same houses, rendering yearly
7_l._ 16_s._ 8_d._ of rent. King Edward had there the customs below
written.
If any man wittingly broke the peace of the King given with his own
hand, he was made an outlaw. And he who broke the peace of the King
given by the sheriff made amends in 100_s._ and gave as much as he who
committed “Forestel”[7] or “Heinfare.”[8] These three forfeitures King
Edward had in demesne in the whole of England beyond the farms.
When the King lay in this city, twelve men of the city of the better
sort served him, keeping watch over him. And when he went hunting
there, burgesses of the better sort, having horses, guarded him with
arms in like manner. And for beating the woods the sheriff sent
thirty-six footmen, so long as the King were there. And for the park of
Marsetelie he found thirty-six men by custom for eight days.
When the sheriff wished to go into Wales, he who went not after being
summoned by him gave 40_s._ of forfeiture.
A woman in any wise taking a husband gave to the King 20_s._ if she was
a widow, 10_s._ if she was a maid, in what wise soever she should take
a man.
Any burgess soever whose house should be burned by any chance or hap or
by negligence, gave to the King 40_s._ for forfeiture, and to his two
nearer neighbours 2_s._ to each.
When a burgess who was on the King’s demesne died, the King had 10_s._
by way of relief.
If any burgess broke the term which the sheriff imposed upon him, he
made amends in 10_s._ He who shed blood made amends in 40_s._
When the King went from the city, the sheriff sent to him twenty-four
horses as far as Leintwardine, and the King brought them as far as the
first manor-house of Staffordshire.
The King had there three moneyers, who, after they had bought their
money-dies, on the fifteenth day gave each to the King 20_s._ like
other moneyers of the country. And this was done at the change of
coinage.
In all, this city rendered 30_l._ a year. The King had two parts, and
the sheriff a third.
In the year preceding this survey it rendered 40_l._ to Earl Roger.
* * * * *
This city gelded for a hundred hides in the time of King Edward.
Of these, St. Almund had 2 hides, St. Juliana half a hide, St. Milburga
1 hide, St. Chad a hide and a half, St. Mary 1 virgate, the bishop of
Chester 1 hide, Ediet (queen Edith) 3 hides, which Ralph de Mortemer
has.
* * * * *
The English burgesses of Shrewsbury say that it is a great burden to
them that they render the whole geld as it was rendered in the time of
King Edward, although the earl’s castle has occupied 51 dwellings, and
50 other dwellings are waste, and 43 French burgesses hold dwellings
which gelded in the time of King Edward, and the Earl has himself given
to the abbey which he is building there 39 burgesses, who in like
manner formerly gelded with the others. In all there are 200 dwellings
less seven, which pay no geld.
THE SALISBURY OATH OF FEALTY (1086).
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 353.
(Rolls Series.)
In this year the king bare his crown and held his court at Winchester
at Easter; and so he fared that he was at Westminster on Whitsunday and
there dubbed his son Henry a knight. Thereafter he fared so that he
came at Lammas to Salisbury, and there his witan came to him, and all
the landholders who were of account all over England, what man’s men
soever they were; and they all bowed down to him and became his men,
and swore to him oaths of fealty, that they would be faithful to him
against all other men.
HOMAGE AND FEALTY.
=Source.=--Bracton, _De Legibus Anglie_, ed. Twiss, vol. i., p. 632.
(Rolls Series.)
Be it known that he who should do his homage, in view of the reverence
which he owes his lord, should wait upon his lord wherever he may be
found in the realm or elsewhere, if he can be conveniently waited upon;
and the lord is not bound to seek out his tenant. And he should do
homage to him in this wise: the tenant should first put both his hands
between both hands of his lord, which signifies on the part of the
lord protection, defence and warranty, and on the part of the tenant
reverence and subjection, and he should say these words: “I become
your man for the tenement which I hold of you and ought to hold, and
I will bear faith to you of life and limb and earthly honour, and I
will bear faith to you against all men, saving the faith due to the
lord the King and his heirs.” And straightway afterwards he shall make
the oath of fealty to his lord in this wise: “This you hear, my lord
N., that I will bear faith to you of life and limb, body and chattels
and earthly honour, so help me God and these holy relics.” And some
add in the oath, and well so, that faithfully and without diminution,
contradiction or hindrance or unjust delay, the tenant will do his
service to his lord and his heirs at the stated terms.
And homage ought not to be done in private, but in a public and common
place before many persons in the county, hundred or court, so that if
by chance the tenant through malice should wish to deny the homage,
the lord could the more easily have proof of homage done and service
acknowledged.
THE ENDOWMENT OF BATTLE ABBEY (1087).
=Source.=--Rymer, _Fœdera_, ed. Record Commission, vol. i.
In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. I, William, by the
grace of God king of the English, make known to all archbishops,
bishops, abbots, earls, barons and all my trusty men, French and
English, present and to come, that when I came to England and landed
with an army within the bounds of Hastings against my enemies who
were striving unjustly to deprive me of the kingdom of England, upon
the edge of battle, when I was already armed, I made a vow before my
barons and knights, with the approval of them all and to strengthen
their hearts, that I would build a church to the honour of God for
the common salvation, if by God’s grace I should avail to gain the
victory. And since we obtained the victory, I have fulfilled my vow
and in honour of the Holy Trinity and St. Martin the Confessor of
Christ I have built a church for the salvation of my soul and the souls
of my predecessor, king Edward, and my wife, queen Matilda, and my
successors in the kingdom, and for the salvation of all by whose labour
and aid I obtained the kingdom, and specially of those who fell in the
battle itself. And because God gave me victory in battle in this place
where the church has been so built, in memory of the victory I have
determined that the place itself shall be called Battle.
Therefore to this church of St. Martin, Battle, first of all by royal
authority I grant the dignity that it have its court in all matters,
and the royal liberty and custom of treating of its own business and
affairs, and justice to be holden by itself, and that it be free and
quit for ever from all subjection to bishops and all domination of any
persons, as is the church of Christ at Canterbury. And if any robber
or homicide or any criminal, fleeing for fear of death, shall come to
this church, he shall suffer no manner of hurt, but shall be sent away
wholly free. And the abbot of the church may everywhere set free from
hanging a robber or thief, if he come upon such. I grant also to the
same church the lowey[9] adjacent on every side free and quit of all
geld and scot, hidage and danegelds, and bridge-works and castle-works
and park-works, and enclosures, and armies, and all aids, and pleas and
plaints and shires and hundreds,[10] with sac and soc,[11] and tol[12]
and theam,[13] and infangenetheof[14] and warpeni[15] and lastages[16]
and hamsocne[17] and forestall[18] and blodwite[19] and cildwite[20]
and larceny,[21] and free also of all custom of earthly service and of
all exactions of bishops.
Further, I give to the church of St. Martin, Battle, the royal manor
called Wye, with all its appurtenances from my crown demesne, with all
liberties and royal customs, as free and quit as ever I have held it,
or could grant it as king, to wit, from all geld and scot and hidages
and danegelds and bridge-works and castle-works and enclosures of
parks, and armies, and all aids and pleas and shires and hundreds,
with sac and soc and tol and theam and infangenetheof and warpeni and
lastages and hamsocne and forestall and blodwite and cildwite and
larceny, if the same arise. Likewise I give 2_d._ from all forfeitures
and pleas of all hundreds that pertain to the summons of Wye. In Denge
marsh also, which is a member of Wye, I grant to the same church all
maritime customs which I have had there, with all wreck. And if any
fish called “craspeis” (whale) come there, it shall belong wholly
to the abbot and monks, but if it come ashore between the bounds of
Blachewase and Horsemede and Bradelle as far as Withiburne, the church
shall have two parts of the fish and the tongue, as I have always had.
I give also to the same church these manors, Alciston, Limpsfield, Hoo,
Crowmarsh and Brightwalton, with all their appurtenances, free and
quit with the aforesaid liberties and royal customs. If murder-fine
be due in the lowey or in the manors of the church, or if treasure be
found, both shall belong to the abbot and monks. The church shall have
its own warren in the lowey and in all its manors. I give also to the
same church of St. Martin the church of Reading, and the church of
Cullompton, and the church of St. Olave, Exeter, with the lands and
tithes and all things pertaining thereto. And if any of my barons or
men give anything of their own to the same church in almoin, I grant to
them therein the same liberties which I have granted in my own gifts to
the same church, and by this writing by royal authority, as aforesaid,
I confirm the same.
Names of witnesses to the charter:
William the king, Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas
archbishop of York, Maurice bishop of London, Walchelin bishop of
Winchester, Osbern bishop of Exeter, Gundulf bishop of Rochester,
Hugh, earl of Chester, Roger, earl of Montgomery, William, earl
of Warwick, William son of Osbern, William of Brai, Bernard of
Neufmarché.
CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AND OF HIS REIGN.
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 353.
(Rolls Series.)
After the birth-tide of our Lord Jesus Christ one thousand and seven
and eighty winters, in the one and twentieth year that William ruled
and governed England, as God permitted him, there befel a most heavy
and most pestilent year in this land. Such a sickness came on men that
wellnigh every other man was in the worst evil, that is with the fever,
and that so sorely that many men died of the evil. Afterwards there
came, through the great tempests which befel, as we told before, a very
great famine over all England, so that many hundred men woefully met
their death through that famine. Ah! how woeful and how rueful a time
was then, when the wretched men lay driven full nigh to death, and
thereafter came the sharp hunger and destroyed them withal. Whom can
such times not touch? and who is so hard of heart that he cannot weep
for such misfortune? But such things befal for a folk’s sins, because
they will not love God and righteousness; so it was in those days that
little righteousness was in this land with any man, but with the monks
only, where they fared well. The king and the chief men loved much and
overmuch the getting of gold and of silver, and cared not how sinfully
it were gotten, if only it came to them. The king granted his land for
as dear a rent as he could; then came some other and offered more than
the other gave before, and the king let it to the man who offered him
more; then came a third and offered yet more, and the king let it to
the man who offered him most of all; and he cared not how sinfully the
reeves got it from poor men, nor how many unlawful things they did,
but the more men spake of right laws, the more unlawful things they
did. They gathered unjust tolls, and many other unjust things they did,
which are hard to number.
And in the same year before harvest the holy minster of St. Paul,
the bishop’s see in London, was burned, and many other minsters, and
the greatest and fairest part of all that borough. So also, at the
same time, wellnigh every chief town in all England was burned. Ah! a
rueful and sorrowful time was that year, which brought forth so many
misfortunes. Also in the same year before the Assumption of St. Mary
(15 August) king William went from Normandy into France with a host and
made war upon his own lord, Philip the king, and slew a great part of
his men, and burned the borough of Mantes and all the holy monasteries
that were within the borough; and two holy men, who served God dwelling
in a hermitage, were there burned. This so done, king William turned
again to Normandy. A rueful thing he did, and a more rueful thing befel
him. How more rueful? He fell sick and was sorely stricken. What can
I say? Sharp death that passes by neither mighty men nor humble, took
him. He died in Normandy on the day next after the Nativity of St.
Mary (9 September), and he was buried at Caen in the monastery of St.
Stephen, which he had formerly built and afterwards richly endowed.
Ah! how false and how unstable is the wealth of this world. He who was
before a mighty king and lord of many a land had then of all his land
but a seven foot strip, and he who was once decked with gold and with
gems lay then covered over with mould....
If any one will know what sort of a man he was, or what worship he
had, or of how many lands he was lord, then will we write of him as we
understood him, who looked upon him and at another time dwelt in his
court. King William, of whom we speak, was a very wise man and very
mighty, and worthier and stronger than were any of his predecessors.
He was gentle to the good men who loved God, and beyond all measure
severe to the men who withstood his will. On the same spot where
God granted to him that he should conquer England, he built a noble
monastery and set monks there and well endowed it. In his days was
built the noble monastery at Canterbury, and also full many others
over all England. Yea! this land was filled with monks, and they lived
their life after the rule of St. Benedict, and Christianity was such
in his day that every man that would followed what belonged to his
degree. Also he was full worshipful; thrice he bare his crown each year
as oft as he was in England; at Easter he bare it in Winchester, on
Whitsunday at Westminster, at Midwinter in Gloucester. And then there
were with him all the mighty men over all England, archbishops and
bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights. So also was he a full
stern and cruel man, so that none durst do anything against his will.
He had earls in his bonds who had done against his will; bishops he put
away from their bishoprics, and abbots from their abbeys, and thegns he
put in prison, and at last he spared not his own brother Odo. He was a
very great bishop in Normandy, at Bayeux was his bishop’s see, and he
was the foremost man beside the king. He had an earldom in England, and
when the king was in Normandy, then was he the mightiest in this land;
and him he put in prison.
Among other things is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made
in this land, so that a man who himself were aught might fare unhurt
throughout his realm with his bosom full of gold. And no man durst
slay another man, how much evil soever he had done to the other....
He reigned over England and by his wisdom so well surveyed it, that
there was not a hide of land in England that he knew not who had it, or
what it was worth, and afterwards set it in his book. Wales was in his
lordship, and he wrought castles therein and ruled over that race of
men withal. So also he subdued Scotland to him by his great strength.
The land of Normandy was his by heritage, and he ruled over the county
called Maine, and if he might have lived yet two years more, he would
have won Ireland by his valour, and without any weapons.
Truly in his time men had much hardship and full many troubles. He
caused castles to be built and poor men to be sore oppressed. The
king was so very stern and took from his subjects many a mark of gold
and more hundred pounds of silver, which he took by weight and with
much unright from his people for little need. He was fallen upon
covetousness and greed he loved withal. He planted a great deer forest
and laid down laws for the same that whosoever slew hart or hind should
be blinded. He forbade that the harts and also the boars be slain;
so much he loved the high deer, as he had been their father. Also
he ordained for the hares, that they should go free. His mighty men
grieved and the poor men murmured thereat, but he was so hard that he
cared not for the hatred of them all, and they must follow the king’s
will withal, if they would live or hold land or chattels, or even have
his peace. Ah! that any man should be so haughty and lift himself
up and count himself above all men. May God Almighty shew his soul
lovingkindness and forgive him his sins. These things we have written
of him, both the good and the evil, that good men may follow after the
good and altogether eschew the evil, and go in the way that leads us to
the kingdom of heaven.
FORESTS AND THE ROYAL LOVE OF HUNTING.
=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 105.
_Master._ Forest procedure and the penalties or pardons of
transgressors in forests, whether pecuniary or corporal, are kept apart
from the other judgments of the realm and reserved for the decision of
the king alone or of one of his intimate ministers specially deputed
hereto. It subsists by its own laws, which are said to rest not upon
the common law of the realm but on the personal will of the kings,
so that anything that is done by forest-law is said to be not just
absolutely, but just according to forest-law. The forests, moreover,
are the kings’ sanctuaries and their highest delight, for to them they
come to hunt when they lay aside the cares of state for a while, that
they may be refreshed by a brief rest. There they put off at once their
burdens and the inevitable turmoil of the court, and breathe for a
space the blessed air of natural freedom; wherefore it follows that
transgressors therein are subject only to the royal displeasure....
_Disciple._ ... Tell me at once what is a forest?...
_M._ The king’s forest is the safe abode of wild beasts, not of any
species, but of woodland beasts, not in any kind of place, but in fixed
and suitable places....
_D._ Is there a king’s forest in every county?
_M._ No, only in the wooded ones, which furnish the beasts with
coverts and the richest feeding grounds; and it matters not who is the
possessor of the woods, the king himself or the chief men of the realm,
everywhere the beasts can range freely and unharmed.
THE TRAINING AND TEMPERAMENT OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., pp. 359, 366, 368. (Rolls Series.)
William the son of William was born in Normandy many years before his
father came to England. He was brought up by his parents with great
care, and, since he was endowed by nature with a mind fertile in great
schemes, he climbed to the utmost summit of honour. He would have been
without doubt a prince incomparable in our time, had not his father’s
greatness eclipsed him, and had not destiny cut him off ere his prime,
before riper years might correct faults which sprang from the licence
of power and the rashness of youth. After his childhood, his early
years were spent in military pursuits, in riding, in throwing the
spear, in contending with his elders in service, and with those of his
own age in duty. He counted it a reproach to his courage if another
took arms before him in warfare, or if he were not the first to
challenge the enemy, or, if challenged, to overthrow him. Loyal to his
father in all things, he fought before his eyes in battle and stayed at
his side in time of peace. With a gradually widening ambition, he was
now eager to succeed to the throne, especially after the renunciation
of his elder brother, though he was not without suspicion of his
untried younger brother. So when his father, lying in his last illness,
adopted him as his successor, he went in haste to take possession of
the realm, before the king had breathed his last; and soon after was
gladly received by the people and secured the keys of the treasury, by
means whereof he subjected the whole of England to his will. Archbishop
Lanfranc, the greatest power of the state, declared in favour of him,
because he had educated him and made him a knight....
He was endowed with a high generosity of soul, which in the course of
time was obscured by an excessive harshness, and vices crept into his
heart in place of virtues so insensibly as to escape observation. For a
long time men were in doubt whither his nature would carry and incline
him. At first, during the life of archbishop Lanfranc, he shrank from
any kind of crime, so that men hoped he would prove an unexampled
mirror of royalty; and after Lanfranc’s death, he wavered for a time,
poised between good and evil courses; but at length, in his last years,
desire for good froze in him, and a crop of ills grew and ripened; his
generosity became prodigality, his large-heartedness became pride, his
severity became brutality.... Abroad and at gatherings of men he stood
high and proud of aspect, fixing a threatening eye on bystanders, and
repelling those who spoke with him with an assumed severity and fierce
tones; as may be guessed, a fear of inadequate supplies and of others’
treachery made him unduly rapacious and stern. In private and at table
with friends he was altogether easy and genial and full of jest. He was
the wittiest of commentators on his own misdeeds, and strove to rid
himself of the odium by an epigram....
He had no conception of making a bargain or valuing wares, and a
trader could unload his goods on him at any price, and a soldier demand
any pay. He wished the price of his clothes to be extravagant, and was
disdainful of cheapness. One morning, when he was putting on new boots,
he asked the chamberlain how much they had cost, and when he replied
“Three shillings,” he shouted indignantly and angrily, “Bastard! how
long has the king worn boots at that mean price? go and fetch me a pair
worth a mark of silver.” He went, and bringing a much cheaper pair
falsely said that they had cost as much as the king had commanded.
“Ah!” said the king, “those are fit for the royal majesty.” So the
chamberlain used afterwards to charge him what he pleased for his
clothes, and bought many a thing for his own benefit.
THE REBELLION OF BISHOP ODO (1088).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 360. (Rolls Series.)
At the beginning of Spring the first struggle was against Odo, the
king’s uncle, bishop of Bayeux. For when, as I have related, on his
release from prison, he had established his nephew Robert in the duchy
of Normandy, he came to England and received from the king the earldom
of Kent; but seeing how all things in England were administered not
according to his will as before (for the control of public affairs
had been entrusted to William bishop of Durham), he was smitten with
jealousy, and himself deserting the king, he intrigued also with
many others, urging that Robert was of an easier disposition and had
tempered his youthful excesses with great hardships, and therefore
deserved the realm; William, on the other hand, carefully brought up as
he was, and overbearing and brutal, as his face itself proved, would
set at nought all right and justice; soon they would lose the honours
so strenuously won; they would have gained nothing by the father’s
death, if the son slew those whom the father had imprisoned. These
complaints were first made in secret by him and Roger of Montgomery,
and by Geoffrey bishop of Coutances, with his nephew Robert earl
of Northumberland; afterwards they interchanged letters and plotted
openly. Even William bishop of Durham, the king’s confidant, had joined
in their treason; a source of grave concern to the king, it is said,
because he at once lost a friend and was deprived of supplies from
the distant provinces. Thereupon Odo conveyed booty of all kinds to
Rochester, laying waste the king’s demesnes in Kent, and especially
the lands of the archbishop, against whom he breathed an undying
hatred, since, as he alleged, it was by the archbishop’s advice that
his brother had cast him into prison. This charge was true enough, for
when the elder William had complained to Lanfranc of his brother’s
desertion, Lanfranc said, “Seize and imprison him!” “What!” he replied,
“he is a clerk.” To which the archbishop rejoined, with playful wit,
“weighing the objection with nice antitheses,” as Persius remarks,
“You will not be laying hands on the bishop of Bayeux, you will be
committing to prison the earl of Kent.” Bishop Geoffrey, with his
nephew, ravaging Bath and Berkeley and part of Wiltshire, gathered
his forces at Bristol. Roger of Montgomery, sending his troops with
Welshmen from Shrewsbury plundered Worcestershire, and was now
threatening Worcester, when the king’s knights who guarded the city,
relying on the blessing of bishop Wulstan, to whom the keeping of
the castle had been committed, few though they were, put to flight
their numerous opponents, wounding and killing many, and taking some
prisoners. At the same time Roger Bigod at Norwich and Hugh Grantmesnil
at Leicester were ravaging each his own country. In vain, however,
did the whole strength of rebellion rage against the king, who lacked
neither wisdom nor good fortune. Seeing well-nigh all the Normans
leagued together in one wild revolt, he summoned by letters of request
such trusty and stout Englishmen as were still left, and complaining
to them of his wrongs, bound them in fealty to him by promises of good
laws, relief from taxation and the right of free chase. With equal
skill he won over Roger of Montgomery, who, concealing his treachery,
was riding with him. Taking him aside, he heaped reproaches upon him,
saying he would gladly abdicate, if Roger and the others whom his
father had left as his guardians thought fit; he failed to understand
why they were so outrageous; if they wanted money, they might have what
they chose; if an increase of their inheritances, be it so; indeed they
might have what they wished. Only they must take care not to imperil
the validity of his father’s decision; for if they chose to defy it in
his case, they must beware of the precedent in their own case; for he
who had made him king had made them earls. Stirred by these words and
promises, the chief rebel, after Odo, was the first to fall away. So
the king, marching at once against the traitors, stormed his uncle’s
castles of Tonbridge and Pevensey, captured Odo in the latter and
forced him to swear that he would leave England and give up Rochester.
To accomplish the same he sent him in advance with a loyal guard,
himself following slowly. Now at that time there was at Rochester
almost the whole of the younger nobility of England and Normandy; three
sons of earl Roger, the younger Eustace of Boulogne and many others
whom I need not specify. The royal guards of the bishop were few and
unarmed, for who would suspect treachery in his company? They leapt
down before the walls, calling to the townsmen to open the gates; it
was the will of the bishop, there with them; it was the command of
the king, though absent. But they, seeing that the bishop’s aspect
discountenanced the speaker’s words, suddenly opened the gates, rushed
out, took horse and carried them all away bound, with the bishop.
Reports of the event speedily reached the king, whose reverse stiffened
his purpose; smothering his wrath, he summoned his Englishmen, and bade
them gather all their countrymen for the siege, unless they would earn
the name of “nithing” (that is, worthless). The English, who reckoned
nothing more disgraceful than to be branded with this dishonourable
term, flocked in multitudes to the king and made his host invincible.
The townsmen could no longer avoid submission, realising that a band of
men, however noble, however compact, could avail nothing against the
king of England. Odo, taken a second time, abjured England for ever;
the bishop of Durham of his own will crossed the sea, the king, out of
regard for past friendship, suffering him to escape harmless; while the
rest were all admitted to fealty.
ROYAL PROCEDURE AGAINST A BISHOP[22] (1087).
=Source.=--Simeon of Durham, _De injusta vexatione Willelmi episcopi
primi_, ed. Arnold, vol. i., p. 171. (Rolls Series.)
King William the younger disseised[23] the bishop of Durham of his
own lands and the lands of his church on 4 March, and caused his men
and all his goods to be taken, wherever he could; he also ordered the
bishop to be taken, and laid many snares for him; but by God’s will
the bishop escaped them, and coming to Durham, sent his messenger to
the king with the following letter on the very day on which he entered
Durham:
“To his lord, William, king of the English, William bishop of Durham,
greeting and loyal service. Know, my lord, that your men of York and
Lincoln detain my men under arrest, and have seized my lands, and
would have taken me also, if they could; and they say that they have
done all these things at your command. I request you, therefore, as my
lord, to cause my men and my lands to be restored with my chattels to
me, as your liege man, whom you have never appealed[24] of any crime,
and who has never stood on his defence before you. If you will appeal
me hereafter of any crime, I am ready to justify myself before you in
your court at a convenient term, on receipt of a safe conduct. But I
earnestly beg you not to treat me so basely and dishonourably, nor to
disseise me unjustly, upon the advice of my enemies. For it is not
every man who may judge bishops, and for my part, saving always my
order, I undertake to offer you complete satisfaction; and if at the
present you desire to have my service or the service of my men, I offer
you the same at your pleasure.”
The king, however, on receiving and hearing the bishop’s letter, gave
the bishop’s lands to his barons before the eyes of the messenger whom
the bishop had sent, and again commanded the bishop to come to him, on
the condition that if he should refuse to abide by the king’s will, he
might return safely to Durham. But when the bishop, on hearing this
answer, was ready to go to the king, he sent first to the sheriff of
York, asking for a safe journey to the king’s presence. But Ralph
Paynel, who was then sheriff, refused a conduct not only to the bishop
but to all his messengers and men desiring to go to the king; he even
seized the bishop’s monk who was returning from the king, and killed
his horse, permitting him, however, to go on his way thereafter.
Furthermore, on the king’s behalf, he commanded all the king’s men to
do harm to the bishop wheresoever and howsoever they could. So, when
the bishop was thus prevented from seeking the king either in person
or by messenger, and had endured the destruction and devastation of
his lands without any retaliation for seven weeks and more, the king
at length sent to him the abbot of St. Augustine’s, commanding him,
as he had before commanded, to come to his court with the abbot. The
bishop, however, fearing the snares of his enemies and the king’s
anger, answered that he could not come without a safe conduct, and sent
his messengers in the abbot’s company with a letter to the king to that
effect....
The king, on seeing this letter, sent the bishop a safe conduct, and
assured him by letter that no hurt should be done him by the king
himself or his men, until he should have left the king and reached
Durham once more. The bishop, therefore, went to the king, and prayed
to be put on his trial as a bishop. The king replied that he would
consent to a trial only if the bishop would plead in a lay court and
forego the safe conduct granted to him; if he should refuse so to
plead, he must go back to Durham. The bishop then asked the archbishop
of York and the bishops there present to advise him thereon. But the
bishops replied that the king had forbidden them to advise him. Then
the bishop pressed his archbishop to advise him, as a matter of
right, due to his church and to himself. The archbishop therefore made
request to the king thereon, but reported to the bishop that it was
impossible. So the bishop himself prayed the king to allow him the
advice of his archbishop and primate and the bishops, his peers, but
the king summarily refused. The bishop then offered to purge himself of
the charge of treason and disloyalty; the king, however, rejected the
offer, and the bishop returned to Durham. Meanwhile the king had seized
there more than 700 men and considerable booty.
Again therefore the bishop sent a letter to the king by one of his
monks.... The king replied by seizing and imprisoning the monk who
brought it, and sent his army against the bishop; and after the troops
had laid waste the bishop’s lands with fire and plunder, the barons
opened negotiations with the bishop, and both parties agreed to a
solemn covenant....
On the strength of this, the plea was respited on both sides until 10
November, and on that day the bishop came to Salisbury.... The bishop
rose in court and prayed the king to restore to him his bishopric,
which he had long ago taken from him without a judgment. The king
said nothing, but Lanfranc replied, “The king has taken away no part
of your bishopric, nor has any other man at his command, nor have you
seen his writ disseising you or commanding you to be disseised of your
bishopric.” The bishop rejoined, “No, but I have seen Ralph Paynel, and
I see him here; and he, by the king’s command, has disseised me of the
whole of my bishopric in Yorkshire....” Lanfranc replied, “The king
summons you to make your defence to him, and his barons have brought
you here to that end; yet you ask that he first make his defence to
you! First defend yourself, and then ask what you are now asking.” The
bishop said in answer, “My lord archbishop, do you say that by way of
advice or by way of judgment?” “By way of advice, of course,” said he,
“but if the king will listen to me, he will make a judgment of it soon
enough.” At these words of Lanfranc, the primate of all England, the
lay barons were aroused and cried out against the bishop, asserting
that it was contrary to right that the king should answer the bishop
before the latter had justified himself to the king.
The lay barons gave utterance to this and many other statements, with
much repetition, but when silence was restored, the bishop said, “My
lords, barons and laymen, allow me, I beg you, to say what I have to
say to the king, and to make my answer to the archbishops and bishops.
I have nothing to say to you, and since I have not come here to receive
your judgment, I reject it altogether; even if it had pleased our
lord the king and the archbishops and bishops that you should meddle
with this matter, it would not have befitted me to submit to such an
indignity.” The king then said, “I trusted that the bishop would first
answer me touching the charges I make against him; I am astonished
that he asks for anything else.” Thereupon earl Alan and earl Roger
said, “We have brought the bishop to justify himself to the king.” To
which the bishop replied, “Robbed as I am, I am ready to answer, if I
be tried canonically, for I will not go one step beyond the law of my
order in this suit.” Roger Bigot then said to the king, “You should
tell the bishop whereof you appeal him, and afterward, if he refuse
to answer to us, cause him to be judged touching his answer; if not,
do thereon what your barons advise you.” The bishop rejoined, “I have
just said, and I say again, that I reject altogether the judgment
of laymen, and anything that contravenes the canons. I accept no
accusation, unless I be first invested with my bishopric, or unless
it be awarded by a canonical judgment that I must be charged and make
answer and be judged before such investiture.” Then Hugh de Beaumont
rose by the king’s command and said to the bishop, “The king appeals
you of this, that when he learned that his enemies were rising against
him, and his men, to wit, the bishop of Bayeux and earl Roger and many
others, were attempting to deprive him of his realm and crown, and he,
by your advice, rode against them, he summoned you, in my presence, to
ride with him, and you answered that you would willingly go with the
seven knights whom you had there, and would send to your castle for
more with all speed; and afterwards you fled from his court without
his licence, taking with you some men of his household, and so failed
him in his necessity. And now it is his will that you do thereon to
him what his court shall award, and if need be, he will appeal you
afterwards of more offences.” The bishop, however, replied to him,
“Hugh, say what you like, but you I will not answer today....” Hugh de
Beaumont rejoined, “If I today fail to judge you and your order, you
or your order shall never judge me again....” The bishop went out with
his men, and on his return, Thomas, archbishop of York, said to him,
“My lord bishop, our lord archbishop and the king’s court awards that
you do right to the king before he reinvest you with your fee....” The
bishop said, “The judgment here given I reject, because it contravenes
the canons and our law ... and since I am conscious that through the
king’s hatred you are all against me, I appeal to the apostolic see,
the holy church of Rome, to St. Peter and his vicar....” Thereupon
archbishop Lanfranc replied, “We are not judging you touching your
bishopric, but touching your fee, and in the same way we judged the
bishop of Bayeux before this king’s father, touching his fee; in that
suit the king did not summon him as a bishop, but as his brother and as
an earl.” The bishop answered, “My lord archbishop, I have not said a
word today about a fee, nor have I said that I had a fee; I complained,
and I complain still, of the disseisin of my bishopric.” The archbishop
rejoined, “I may not have heard you speak of a fee, but I know you had
a great fee, and we have judged you thereon.” The bishop replied, “My
lord archbishop, I gather now that you have ignored all that I have
said, and judge me out of your own knowledge; but though by God’s grace
you are exceeding wise and of great reputation, I perceive that in
this your wisdom is so high that my humble intelligence cannot grasp
it; but I wish to go to the apostolic see, to which of necessity I
have appealed, by licence of the king and you.” “Leave us,” said the
archbishop, “and the king, after taking counsel, will announce to you
his will.” When the bishop had left the room and had been summoned
back, Hugh de Beaumont rose and said to him, “My lord bishop, the
king’s court and these barons adjudge as just, that since you refuse
to answer touching the charge whereon the king through me has appealed
you, but cite him on his plea to Rome, you thereby forfeit your fee.”
THE ILLNESS OF WILLIAM RUFUS, AND THE APPOINTMENT OF ANSELM AS
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (1093).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 30.
(Rolls Series.)
One day one of the chief men of the realm, a favourite of the
king, happened to say to him among other things in the course of
conversation: “We have never known a man of holiness so great, we
honestly believe, as Anselm abbot of Bec; he loves nothing beside
God, and, as the whole of his work makes manifest, he covets nothing
transitory.” The king rejoined with a sneer, “No, not even the
archbishopric of Canterbury.” The other replied, “No, not even that
has a very great attraction for him, in the opinion of myself and many
others.” Whereupon the king swore that the abbot would rush to accept
it with open arms, if he had the slightest hope of attaining to it,
and added, “But, by the Holy Cross of Lucca,” as he was accustomed
to swear, “neither he nor any other shall be archbishop at present,
except myself.” He had scarcely spoken when he was seized by illness
and took to his bed, growing daily worse until he was at the point
of death. Why continue? All the chief men of the whole realm came
together, bishops, abbots and all the nobles, looking for nothing but
his death. The sick man was urged to take thought for the salvation of
his soul, to open the prisons, to set free the prisoners, to unloose
the bound, to pardon debts, to restore to liberty the churches still
in bondage under his lordship, by setting pastors over them, and above
all the church of Canterbury, “the oppression whereof,” they said,
“lays a hateful burden upon the whole church of Christ in England.”
Anselm at this time, in ignorance of this event, was staying in a town
not far from Gloucester, where the king lay sick. He was commanded,
therefore, to come to the king with all speed and by his presence
to comfort and strengthen him on his deathbed. Hearing such news he
made haste to come, and on his arrival came to the king, who asked
him what he deemed the most wholesome counsel for a dying man; the
abbot asked to be first informed what counsel had been given to the
sick prince by those around him before his own coming. He heard and
approved, adding: “It is written, ‘Begin by confession to the Lord’;
wherefore it seems to me that he should first make a good confession
of all that he knows himself to have done against God, and should
promise without insincerity to amend all if he recover, and then should
order to be performed without delay what you have advised him.” This
precise counsel was approved, and the task of hearing the confession
enjoined upon the abbot. The king was informed what Anselm had urged
as the best means for the saving of his soul, and straightway he
acquiesced and with a contrite heart promised to do everything which
the abbot’s judgment decided, and to conduct the whole of his life in
gentleness and justice. To this he pledged his faith, and made his
bishops sureties between him and God, sending one of them in his stead
to make this his vow to God upon the altar. The order was written and
confirmed by the royal seal, that all prisoners in the whole of his
dominion should be released, all debts irrevocably cancelled, and all
offences committed hitherto consigned to everlasting oblivion. Moreover
righteous and holy laws were promised to all people, the inviolable
observance of justice, and a weighty and deterrent trial of abuses.
All men rejoiced and God was blessed herein, and urgent prayers were
offered for the salvation of so good and great a king.
Thereupon all good men entreated the king to release from her long
widowhood the common mother of the whole realm by instituting a pastor
thereto. He willingly consented and admitted that he had changed his
mind. The question, therefore, was asked, who was most worthy to
enjoy this honour, and while all were hanging on the king’s decision,
he himself announced, amid the unanimous acclamation of all, that
abbot Anselm was worthiest thereof. Anselm was alarmed at his words
and grew pale; and when he was forced to approach the king to receive
investiture of the archbishopric from his hand by the pastoral staff,
he resisted with the whole of his strength, and declared that for many
reasons it was altogether impossible.... He said: “I am the abbot
of a monastery of another realm, having an archbishop to whom I owe
obedience, an earthly prince to whom I owe submission, and monks to
whom I owe the ministrations of counsel and assistance. To all these I
am so bound that I can neither abandon the monks without their consent,
nor loose myself from my prince’s lordship without his permission,
nor disown obedience to my bishop without peril to my soul unless he
absolve me.” The bishops rejoined, “That is a light matter, all will
readily consent.” He replied, “Not so; what you purpose can never
be.” Thereupon they dragged him to the sick king and set forth his
obstinacy. The king was distressed almost to tears ... but recognising
that the labour of all of them was in vain, he ordered them all to
fall on their knees at his feet, to see if by that means he could be
induced to consent. To what end? When they knelt, he knelt too before
them and would not alter his first decision. They were angry with
him, and blaming their own stupidity for the delay they had suffered
by listening to his objections, they cried out “The pastoral staff,
bring the pastoral staff hither.” Then, seizing his right hand, some
dragged, others pushed the struggling abbot, and gradually they
reached the sick man’s bedside. The king proffered him the staff,
but he closed his hand against it and wholly refused to take it. The
bishops struggled to unclasp his tightly clenched fingers, that the
staff might be thrust into his hand. But after they had wasted their
efforts for some time, and he groaned with the pain inflicted upon him,
at last his forefinger was raised but bent backwards, the staff was
laid against his closed hand and squeezed and held in it by the hands
of the bishops. The whole throng cried out, “Long live the bishop,”
the bishops and clergy lifted up their voices and began to sing “_Te
deum laudamus_,” and carried rather than led the bishop elect to
the nearest church, he resisting the while as well as he could, and
saying: “It is all void, it is all void.” After they had performed the
customary ritual in the church, Anselm was brought back to the king
and said to him, “I tell you, my lord king, that you will not die of
your illness, and I wish you to know this that you will be able to set
right what has now been done with me, for I have not consented and do
not consent to its ratification....” The king however ordered him to
be invested without delay and diminution with all things belonging
to the archbishopric within and without, and further that the city
of Canterbury, which Lanfranc in his time held of the king as a fee,
and the abbey of St. Albans, which not only Lanfranc but also his
predecessors are known to have held, should pass as an alodiary[25]
possession for ever to Christ Church, Canterbury, for the redemption
of his soul.... The king recovered, as Anselm had foretold, and soon
undid all the good that he had decreed in his illness, and ordered it
to be annulled. The prisoners who had not yet been released he ordered
to be kept more straitly than usual, those who had been released to
be retaken if possible, old debts now pardoned to be exacted in full,
pleas and offences to be recalled to their original standing, and to
be tried and decided by the judgment of men who were concerned rather
to subvert justice than to maintain and defend it, and interested
rather in oppressing the wretched and in spoiling men of their wealth
than in correcting any crime. Wherefore there grew throughout the
realm so vast a woe and so woeful a waste that he who remembers it, I
judge, remembers to have never seen the like in England. Indeed every
evil that the king had done before his illness seemed a good thing in
comparison with the evils he did after his return to health. And if
any man will know the source from which they flowed, they can judge
by his answer to the bishop of Rochester, when the latter in friendly
conversation warned him after his recovery that he should in all things
behave more circumspectly towards God: “Be sure, bishop,” he said, “by
the Holy Cross of Lucca, that God shall never have me good because of
the evil He has brought upon me.”
THE QUARREL OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM (1093-94).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 47.
(Rolls Series.)
At that time the king, straining with all his power to seize Normandy
from his brother Robert, spent lavishly on this object a large sum
of money collected from every possible quarter, so that he began to
experience not a few difficulties which were thought incompatible with
the king’s dignity. The new prelate was therefore recommended by his
friends to offer to the king 500_l._ of silver, which he did, hoping
and believing their promises that hereby he would secure thenceforward
the king’s lasting favour, and would obtain his willing support for
all godly works, and win peace and protection for the interests of the
church within and without against all enemies. The king, hearing of
this offer, expressed his thanks with the word “Excellent.” But certain
evilminded folk, as usual, induced the king contemptuously to reject
the money offered. They said, “Here is a man whom you have honoured,
enriched and exalted above all the chief men of England; yet now, when
he ought to give you 2000_l._ or at least 1000_l._, considering your
necessity, in return for your lavish favours, he offers a miserable
500_l._ Do not put up with it, change your mind, and you will see that
he will be influenced by the fear which others feel, and, to recover
your goodwill, will be only too glad to double his offer of 500_l._”
The king, in fact, pursued this plan with all his subjects; when any of
them offered him any money, with the sole desire to gain his favour,
he rejected the gift, unless the amount tallied with his desires,
and refused to admit the donor to his continued favour, unless he
would increase the gift to the king’s satisfaction. These grumblers,
therefore, expected that Anselm would be moved by fear like the rest
and driven forthwith to fulfil the king’s wishes by increasing the
sum. So he was informed that the king had rejected his money, which
amazed him. He went to the king and asked if the refusal was the king’s
own act or not. Being told that it was so, he expostulated with him,
saying, “My lord, I beg you not to do so; do not refuse to take what I
now offer you; for though it be your archbishop’s first gift, it will
not be the last. Indeed I maintain that it would be more profitable and
more honourable to you to take little from me with affectionate freedom
and at frequent intervals than to seize much by forcible exactions
involving servility. Admit affectionate freedom, and you shall have
at your service myself and my all; insist on servility, and you shall
have neither.” The king was wroth, and said in a passion, “Mind your
own affairs, and I will mind mine; away with you!” He rose and went,
meditating, it may be, that it was not without significance that on the
first day of his entry into his see the gospel had been, “No man can
serve two masters.” Quickly recovering himself, he said, “Blessed be
God Almighty, who of His mercy has preserved me from all evil report.
For had the king graciously accepted what I offered him, verily the
evil men who abound would have deemed it money promised beforehand for
the bishopric, and now rendered under the cloak of a free gift. But now
what shall I do? I will give the money intended for the king not to him
but to Christ’s poor for the ransom of his soul, and will devoutly pray
to Christ to pour down His grace upon him and defend me from all evil.”
He afterwards sued for the king’s favour by messengers, but obtained it
not because he would not double the money, and so after the festival
(Christmas) he left the court, busying himself with the distribution of
his offering to Christ’s poor, as he had determined....
Some days afterwards, by the king’s command, almost all the bishops
assembled at Hastings with the chief men of England, the bishops to
bless and the others to accompany the king on his intended passage
to Normandy. And father Anselm came also to pray urgently for the
protection of the king from the perils of the sea. The wind, however,
was unfavourable for the king’s crossing, and king and barons were
delayed there more than a month....
On one day he came to the king according to his wont, and sitting by
him began to speak thus, “My lord king, you have resolved to cross the
sea and subdue Normandy to your sovereignty. But in order that these
and other your desires may turn out to your prosperity, I pray you,
lend your aid and counsel to the restoration to this your realm of the
Christian religion, which has now almost wholly perished in many ways.”
He answered, “What aid, what counsel?” “Command,” said Anselm, “if it
please you, that councils as of old be held, that things done amiss be
discussed in common, and that discussion be followed by trial, trial
by conviction and conviction by judgment. For no general council of
bishops has been held in England since you became king and for many
years before. In consequence many evils have grown up, and with none to
check them, have waxed overstrong by the pernicious force of custom.”
The king rejoined, “When I think fit, I will deal with these matters,
and not at your will but at mine. The question shall be raised later.”
And he added with a sneer, “As for you, what do you propose to talk
about in a council?...” He replied, “There are many abbeys in the
land destitute of their pastors, on account whereof the monks abandon
their order for worldly indulgence and pass away without confession.
Wherefore I counsel, I pray, I warn you to examine the matter
carefully, and to institute abbots according to God’s will, that by the
destruction of monasteries and the damnation of monks you yourself come
not to perdition, which God forbid.” The king could restrain his anger
no longer, but said, quite beside himself with passion, “What business
is that of yours? Are not the abbeys mine? What? are you to do as you
please with your towns, and not I with my abbeys?” He replied, “They
are yours indeed, for you to defend and maintain as their guardian,
but they are not yours for you to break into and lay them waste. We
know they are God’s, that his ministers may live thereby, and not that
your expeditions and wars may be undertaken from their revenues. You
have many towns and the rents thereof for the ample administration
of your affairs. May it please you to leave to the churches what is
theirs?” “By heaven,” said the king, “your words are intolerable; your
predecessor would never have dared to speak so to my father. I will do
nothing for you.” Anselm realised that he was talking to the winds, and
rose and left him.
Feeling, however, that the king’s former anger was manifest in such
answers, and reflecting that, if the king’s heart were incensed,
there would be no peace, for the sake of the general welfare, and to
achieve more abundant results for God by securing the royal favour for
himself, he humbly sued the king through the mouth of the bishops,
freely to receive him into his friendship. “If he refuses,” he said,
“let him say why; and if I have offended, I am ready to make amends.”
This was reported to the king, who answered, “I have nothing to blame
him for, but I will not extend my favour to him, for I hear no reason
why I should.” When the bishops brought this answer, he was puzzled by
the words “I hear no reason why I should.” They said, “The mystery is
clear enough; if you want peace, you must offer him more money. Lately
you proffered him 500_l._, and he refused to take it, because it was
too little; if you will take our advice and do what we do in similar
circumstances, give him now the same 500_l._ and promise him a like sum
to be taken by you from your men; we are sure that he will restore you
to favour and permit a peaceable fulfilment of your wishes. We can see
no other way out of it, and in our own case, we have no other way in
face of such obstacles.” He at once grasped the effect of this advice
upon himself, and said “I cannot take that way. You say that though he
brings no charge against me, he is yet so much enraged that he can be
appeased only by 1000_l._; now if I, a new bishop, can appease him with
such a gift, his anger will break out again habitually, demanding a
like sop. Apart from that, after the death of Lanfranc, my predecessor,
of venerable memory, my men were robbed and plundered; and shall I,
before I have done anything to restore their estate, rob them, naked
as they are, nay, break the hearts of men already stripped? God
forbid....” They replied, “At least, we are sure, you will not refuse
the 500_l._ you offered before.” He answered, “I will not give him even
that, for when I offered, he rejected it, and besides, I have already
given the greater part to the poor, as I promised.” The king was told,
and ordered this reply to be brought to him: “Yesterday I hated him
much; to-day I hate him more; let him know that to-morrow and after
I shall hate him always worse and worse. I will count him no further
as father or archbishop; I entirely abominate and curse his blessings
and his sermons. He may go where he chooses; let him wait no longer to
bless my passage.” So we[26] hastened away from the court and left him
to his will. For his part, he crossed to Normandy, and though he spent
enormous sums of money, he could by no means conquer it.
THE FIRST CRUSADE (1095).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., pp. 390, 393, 398. (Rolls Series.)
In the year 1095 after the Incarnation of Our Lord, Pope Urban II.,
who then filled the apostolic see, passed over the Alps and came to
France. The ostensible cause of his coming was that after being driven
from Rome by Guibert’s violence he might win over the churches north
of the Alps to acknowledge him. His more secret purpose was less well
known, to wit, by Bohemond’s counsel, to stir up wellnigh the whole of
Europe for an expedition to Asia, so that amid so great a commotion
in all countries mercenaries might easily be secured for Urban to
attack Rome, and Bohemond Illyria and Macedonia.... However, whatever
might have been the occasion of his journey, his coming was of great
and glorious benefit to Christians. A council, then, was summoned at
Clermont, the most famous city of Auvergne.... A clear and forcible
sermon, as a priest’s sermon ought to be, was addressed to the people,
touching an expedition of Christians against the Turks.... The audience
was filled with enthusiasm, and shouted approval, delighted with the
eloquence, and attracted to the pilgrimage; and forthwith, in the
council, many of the nobility knelt before the Pope and consecrated
themselves and theirs to God’s warfare; among them was Aymer, the
mighty bishop of Puy, who afterwards commanded the host with wisdom
and increased its numbers with his eloquence. So in the month of
November, in which the council was held, all departed to their own
homes; and forthwith the report of the good news spread throughout all
the world and stirred the hearts of Christians with a pure emotion,
which was so universally diffused, that there was no people so remote,
so obscure, as not to contribute its proportion; for not only were the
Mediterranean countries fired by the enthusiasm, but all who dwelt in
the utmost islands or among savage nations and had heard the name of
Christ. The Welshman left his forest-hunting, the Scotsman forsook
his friendly lice, the Dane abandoned his endless drinking bouts,
the Norwegian deserted his raw fish. The husbandmen left the fields,
houses were emptied of their inmates, whole cities went abroad. There
was no regard for ties, love of country was of small esteem, God alone
held men’s vision. Stored up barns, hoarded treasures, all that might
satisfy the tiller’s eager hopes or the miser’s greed, were abandoned;
they hungered only after the journey to Jerusalem. Joy went with
the travellers, grief oppressed those who stayed at home. Those who
stayed at home? You might have seen husband and wife and all their
children on the march; you would have laughed to see them, furniture
and all, setting off in carts. The roads were too narrow, the ways
too strait, for those who took the journey, so thick the multitudes
jostled and thronged. The number surpassed men’s imagination, though
the travellers were estimated at six millions. Never, beyond a doubt,
did so many nations combine for one same purpose, never did a host
so unorganized submit its undiscipline to one, nay, to no command.
For most wonderful of all it was to see so vast a throng move slowly
through all Christendom, yet never led to plunder, and none to restrain
them. All were afire with mutual love, so that if any man found in his
possession what he knew not to be his, he exposed it everywhere for
many days to be claimed, and the finder’s desire meanwhile was checked,
until the loser’s need might be satisfied.
THE PAWNING OF NORMANDY (1097).
=Source.=--Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii., p.
40.
After this Robert, duke of the Normans, having determined to set
out with others to Jerusalem, sent envoys to England to request his
brother king William to renew the peace between them and to lend him
10,000 marks of silver, receiving from him as security the duchy of
Normandy. The king, anxious at once to satisfy his request, commanded
the nobles of England, each of them according to his means, to advance
him money with all speed. Therefore, bishops, abbots and abbesses
broke up their gold and silver church-ornaments, and earls, barons and
sheriffs despoiled their knights and villeins, and brought to the king
a large sum of gold and silver. And he crossed the sea in the month
of September, made peace with his brother, lent him 6,666_l._, and
received Normandy from him as security.
THE JEWS UNDER WILLIAM RUFUS (1098).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 99.
(Rolls Series.)
Over and above the deeds of which we knew the king to be constantly
guilty, when we were living in England, news of some fresh atrocity was
brought every day by those who came thence, wherein he was understood
to be so hardened against God’s righteousness, that many of that
country, men and women alike, cherished sentiments about him other than
the Christian law teaches Christians to hold about a Christian. And
hereon I have thought fit to digress a little, that my charges may not
be thought bare assertion. I will set out simply what we heard, without
affirming its truth or falsity. Those who came told us that almost at
that very time, when the king was staying at Rouen, the Jews dwelling
in that city came to him, complaining that some of their number had
forsaken Judaism and recently become Christians, and asking the king to
take money to force them to reject Christianity and return to Judaism.
He consented, received the price of apostasy, and ordered the Jews
concerned to be brought to him. What shall I add? Many of them were
compelled by his threats and menaces to deny Christ and readopt their
former error. Moreover there was at that time a young Jew, to whom one
day, as he was walking along the road, another young man appeared,
seemly in face and vesture. On being asked whence he came and who he
was, he replied that of old he had been converted from Judaism to
Christianity, and that he was Stephen, the first martyr. “And I have
descended now from Heaven,” he said, “that you may reject the Jewish
superstition, and, becoming a Christian, be baptized in Christ by my
name.” He spoke and vanished out of sight. The young man was seized
with fear and straightway went to a priest and clearly related what
he had seen and heard, and confessing that he believed in Christ,
forthwith received the grace of baptism. When his father discovered
the fact, he was smitten to the heart with sharp grief, and amidst
his anxious efforts to find means of restoring his son to his faith,
learned that William, king of the English, for the sake of money, had
lately given back such converts to Judaism. He went therefore to him
and in plaintive tones set forth how he had lost his son. He prayed
for his compassion and asked that the boy, whom he loved as an only
son, might be restored to his father’s laws by the royal sanction. The
king made no answer to his requests, not hearing a reason why he should
meddle in such a matter. The Jew understood the secret of his silence
and at once promised to give him 60 marks of silver if he would restore
his son to Judaism. So the king ordered the young man to be brought
before him and addressed him as follows: “Your father complains that
you have become a Christian without his permission. If this is so, I
command you to satisfy his desire and without any hesitation to return
at once to Judaism.” The youth replied “My lord king, I suppose you are
jesting.” He replied in a rage, “Jest with you, you guttersnipe? Be
off and do at once what I bid you, else, by the Holy Cross of Lucca, I
will have your eyes put out....” The young man was driven out and found
his father at the door eagerly awaiting the outcome of the matter, and
to him he said with anger, “Son of death, heir of eternal perdition,
is not your own damnation enough, but you must drag me down with you.
Christ has now become my father, and God forbid that I should ever
recognize you for my father, for your father is the devil.” While he
was speaking, at the king’s order the Jew was ushered into the king’s
presence, and the king said to him, “I have done what you asked; pay
me what you promised.” He replied, “My son is now more confirmed than
ever in his confession of Christ, and has become more bitter against
me than before, and yet you say ‘I have done what you asked, pay me
what you promised.’ Rather finish first what you began and then discuss
promises; for that was the covenant between us.” The king replied “I
have done what I could; but, though I have not succeeded, I certainly
shall not do something for nothing.” And the trembling Jew had much ado
to secure his release from half the sum promised, on payment of the
other half.
THE DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS (1100).
=Source.=--Florence of Worcester, _Chronicon_, ed. Thorpe, vol. ii., p.
44.
On 4 August ... William the younger, king of the English, while
hunting in the New Forest, which is called Ytene in the language of
the English, was struck by an arrow carelessly aimed by a Frenchman,
Walter, surnamed Tyrel, and died; and his body was carried to
Winchester and buried in the old minster in the church of St. Peter.
His fate astonished none, for popular report affirmed it to proceed
from the great strength and vengeance of God. For in ancient times,
to wit, in the days of king Edward and other kings of England,
his predecessors, the same district flourished exceedingly with
God-fearing inhabitants and with churches; but, at the command of king
William the elder, the men were driven away, the houses pulled down,
the churches destroyed and the land given over to the habitation only
of deer; and that was the cause, so folk believed, of the mischance.
For Richard, brother of the same William the younger, had perished in
the same forest some time before, and a little while afterward his
nephew, Richard, son of Robert duke of the Normans, was struck, while
hunting, by an arrow shot by one of his knights, and perished. In the
place where the king fell a church had stood in former times, but, as
we said before, it was destroyed in the time of his father.
In the days of the same king ... there were many portents in the sun,
the moon and the stars; the sea, too, often overflowed the shore and
drowned men and beasts, and swept away many towns and houses; in the
county of Berkshire, before his death, blood flowed from a well for
three weeks; the devil also showed himself to many Normans in horrible
shape in the woods, and spoke with them touching the king and Ranulf
(Flambard) and certain other persons. And no wonder, for in their time
almost all legal justice was silenced, and in causes before the courts
money alone swayed the powers that were. In truth at that time many
obeyed the king’s will rather than justice, and Ranulf, contrary to
ecclesiastical law and the rule of his order (for he was a priest),
took from the king at farm first abbeys, and then bishoprics, the
prelates whereof were lately dead, and paid to him yearly therefrom
large sums of money. His ingenuity and shrewdness were so active
and in a short time became so useful, that the king appointed him
justiciar and collector of the whole realm. In the enjoyment of such
wide powers, everywhere throughout England he exacted fines from the
rich and wealthy, despoiling them of their possessions and lands; and
incessantly burdened the poor with heavy and unjust taxes, and in many
ways, both before he received his bishopric and after, oppressed great
and small alike, and that too, until the king’s death.
THE CHARACTER OF THE REIGN OF WILLIAM RUFUS.
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 364.
(Rolls Series.)
He was very strong and stern over his land and his men and towards all
his neighbours, and much to be feared; and through evil men’s counsels,
that were ever comfortable to him, and through his own covetousness, he
was ever tormenting this people with an army and unjust taxes, whereby
in his days all right fell, and all unright in the sight of God and of
the world uprose. God’s churches he brought down; and the bishoprics
and the abbeys whereof the heads passed away in his days either he
sold them all for money, or held them in his own hand and let them to
farm, because he would be the heir of every man, ordained and lay; and
so on the day that he died, he had in his own hand the archbishopric
of Canterbury and the bishopric of Winchester and the bishopric of
Salisbury, and eleven abbacies, all let to farm. And though I take
long to tell it, all that was hateful to God and oppressive to men,
it was all customary in this land in his times, and therefore he was
hateful to well-nigh all his people and loathed of God, as his end bore
witness, for he perished in the midst of his unrighteousness, without
repentance and any atonement.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER BY STEPHEN HARDING.
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 380. (Rolls Series.)
In his (William Rufus’) days was founded the Cistercian order, which
is now believed and alleged to provide the surest path to Heaven. To
speak of this here is not irrelevant to the work I have undertaken,
since it is England’s glory to have bred the man who was at once the
founder and the organizer of this rule. To us he belongs, and in our
schools as a boy he passed his early years. Therefore, if we are
without envy, we shall the more gratefully cherish his worth, the more
intimately we learn of it; at the same time I am myself disposed to
sing loud his praises, because it is a noble trait to approve in others
those qualities, the lack of which in yourself you regret. Harding was
his name among the English, and he was born of no very illustrious
parentage. In early youth he was a monk at Sherborne, but when, as he
grew up, worldly desires troubled him, disgusted with his cloth, he
went first to Scotland and afterwards to France. There, after some
years education in the humanities, he felt the prickings of the love
of God, for, after his manhood had put away childish follies, he went
to Rome with a clerk, his fellow-student; neither the length nor the
difficulty of the journey, nor their poverty, could restrain them from
chanting daily the whole psalter as they went and returned. Already,
indeed, the renowned man was meditating at heart the purpose which by
God’s grace he began to execute soon after; returning to Burgundy, he
received the tonsure in Molesme, a new and great monastery, and readily
acknowledged the first principles of the rule, as he had formerly
seen them; but when other observances were proposed to him which he
had neither read in the rule nor ever seen, he began to press for the
reason of the same, humbly and as becomes a monk.... His opinions,
spreading, as happens, from one to another, justly moved the hearts of
such as feared God, lest perchance they should run or had run in vain.
The question, therefore, was debated in many chapters, and ended in
the agreement of the abbot himself that superfluous observances should
be given up and only the essential principles followed. Thereupon two
of the brethren were chosen, of equal learning and piety, to enquire
by vicarious research touching the will of the founder of the rule,
and to expound the results of their enquiry to the others. The abbot
strove earnestly to obtain the consent of the whole convent, but it is
difficult to uproot from men’s minds old habits of thought, since they
are reluctant to eschew what they have earliest digested; so well-nigh
all refused to accept the new doctrine, because they loved the old.
Only eighteen, among whom was Harding (who is also called Stephen),
persisted in their holy determination, and left the community with
their abbot, declaring that the rule could not be observed in its
purity in a place where the soul, in spite of struggle, was overwhelmed
by wealth and gluttony. So they came to Cîteaux, a place once simple
woodland, but now so marked by the abundant piety of monks, that it is
deservedly held to be conscious of the divine presence itself. There,
by the countenance of the archbishop of Vienne, now Pope, they entered
upon a labour worthy of renown and reverence for all time.
Truly many of their rules seem severe, but these especially: they wear
no fur or linen, nor that finely woven woollen cloth which we call
_staminium_; they never have breeches, except when they are sent on a
journey, and then they wash and give them up on their return; they have
two gowns with hoods, but put on no added garment in winter; but in
summer, if they choose, they lighten their clothing. They sleep robed
and girt, and never return to their beds after matins, but they so
order the hour of matins that it shall be light before the _laudes_;
they are so careful of the rule that they deem no jot or tittle should
be disregarded. Immediately after the _laudes_ they chant the prime,
whereafter they go forth to work for stated hours. They accomplish all
their labour and chanting for the day without any artificial light.
None is ever absent from the daily services, none from compline,
except the sick; the cellarer and hospitaller, after compline, serve
the guests, observing however the strictest silence. The abbot allows
himself nothing that is not allowed to others, and is everywhere
present, everywhere tending his flock; only he eats not with the rest,
since his table is always with pilgrims and the poor. None the less,
wherever he be, he is sparing of speech and food, for neither for
him nor for others are laid more than two courses; only the sick may
have lard and meat. From 5 September to Easter, regarding no festival
except Sundays, they break their fast but once a day. They never leave
the cloister except to work, nor do they converse then, or at any
time, except in turn to the abbot or prior. They observe unwearied the
canonical hours, adding nothing foreign thereto, except a vigil for
the dead. They use in divine offices the Ambrosian chants and hymns, so
far as they could learn them at Milan. They bestow care on guests and
the sick, but inflict intolerable crosses on their own bodies for the
salvation of their souls.... In a word, the Cistercian monks are to-day
a pattern for all monks, a mirror for the diligent, a spur to the
slothful.
FASHIONS AT THE COURTS OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND HENRY I.
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., pp. 369, 530. (Rolls Series.)
Flowing hair was then in vogue, and extravagance of dress; and the
fashion of shoes with curved points was then adopted; it was the
ambition of the young gallants to rival women in suppleness of limb, in
mincing gait, in easy gesture and uncovered bust. Effeminate and soft,
they refused to be what birth had made them.
In the twenty-ninth year (of Henry I.) an event occurred in England
which may appear strange to our long-haired dandies, who forget their
sex and eagerly ape the fashions of women. An English knight, who was
proud of his luxuriant hair, was terrified by the pricks of conscience
into a dream, in which he thought a man was strangling him with his own
locks. Shaken out of his sleep, he straightway cut off his too abundant
curls. The fashion spread throughout England, and, since a recent shock
commonly stirs the feelings, almost all knights tolerated without ado
the reasonable cropping of their hair. But this decency did not last
long; scarcely had a year passed, when all who claimed to be men of
court lapsed to their earlier vice; they vied with women in the length
of their hair, and when they had little, they wore false; forgetful, or
rather ignorant, of the saying of the apostle, “If a man have long hair
it is a shame unto him.”
THE CHARTER OF HENRY I. (1101).
=Source.=--Richard, Prior of Hexham, _De Gestis regis Stephani_, ed.
Howlett, vol. iii., p. 142. (Rolls Series--Chronicles of Stephen, Henry
II., and Richard I.)
Henry, by the grace of God king of the English, to all his faithful, as
well French as English, of the whole of England, greeting.
Know ye that I, by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the
barons of the realm of England, have been crowned king of the same
realm. And because the realm was oppressed by unjust exactions, I, out
of reverence for God and out of the love which I have towards all of
you, grant first that the Holy Church of God be free, so that I will
neither sell it nor put it to farm, nor, upon the death of archbishop
or bishop or abbot, will I take aught of the lordship of the church or
of the men, until a successor enter therein. And all the evil customs,
with which the realm of England was unjustly oppressed, will I remove
therefrom. Which evil customs I set forth in part here.
If any of my barons or earls or others who hold of me shall die, his
heir shall not redeem his land as he did in the time of my brother, but
he shall relieve it with a lawful and just relief. In like manner the
men of my barons shall relieve their lands from their lords by a lawful
and just relief.
And if any of my barons or other men wish to give his daughter in
marriage, or his sister or niece or kinswoman, he shall speak with me
thereon. But neither will I take anything of his for licence herein,
nor will I forbid him from giving her in marriage, unless he wish to
unite her with my enemy. And if, upon the death of a baron or other
man of mine, his daughter be left heir, I will give her in marriage
with her land by the counsel of my barons. And if a husband die and
his wife be left and she have no children, she shall have her dower
and marriage, and I will not give her to a husband except according to
her will; and if a wife be left with children, she also shall have her
dower and marriage, so long as she live chastely, and I will not give
her in marriage except according to her will; and the guardian of the
children’s land shall be either the wife or another kinsman, who shall
have the juster claim. And I command that my barons behave in like
manner towards the sons or daughters or wives of their men.
The common moneyage which was taken by cities and by counties, which
also was not taken in the time of king Edward, I wholly forbid
henceforth. If any man be taken, whether moneyer or other man, with
false money, right justice shall be done thereon.
All pleas and all debts which were due to my brother, I pardon,
except my right farms, and except those which were agreed upon for
the inheritances of others, or for those matters for which others
were justly liable. And if any man have made any covenant for his own
inheritance, I pardon it, and all reliefs which were agreed upon for
right inheritances.
And if any of my barons or men shall fall sick, I grant that, as he
shall give his money, or dispose it to be given, it shall be so given.
But if he be prevented by battle or sickness and do not give his money
or dispose it to be given, his wife or children or kinsfolk, and his
lawful men, shall divide it for his soul as shall seem best to them.
And if any of my barons or men shall do amiss, he shall not pledge
his money by way of mercy, as he did in the time of my father or my
brother, but according to the manner of the fault, so shall he make
amends, as he would have made amends before the time of my father in
the time of other my predecessors. And if he be convicted of treason or
crime, he shall make amends in like manner.
I pardon also all murder-fines incurred before the day on which I was
crowned king. And for such as shall be made hereafter, amends shall be
made justly, according to the law of king Edward.
By the common consent of my barons I have retained the forests in my
hand as my father had them. Of my own gift I grant to the knights,
who do service for their lands by hauberk, the lands of their demesne
ploughs quit of all gelds and of all work, so that, as they have been
relieved at so great a burden, they may so equip themselves well with
horses and arms, that they may be prompt and ready for my service and
for the defence of my realm.
I establish a firm peace in the whole of my realm and command it to be
henceforth observed. I give back to you the law of king Edward, with
those amendments by which my father amended it by the counsel of his
barons.
If any man have taken aught of mine or of any other man since the death
of king William, my brother, the whole shall be restored speedily
without amends. And if any man shall retain aught thereof, he in whose
possession it shall be found shall make heavy amends to me.
Witness: Maurice bishop of London, and William bishop-elect of
Winchester, and Gerard bishop of Hereford, and Henry the earl, and
Simon the earl, and Walter Giffard the earl, and R. de Muntfort, and
Eudo the butler, and Roger Bigot. Fare ye well.
HENRY I.’S APOLOGY TO ANSELM FOR BEING CROWNED IN THE LATTER’S ABSENCE
(1100).
=Source.=--_Epistolæ Anselmi._
Henry by the grace of God king of the English to his most pious
spiritual father, Anselm archbishop of Canterbury, greeting and all
affection.
Know, dear father, that my brother king William is dead, and that I, by
the will of God, elected by the clergy and by the people of England,
and now consecrated king, though reluctantly by reason of your absence,
request you as my father, together with all the people of England,
that as soon as you can you come to give your counsel to me, your son,
and to the said people, the care of whose souls has been committed to
you. I commit myself and the people of the whole realm of England to
the counsel of you and of those who ought with you to give me counsel;
and I pray you not to be vexed that I have received the blessing as
king in your absence; for as touching that, I would have received it
more gladly from you than from any other. But necessity compelled, for
enemies wished to rise up against me and the people whom I have to
govern, and therefore my barons and the same people refused to permit
that it should be longer delayed; wherefore on that account I received
it from your vicars. Indeed I would have sent to you certain from my
side; by whom I would have also despatched some of my money to you, but
by the death of my brother the whole world was so unsettled touching
the kingdom of England, that they could not in any wise have come
safely to you. Therefore I recommend and warn you not to come through
Normandy but by Witsand, and I will cause my barons to meet you at
Dover and money to be brought to you; and you shall find resources, God
willing, wherefrom you shall be well able to repay any loan you have
received. Therefore, my father, make haste to come, that our mother
church of Canterbury, long troubled and desolate for your sake, suffer
no longer the desolation of souls. Witness bishop Gerard, and William,
bishop elect of Winchester, and William Warelwast, and earl Henry,
and Robert FitzHamon, and Hamon the sewer,[27] and others as well my
bishops as my barons. Farewell.
THE INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY (1100-1107).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, pp. 119,
128, 131, 134. (Rolls Series.)
A few days after his return, Anselm came to the king at Salisbury and
was welcomed by him; he accepted the king’s excuse for having assumed
the royal dignity without waiting for the benediction of him whose
right he knew it to be, and was thereupon required to do homage to
the king according to the custom of his ancestors, and to receive
the archbishopric from the king’s hand. He answered that in no wise
either would he or could he consent so to do, and when asked why, he
immediately set forth in plain words what he had agreed to on these and
certain other matters in the council at Rome, saying in conclusion,
“If the lord the king will accept these terms, and accepting, observe
them, there shall surely be a firm peace between us; but if not, I do
not see that my remaining in England will be either useful or honest;
especially as, if he has granted any bishoprics or abbacies, I must
altogether reject communion both with him and with those who have
accepted them. I have not returned to England to dwell there, unless
the king will obey the Pope of Rome. Therefore I beg that the king will
make what order he will, that I may know which way to turn.” The king,
on hearing this, was gravely disturbed. It seemed to him a serious
matter to lose the investitures of churches and the homage of prelates,
but not less serious to suffer Anselm to leave the realm before he
himself was fully established on the throne. On the one hand he thought
he would be losing as it were half the realm, and on the other he
feared that Anselm would go to his brother Robert, who had by that time
returned to Normandy from Jerusalem, and persuading him to submit to
the apostolic see, which he knew to be a most easy thing to do, would
make him king of England. A truce, therefore, from controversy on
either side was asked for until Easter.... To this Anselm consented....
Not long after ... a friendly letter was sent by the king to him....
asking him to come to the king, who wished the matter to be settled
and had another plan. Hoping to hear that God of his grace had touched
the king’s heart, he went, as he was ordered, to Winchester. There
the bishops and chief men of the realm were gathered together, and
by their common assent Anselm agreed that ... envoys should be sent
by both parties to Rome to explain to the Roman pontiff face to face
that either he must abandon his original decision, or submit to the
expulsion of Anselm and his party from England and lose the submission
of the whole realm and the profits which he was accustomed to derive
yearly from the same. Two monks therefore were sent by Anselm, to wit,
Baldwin of Bec and Alexander of Canterbury, not indeed to urge the
Roman pontiff in any way to abate the rigour of justice on Anselm’s
behalf, but partly to bear testimony of the threats of the court which
the Pope must straightway believe, and partly to bring back to Anselm a
final decision from the apostolic see. To accomplish the same purpose
the king sent three bishops, Gerard of Hereford, lately made archbishop
of York, Herbert of Thetford and Robert of Chester....
The journey at length accomplished, the envoys reached Rome together,
and announced the cause of their coming to the apostolic ears, each
party presenting its own case, and humbly asked for the Pope’s counsel
to put an end to the quarrel. He heard their story and found no words
in which to express his amazement. But when he was urgently pressed by
the bishops to consult his own interests and mitigate the strictness of
his predecessor’s rigid decision, that peace might everywhere abound,
he declared that he would not do it even to ransom his person. “Shall
one man’s threats,” he asked with indignation, “drive me to annul the
decrees and institutes of the holy fathers?” That was the end of the
matter. Hereupon he sent letters to the king and Anselm, one to each
... which we set out before our readers’ eyes, the better to reveal
their contents:
“Paschal the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his
dear son Henry, king of the English, greeting and apostolic
benediction.
“We give thanks to the Lord, the King of kings, who by the
grace of His goodwill has raised you to the throne, and by the
grace of His goodwill and of His ineffable mercy has watched
over you as a Christian king. We ask, therefore, that He may
make the good beginnings of your reign grow to better things,
and to the end watch over His gifts bestowed upon you. For you
have repudiated the impiety of the king your brother, which,
as you see, has been terribly avenged by the divine judgment;
you have restored the churches to freedom, you have begun to
honour the clergy and to reverence their heads, the bishops,
and in them Christ the Lord. We are therefore confident that
you will be equally wise to the end and persevere in the same
excellence; except that there are men of perverse spirit who
strive to prepare your royal heart for divine wrath through
the investiture of bishops and abbots. Their counsels in this
behalf should be shunned by you like poison, that you offend
not Him by whom kings reign and the mighty decree justice. If
you propitiate Him, of a truth your reign will be blessed,
and you will win undisputed power and riches. But if, which
God forbid, you offend Him, neither the counsels of barons,
nor the aid of knights, nor arms nor riches will avail to
help you when He shall begin to overthrow you. In the honour
of God, in the liberty of the church, you shall have in us a
friend and helper. Be sure that no man shall wrest you from our
friendship, if you abstain from investitures, if you yield to
the church due honour and preserve its freedom ordained by God.
Indeed, by the judgment of the Holy Ghost, we prohibit kings
and princes and all laymen alike from investitures of churches.
It is not fit that a mother should be sold into slavery by a
son, receiving a spouse whom she has not chosen. For her Spouse
she has our King and Lord, and may He keep you of His mercy in
power and piety, and lead you from an earthly to a heavenly
kingdom. Amen.”
* * * * *
“Paschal the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his
venerable brother and fellow-bishop, Anselm, greeting and
apostolic benediction.
“You are not ignorant that it is by the counsel of the divine
will that your piety presides over the realm of England.
For when, to avoid the hatred of a perverse king, you chose
to withdraw and to dwell by yourself far from the turmoil
of England, living unto God, Almighty God wrought an awful
judgment upon the perverse king. But by the vehement demand of
the whole people and by the wonderful devoutness of the new
king, you have been recalled to the primacy which for God’s
sake you abandoned. Thanks be to God that episcopal authority
ever abides in you, and that though you are set among a
barbarous folk, you cease not to proclaim truth in spite of the
violence of tyrants and the favour of the mighty, in spite of
the kindled fire and the outstretched hand. We ask therefore
that what you are doing, you continue to do, that what you
proclaim, you proclaim to the end. For the inspiration of
Him, Who in the beginning was the Word, shall not be wanting
to our words and works. Nor will we be wanting to Him Who is
the power of God and the wisdom of God. For we believe that
we have the same inspiration as our fathers, wherefore also
we now speak.... In the truth thereof we will guard against
the lies of men. Wherefore in the late Lateran council we
re-enacted the famous decrees of our fathers, proclaiming
and prohibiting that no clerk whatsoever accept churches or
ecclesiastical gifts from the hand of a layman; for this is
the root of the vice of simony, when fools strive to win the
favour of secular persons in order to receive the honours of
the church. Therefore the reverend majesty of holy councils
has decreed that ecclesiastical elections shall be guarded
from the power of secular princes, in order that, as through
Christ only is the door of the church first opened to eternal
life in baptism and at the last in death, so through Christ
only shall be appointed the door-keeper of Christ’s fold, by
whom Christ’s sheep, not for hire but for Christ, shall be led
in and out to life eternal. These things, dear brother, might
be treated at greater length both in speech and argument, but
it is enough to have set forth a few considerations to your
wisdom, which abounds in divine utterances and is familiar
with ecclesiastical arguments. Teach these things, as you know
befits your primacy, which, moreover, we confirm to you as
fully and entirely as it was ever held by your predecessors,
adding for ourselves that so long as the divine mercy shall
preserve your piety in the realm of England, you shall not be
subject to the judgment of any legate, but only of ourself.”
... On the return of the bishops and others who, as we have said, were
sent to Rome, the king, summoning the chief men of the realm to London,
called on Anselm by messenger according to wont, either no longer to
oppose him and the customs of his predecessors, or to give up his
primacy of the realm. He replied, “Let the king be pleased to permit
examination of the letters which have been brought, and, saving my
honour and my obedience to the apostolic see, I will do all in my power
to submit to his will.” The king replied, “Let his own be examined,
if he chooses, but mine shall certainly not be shown at present.” He
answered, “When it shall please the king to show it at another time, he
shall find me ready to meet his present demands.” The king rejoined, “I
have no concern with letters, nor will I; let him say in plain speech
whether he will obey my will in all things.” On hearing this many were
filled with a great wonder, arguing that if the letter had coincided
with the king’s wishes, he would have made the contents public of his
own will, without any reference to Anselm. At that time they were not
known to us, yet the more anxiously their secrecy was then preserved,
the more openly were their contents known a few days later. When the
letter to Anselm had been read and read again before all who would hear
it, the bishops who had come from Rome asserted that they had received
from the Pope at Rome a verbal assurance quite contrary to the tenour
of that letter and even to the letter which they had brought to the
king. Asked what it was, they declared on their word as bishops that
the Pope himself had sent a message for the king’s private ears, that
as long as he lived the life of a good prince in other ways, he would
willingly bear with him on the matter of investitures of churches, and
would refrain from imposing the ban of excommunication if he should
invest religious persons by the gift of the pastoral staff. He had
refused to entrust to writing the honour of a concession so great
in case it should be brought to the knowledge of other princes, who
might usurp the same privilege and despise the authority of the Roman
pontiff....
On the first of August (1107) a council of the bishops, abbots and
chief men of the realm was held at London in the king’s palace, and
for three whole days the question of the investitures of churches
was discussed by the king and the bishops in Anselm’s absence, some
urging upon him to maintain the practice of his father and brother in
defiance of the apostolic command. For the Pope, taking a firm stand
upon the decree which had been published thereon, had conceded the
homage which Pope Urban had prohibited equally with investitures, and
thereby secured the king’s consent to his view of the investitures....
Afterwards, in the presence of Anselm, and the whole council standing,
the king agreed and ordained that from that time forward no man should
be invested in any bishopric or abbey by the king or the hand of any
layman in England by the giving of the pastoral staff or ring, Anselm
on his side granting that no man elected to be a prelate should be
deprived of consecration to the dignity he had received, by reason of
the homage which he should do to the king. Upon this settlement of the
dispute, institutions were made by the king, without investiture of
the pastoral staff or ring, by the counsel of Anselm and the chief men
of the realm, to almost all the churches of England, so long bereft of
their pastors.
OPPRESSIVE TAXATION UNDER HENRY I. (1105).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 184.
(Rolls Series.)
The character and number of the burdens, under which the whole of
England was crushed at this time, are difficult, I know, to describe.
For the king, leaving Normandy because he could not conquer the whole
of it by the means described above,[28] returned to England to collect
larger supplies of money with which he might go back and subdue the
remainder, disinheriting his brother. In the levying of this money the
collectors showed no regard for pity or mercy, but all men suffered a
ruthless and outrageous exaction, as those who came to us testified.
Indeed you might have seen men who had nothing to give driven from
their own homes, or the doors of their houses torn off and carried
away, and themselves exposed to wholesale plunder; or they were reduced
to extreme poverty, their mean furniture being seized, or at any rate
persecuted and tortured in other shameful ways. Against those who
were thought to have any wealth certain new and ingeniously devised
penalties were charged, and so, when they dared not venture to implead
the king for the defence of their land, their possessions were seized
and themselves reduced to serious distress. But these measures perhaps
will be deemed slight by some, because they were not peculiar to
king Henry’s reign; many a like oppression had been committed under
his brother, not to mention his father king William. Yet they were
thought harder and more intolerable, because much less than usual was
found to be extracted from a people already despoiled and exhausted.
But further, in the council of London ... all priests and monks of
England had been prohibited from marriage, and this prohibition,
during Anselm’s exile, had been violated by many, who still retained
or at least took back their wives. The king, refusing to allow this
sin to go unpunished, ordered his ministers to implead the offenders
and take fines from them to expiate their sin. But since many of them
were found innocent of this offence, the money demanded for the king’s
use amounted to a smaller sum than the collectors could have desired.
Therefore they changed their plan, the innocent were involved with the
guilty in a universal charge, and all parish churches were put in the
king’s debt and every one ordered to be redeemed by the parson who
served God therein. It was pitiful to behold. When the fury of this
exaction was at its height, and some men, who either had nothing to
give, or, in detestation of the outrageous measure, refused to give on
such a ground, and were contemptuously robbed, imprisoned and tortured,
the king chanced to come to London; there nearly two hundred priests
assembled, it is said, robed in their albs and priestly stoles, and
with naked feet approached the king on his way to the palace. But,
as it happened, his thoughts were much occupied, and he was entirely
unmoved to pity by their prayers, or at any rate deemed them unworthy
of the honour of an answer, as if they were men destitute of all
religion, and ordered them to be driven at once out of his sight. Their
confusion thus worse confounded, they approached the queen and begged
her to intercede; but though, it is said, she was moved by pity to
tears, she was held back by fear from intervening.
THE BATTLE OF TENCHEBRAI (1106).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 184.
(Rolls Series.)
Meanwhile the king conquered Normandy in battle, and forthwith notified
the fact to Anselm by the following letter:
“Henry, king of the English, to Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury,
greeting and affection. We make known to your paternity and holiness
that Robert duke of Normandy, with all the forces of knights and
footmen which he could collect by prayer or for hire, on a day named
and agreed on, fought a sharp fight with me at Tenchebrai; and at last
by God’s mercy we defeated him, and that without much loss on our side.
What more should I say? The divine mercy has given into our hands the
duke of Normandy, the count of Moretuil, William Crispin, William de
Ferrers and Robert de Stuteville the elder, and other knights to the
number of four hundred, and ten thousand footmen, and Normandy itself.
The number of those slain by the sword was not great. This victory,
however, I attribute not to my own glory or vanity or strength, but to
the blessing of divine providence. Wherefore, reverend father, humbly
and devoutly I bow the knee to your holiness and beseech you to beseech
the supreme Judge, whose award and pleasure has granted this triumph,
so glorious and so profitable to me, that it may not turn to my loss
and damage, but to the beginning of good works and the service of God,
and to the maintenance and strengthening of the estate of God’s Holy
Church in peace and tranquillity, that henceforth it may persist in
freedom and not be shaken by any shock of battle.”
Many men therefore argued that the king had gained this victory because
of his agreement with Anselm.
CONSOLIDATION OF THE POWER OF HENRY I. (1107).
=Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_, ed. Arnold, p.
236. (Rolls Series.)
The Lord rendered to duke Robert his deserts, because, after He had
granted him glory in the wars of Jerusalem, he refused the offer of
the kingdom of Jerusalem, choosing rather to be enslaved by the peace
and sloth of Normandy than to sweat in the Holy City for the King of
kings. Therefore God condemned him to lasting inactivity and perpetual
imprisonment. In proof hereof a comet had appeared in the same year,
and on the day of the Lord’s Supper two full moons were seen, one in
the east and the other in the west.
In the seventh year of his reign, king Henry, having now destroyed or
conquered his enemies, disposed the affairs of Normandy at his pleasure
and returned to England, casting into dark dungeons his brother, the
illustrious duke, and the count of Moretuil. Victorious, and now for
the first time undisputed king, he held his court at Easter in Windsor,
where the barons both of England and Normandy assembled in fear and
trembling. For before, both while he was young and after he became
king, he had been held in the greatest contempt; but God, Who judges
far otherwise than the sons of men, Who exalts the humble and puts
down the mighty, deposed the famous Robert from the favour of all men,
and commanded that the glory of the despised Henry should shine to the
ends of the earth. Freely the Lord Almighty gave to him three gifts,
wisdom, victory and riches, and herewith he prospered in all things and
surpassed all his predecessors.
HENRY I.’S CHARTER OF LIBERTIES TO THE CITY OF LONDON.
=Source.=--Rymer, _Fædera_, vol. i., p. 11.
Henry by the grace of God king of the English to the archbishop of
Canterbury and his bishops and abbots and earls and barons and justices
and sheriffs and all his trusty men, French and English, of the whole
of England, greeting. Know ye that I have granted to my citizens of
London that they hold Middlesex at farm for 300_l._ at account, to them
and their heirs, of me and my heirs, so that the citizens appoint as
sheriff whom they choose from among themselves, and as justice whom
they choose from among themselves, to keep the pleas of my crown and
to hold the same pleas; and no other shall be justice over the same
men of London. And the citizens shall not plead outside the walls for
any plea, and they shall be quit of scot and of lot, of Danegeld and
murder-fine, and none of them shall suffer trial by battle. And if any
of the citizens be impleaded of pleas of the crown, a man of London
shall make his proof by the oath that shall be adjudged in the city.
And within the walls of the city no man shall be lodged either of my
household or of another’s, unless lodging be delivered to him. And
all men of London and all their possessions shall be quit and free,
throughout the whole of England and throughout seaports, of toll and
passage[29] and lastage[30] and all other customs. And the churches
and the barons and the citizens shall have and hold their sokes[31]
duly and peaceably with all customs, so that guests lodged in their
sokes give their customs to none save to him whose soke it is, or to
the minister whom he shall set there. And a man of London shall not be
adjudged to a money penalty, except to his “wer,”[32] to wit, 100_s._;
I speak of pleas to which a money penalty is attached. And there shall
no longer be “miskenning”[33] in the husting or in the folkmoot or in
other pleas within the city. And the husting shall sit once a week, to
wit, on Monday. And I will cause my citizens to have their lands and
wardmoot and debts within the city and without. And I will award them
right by the law of the city touching the lands whereto they shall lay
claim before me. And if any man take toll or custom from the citizens
of London, the citizens of London shall take from the borough or town
where the toll or custom was taken as much as the man of London gave by
way of toll, and further he shall take his damages. And all debtors who
owe debts to the citizens shall render the same to them or shall prove
in London that they owe nothing. And if they refuse to render the debts
or to bring it to proof, then the citizens to whom their debts are due
shall take their pledges within the city or from the county in which
the debtor dwells. And the citizens shall have their chaces for chasing
as well and fully as their ancestors had the same, to wit, Ciltre and
Middlesex and Surrey. Witnesses:--the bishop of Winchester, Robert son
of Richer, and Hugh Bigot, and Alfred de Toteneis, and William Albini,
and Hubert the king’s chamberlain, and William de Montfichet, and
Hagulph de Tani, and John Belet, and Robert son of Siward. Given at
Westminster.
SOCIAL EVILS AND DRASTIC PUNISHMENTS (1108).
=Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, p. 192.
(Rolls Series.)
Meanwhile king Henry, noting that wellnigh the whole of the realm had
sunk for many causes into deep misery, began to consider, by the advice
of Anselm and the chief men of the realm, how to palliate in some way
the evils by which especially the poor were weighed down. He wisely
began this good work with his own court. In the time of the king, his
brother, a great number of the company that followed his court were in
the habit of destroying and plundering indiscriminately, and without
any check or restraint, of wasting the whole of the land through which
the king passed. Another evil supervened. Most of them, drunk with
their own malice, when they could not altogether consume all that they
found in the houses into which they forced their way, used to have the
residue taken to the market place by the very possessors and sold for
their private profit, or to light a fire and destroy it, or, if it were
drink, to wash their horses’ feet with it and pour the remainder on the
ground, or at any rate make away with it in some other manner.... For
these causes all men, on hearing of the king’s coming, used to fly from
their dwellings, in their anxiety for themselves and their households,
and make for the woods or other places where they hoped to secure
protection. King Henry, eager to do away with this curse, published a
prohibition, and with stern and steady justice punished all who could
be convicted of any of the practices I have spoken of, by causing
their eyes to be plucked out, or their hands or feet or other members
to be cut off. This justice was suffered by many and proved a visible
deterrent to the rest from inflicting injury on others, if they would
save whole their own persons.
THE SHIPWRECK OF WILLIAM, SON OF HENRY I. (1120).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 495. (Rolls Series.)
By Matilda king Henry had a son named William, trained and destined
to the succession with tender hopes and great anxiety; he was hardly
twelve years old before all freemen of England and Normandy, of every
condition and rank, to what lords soever they owed fealty, were
compelled to become his men by homage and oaths. As a boy he espoused
and took to wife the daughter of Fulk count of Anjou, herself but a
girl, receiving from his father-in-law the county of Maine for her
dower; moreover, when Fulk was bent on his journey to Jerusalem, he
commended his county to the king, if he should live, to go to his
son-in-law if he should not return. Many countries, therefore, awaited
the boy’s governance, and it was thought that he would fulfil the
prophecy of king Edward, and it was said that the hope of England, cut
down like a tree, would burst again into flower in his person, put
forth fruit, and so might an end of evil be looked for. God willed
otherwise. This hope was shattered, for he was destined to an untimely
end. It happened that by the exertions of his father-in-law, and of
Theobald son of Stephen and Adela his aunt, Louis king of France
granted the lad Normandy, that after homage done he might hold it by
lawful right; this was planned and brought to effect by the astuteness
of his father, that the homage, which he disdained to do himself by
reason of his high sovereignty, might be done by a tender child, who,
it was supposed, was unlikely to live. The negotiations and peaceable
settlement of these schemes occupied the king for a space of four
years, during the whole of which he stayed in Normandy. And yet the
peace, so brilliant, so carefully devised, and the hopes of all men,
raised so high, were brought to confusion by the uncertainty of man’s
lot. It was decided to return to England, and on the evening of the
24th of November the king set sail at Barfleur; a fair breeze filled
his sails and brought him safe to his realm and noble heritage. But
the young man, now seventeen years of age and a little more, endowed
by his father’s bounty with every honour except the name of king,
ordered another ship to be made ready for himself; and almost all the
young nobility, sharing with him the pleasures of youth, flocked in his
train. The sailors had drunk too freely, and the drink excited their
seaman’s enthusiasm; they swore that those who had started first must
speedily be left astern; for the ship was excellent and fresh-fitted
with new planks and rivets. The night was now dark, when the young and
inexperienced band, overcome with drink, pushed out from the shore.
The ship flew swifter than the winged arrow, and cutting through the
curling billows, by the crew’s drunken carelessness struck on a rock
rising out of the sea not far from the shore. The wretched men jumped
up and shouting wildly strove long to push the ship off the rock with
their iron boat-hooks; but fortune was against them and all their
efforts were useless. The oars also were dragged against the rock and
snapped, and the forepart hung jambed and shattered; and now some were
washed overboard, and others were drowned by the inrushing water, when
the ship’s boat was at length pushed off, and the king’s son put in
it; he could have reached the shore in safety, had not his sister, the
countess of Perche, struggling with death in the larger vessel, with
shrieks implored her brother’s help, and begged him not to abandon her
so cruelly. He was moved with pity, ordered the skiff to be brought
close to the ship to rescue his sister, and thus through tenderness of
heart pitifully met his death; for at once a crowd of men jumped into
the boat and upset it, and all alike sank to the bottom. Only one man,
a rustic, escaped, and by clinging to the mast all night lived to tell
the whole tragic story the next day. No ship ever brought on England
misery so great, no ship was so notorious throughout the world. With
William perished also Richard, another son of the king, the child of a
woman without rank, born before his accession to the throne, a young
man of excellent parts and dear to his father for his devoted service;
also Richard earl of Chester and his brother Otwell, the tutor and
guardian of the king’s son; also the king’s daughter, the countess of
Perche, and his niece, the sister of Theobald, countess of Chester;
and indeed almost the whole flower of the court, whether knight or
chaplain, and the sons of the nobility in training for knighthood; for,
as I have said, they flocked to him from all sides, hoping to gain no
small glory from either amusing or serving the son of the king. The
disaster was increased by the difficulty of recovering their bodies,
which could not easily be found by the searchers scattered along the
coast; their noble limbs became food for the cruel monsters of the deep.
The news of the prince’s death caused remarkable changes. His father
abandoned the celibacy observed by him after Matilda’s death, scheming
to beget heirs from a new queen. His father-in-law, on the other hand,
on his return home from Jerusalem, faithlessly joined the party of
William, son of Robert duke of Normandy, giving to him in marriage his
second daughter and the county of Maine, his wrath being roused and
sharpened against the king for keeping the dowry of his daughter in
England after the prince’s death.
A NORMAN PRELATE.
=Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Epistola de Contemptu Mundi_, ed.
Arnold, p. 299. (Rolls Series.)
Experience of evil is a fatal hook to catch at men’s hearts and enslave
them to riches and transitory pleasures. This I have learned from my
own life. For when I was a child, a boy and a young man, I used to see
the glory of Robert, our bishop, his gallant knights, his noble pages,
his costly horses, his vessels of gold and silver gilt, his store
of plate, his gorgeous waiting-men, his purple robes and fine linen,
and I thought there could be no happier condition. And when all men,
even they who lectured in the schools on the vanity of the world, were
obsequious to him, and he himself, honoured as the father and god of
all, loved and valued the world overmuch, with what countenance, with
what temper would I have regarded any man who should have told me then
that this splendour, which all admired, was contemptible? I would have
judged him more mad than Orestes, more querulous than Thersites. I
thought there could be no flaw in the exalted happiness of so exalted
a man. But when I became a man, I heard stories of the vilest abuse
being levelled at him, and felt that I would have fainted if the same
words had been spoken to me, who possess nothing, before the same high
audience. I began therefore to deem of less account that inestimable
happiness.
But since many worldly folk commonly experience the bitterest reverses
before their death, I will relate what befel him before his end. He
who had been justiciar of the whole of England and greatly feared by
all men, was twice impleaded by the king at the end of his life before
a justice of low birth, and twice condemned with disgrace in the
heaviest damages; whereby his anguish of heart so affected him, that
when I, now his archdeacon, sat by him at dinner, I saw that he had
been moved to tears. I asked the cause, and he replied, “At one time my
attendants were sumptuously clothed; now the fines exacted by the king,
whose favour I have always sought, have reduced them to sheepskins.”
After this his despair of winning the king’s friendship was so great
that when the high praise lavished on him by the king in his absence
was reported to him, he said with a sigh, “The king only praises a
subject whom he has determined utterly to ruin.” For king Henry, if one
may dare to say so, exercised consummate duplicity and possessed an
inscrutable mind. A few days afterwards, at Woodstock, where the king
had appointed a hunt, while conversing with the king and the bishop of
Salisbury, who were the highest in the kingdom, our bishop was struck
with apoplexy. Alive, but speechless, he was carried into his house,
and soon afterwards died in the king’s presence. The great king, whom
he had always served, whom he had loved much and feared much, whom he
held in such honour, whom he trusted so entirely, no more availed him
in his last necessity than a beggar. Note therefore that it was not
said in vain, “Cursed be he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his
arm.” When therefore the child or the boy or the young man regards the
prosperous, let him take thought of the uncertainty of their end, and
remember that even in this world they may be doomed to suffer a decline
full of misery. Bishop Robert was gentle and humble, advancing many and
crushing none, the father of orphans, beloved by his household; yet
this was the end of him.
THE ORGANISATION OF THE EXCHEQUER.
=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 60.
_What the Exchequer[34] is, and what is the reason of this term?_
_Disciple._ What is the Exchequer?
_Master._ The Exchequer is a rectangular board about ten feet in length
and five in breadth, set like a table for those who sit round it, and
on every side it has an edge about four fingers high, that nothing set
thereon may fall off. Over the top of the Exchequer is placed a cloth,
bought in the Easter term, not any sort of cloth, but black marked
with stripes, which are separated from each other by the space either
of a foot or of a hand’s breadth. And in the spaces there are counters
placed according to their value.... Now, though such a board is called
the Exchequer, yet this term is transferred also to the court itself,
when the Exchequer is sitting; so that if any man obtain aught by an
award, or anything be decreed by common counsel, it is said to have
been done at the Exchequer of this or that year. And where men say
to-day “at the Exchequer,” they used to say “at the tallies.”
_D._ What is the reason of this term?
_M._ No better one occurs to me at present than that its shape is like
that of a chessboard.
_D._ Would the wisdom of the ancients ever have so called it for its
shape only, when for a like reason it might have been called “the
Board?”
_M._ I was right in calling you particular. There is another but a
less obvious reason. As in a game of chess there are certain ranks
of combatants, which advance or stand still by certain rules or
limitations, some presiding and others preceding: so here some preside
and others assist by reason of their office, and none is free to
transgress the established rules.... Moreover, as in chess the battle
is fought between kings, so here it is mainly between two that the war
is waged and the battle fought, to wit, the treasurer, and the sheriff
who sits there to render account; the others sitting by as judges, to
look on and give judgment.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXCHEQUER PROCEDURE IN RELATION TO ROYAL REVENUE.
=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 89.
_By whom and for what cause the testing of silver was instituted?_
_D._ By whom and for what cause was the testing or combustion
instituted?
_M._ In order that this may be clear to you, we must go back a little
further. In the original condition of the realm after the Conquest,
as we have learned from our fathers, only victuals were paid to the
kings from their lands, and not gold or silver by weight, and from
such payments were supplied the necessaries for the daily use of the
royal household; and those who had been appointed for this purpose
knew certainly how much came from each estate. But for the payments or
gifts to the knights and for other necessary things, money by tale[35]
accrued from the pleas of the realm and from covenants,[36] and from
the cities or castles where agriculture was not pursued. This practice,
then, continued during the whole time of king William I., and as late
as the times of king Henry his son; in fact, I myself have seen people
who saw victuals brought at stated times from the royal estates to
the court; and the officials of the royal household knew precisely
from which counties wheat, and from which different kinds of meat or
fodder for horses or any other necessaries, were due. Upon payment of
these supplies according to the established amount of each, the royal
officials put them to the sheriff’s account, reducing them to a sum
of money; to wit, for a measure of wheat sufficient to make bread for
a hundred men, 1_s._; for the carcase of a fattened ox, 1_s._; for a
ram or a sheep, 4_d._; and for the fodder of twenty horses, also 4_d._
But as time went on, when the same king was occupied beyond seas and
in remote parts, repressing the tumult of war, it came to pass that
the sum necessary to meet these operations was paid to him in money by
tale. Meanwhile a grumbling multitude of husbandmen used to flock to
the king’s court, or, what he thought worse, often used to press about
him as he passed by, offering their ploughs as a sign of the decay
of agriculture, for they were oppressed by innumerable hardships on
account of the victuals, which they brought from their homes through
all parts of the realm. The king listened to their complaints, and
after taking counsel with the nobles, sent throughout the realm the
wisest and most discreet men whom he knew for the purpose. They went
about surveying the several estates with their own eyes, and, valuing
the victuals paid from them, reduced the same to a sum of money. They
decreed, further, that for the sum total of the amounts arising from
all the estates in one county the sheriff of that county should be
holden at the Exchequer; adding that he should pay by scale, that is,
6_d._ on each pound by tale. For they thought that in course of time
it might well happen that the money, then good, might deteriorate. In
this opinion they proved right. So they were forced to decree that the
farm of manors should be paid not only by scale but by weight, which
could only be done by making considerable additions. This rule of
payment was observed for many years at the Exchequer, and so in the old
yearly rolls of that king you will often find written “in the treasury
100_l._ by scale,” or, “in the treasury 100_l._ by weight.” Meanwhile
an able man arose, farseeing in counsel, eloquent in speech, and by
God’s grace preeminent in his immediate grasp of the deepest matters;
you would say that he fulfilled what is written, “the grace of the
Holy Ghost knows not slow movements.” He was summoned to the court by
the king, obscure but not without nobility, and taught by his example
“how extreme poverty is the school of men.” Increasing in favour with
the king, the clergy and the people, he was made bishop of Salisbury,
enjoyed the highest offices and honours in the realm, and possessed
a consummate knowledge of the Exchequer. As to this there is no room
for doubt, for the rolls themselves prove clearly that the Exchequer
prospered exceedingly under him. And it is from his stores that the
little knowledge we possess has trickled down. On this subject I
refrain at present from speaking at length, since owing to the position
which he filled, he has left behind him a lasting memorial of his high
genius. Afterwards by the king’s order he came to the Exchequer; and
after having sat there for some years, he found that the method of
payment described above failed to satisfy the treasury to the full; for
though it appeared to obtain its dues by tale and by weight, it was
defrauded in actual substance. For it did not follow that if a man had
paid for a pound 20_s._ by tale, even if the shillings corresponded to
a pound in weight, he had therefore paid a pound of silver; for the
money paid by him might have been mixed with copper or any ore, since
no test was applied. In order, therefore, that the royal and the public
advantage might at the same time be provided for, it was decreed, after
consultation with the king himself, that the combustion or testing of
the farm should be made in the aforesaid manner.
_D._ Why do you say “the public advantage?”
_M._ Because the sheriff, feeling aggrieved by the combustion of the
debased money, when he is about to pay his farm, takes careful heed
that the moneyers set under him do not transgress the established law;
and when offenders are caught, they are so punished that others may be
deterred by the example made of them.
THE OATH OF THE BARONS TO SUPPORT THE SUCCESSION OF MATILDA THE EMPRESS
(1126).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 528. (Rolls Series.)
In the twenty-seventh year of his reign, king Henry came to England
in the month of September, bringing his daughter with him; and at
Christmas following he summoned to London a large number of the clergy
and the barons, and there gave the county of Salop to his wife, the
daughter of the Count of Louvain, whom he had wedded after Matilda’s
death; grieved that she had no issue, and fearing that she would remain
childless, he was meditating, with well-founded anxiety, the question
of his successor to the throne. This matter had already been debated at
length, and at this council he constrained and bound with an oath all
the barons of the whole realm, and bishops and abbots also, to accept
as their lady his daughter Matilda, formerly empress, without any delay
or hesitation, if he should die without heir male. He pointed out how
disastrous to the country had been the loss of his son, William, to
whom the realm of right belonged; now there survived his daughter,
in whom alone inhered the lawful succession, from her grandfather,
her uncle and her father, all kings, and on her mother’s side, for
centuries past....
So all who were thought to be of weight in this council, took the oath;
first, William, archbishop of Canterbury, then the rest of the bishops,
and the abbots also. The first of the laity to take the oath was David,
king of Scotland, the empress’s uncle; then Stephen, count of Mortain
and Boulogne, nephew of king Henry by his sister Adela; then Robert,
the king’s son, born before he came to the throne, whom he had created
earl of Gloucester.... There was, it is said, a remarkable dispute
between Robert and Stephen, who strove in generous rivalry to be the
first to take the oath, the one alleging the son’s privilege, the other
the nephew’s rank. Thus all the barons were bound by fealty and oath,
whereupon each departed to his own home. After Whitsuntide, however,
the king sent his daughter to Normandy, ordering the archbishop of
Rouen to betroth her to the son of Fulk (count of Anjou), a prince of
great nobility and famous courage; the king himself made no delay in
taking ship to Normandy and uniting them in marriage. Whereupon all
men foretold prophetically that after his death they would break their
oath. I have myself often heard Roger, bishop of Salisbury, say that
he was loosed from the oath made to the empress, for he had sworn it
on condition that the king would not give his daughter in marriage out
of the realm without the advice of him and the rest of the baronage;
and that no one authorized, no one had knowledge of the marriage
except Robert, earl of Gloucester, Brian Fitz Count, and the bishop
of Louviers. I do not relate this because I believe to be true the
words of a man who knew how to adapt himself to every change of fickle
fortune, but as a credible historian I set in writing common opinion.
THE DISPUTED ELECTION OF AN ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (1123).
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 374.
(Rolls Series.)
Then ... the king sent his writ over all England and bade his bishops
and his abbots and all his thegns that they should come to his council
on Candlemas Day (2 February) at Gloucester to meet him, and so they
did. When they were there gathered, the king bade them that they should
choose them an archbishop of Canterbury, whomsoever they would. Then
spake the bishops among themselves and said that never more would
they have a monkish man to be archbishop over them; and they all
went together to the king and prayed that they might choose a man
of the clergy, whomsoever they would, for archbishop; and the king
granted the same to them. This was all afore done through the bishop
of Salisbury and through the bishop of Lincoln before he was dead;
for that they loved never the rule of a monk, but were ever against
monks and their rule. And the prior and the monks of Canterbury and
all the other monkish men that were there withstood it full two days,
but it availed nothing, for the bishop of Salisbury was strong and
ruled all England, and was against it all that he might and could be.
Then chose they a clerk, William of Corbeil by name; he was canon of
a monastery called Chich (St. Osyth). And they brought him before the
king, and the king gave him the archbishopric, and all the bishops
accepted him, but the monks and earls and almost all the thegns that
were there withstood him. At the same time the envoys of the count (of
Anjou) departed from the king unsatisfied and cared nought for his
favour. At the same time there came a legate from Rome by name Henry;
he was abbot of the monastery of St. Jean d’Angely, and he came for
the Romescot. And he said to the king that it was against right that
a clerk should be set over monks, and therefore had the monks before
chosen an archbishop in their chapter according to right. But the
king would not undo it for love of the bishop of Salisbury. Then soon
thereafter the archbishop went to Canterbury, and was there received,
though it was against their will, and was there forthwith consecrated
as bishop by the bishop of London and the bishop Ernulf of Rochester
and the bishop William Giffard of Winchester and the bishop Bernard
of Wales and the bishop Roger of Salisbury. Then soon after in Lent
the archbishop went to Rome for his pall, and with him went the bishop
Bernard of Wales, and Sigfrid abbot of Glastonbury, and Anselm abbot
of St. Edmunds, and John archdeacon of Canterbury and Giffard, who was
the king’s household chaplain. At the same time the archbishop Thurstan
of York went to Rome at the Pope’s command, and came thither three
days before the archbishop of Canterbury came, and was there received
with great worship. Then came the archbishop of Canterbury and was
there full seven nights before he could come to speech with the Pope.
That was because it had been given to the Pope to understand that he
had received the archbishopric against the will of the monks of the
monastery, and against right. But that overcame Rome which overcomes
all the world, that is, gold and silver. And the Pope was appeased and
gave him his pall; and the archbishop swore obedience to him in all
things that the Pope enjoined upon him, on the altar of St. Peter and
St. Paul; and the Pope sent him home then with his blessing.
THE DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HENRY I.
=Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_, ed. Arnold, p.
253. (Rolls Series.)
In the thirty-fifth year King Henry stayed continuously in Normandy,
and though destined never to return, he often purposed to return to
England; but his daughter detained him through constant quarrels
arising from many causes by her intrigues between the king and the
count of Anjou. These vexations irritated the king to anger and
bitterness, which resulted, some say, in a natural torpor, and
afterwards, it is thought, caused his death. At any rate, on his return
from hunting at St. Denis in the Forêt des Lions, he ate a dish of
lampreys, of which he was always fond, though they always disagreed
with him. A physician had forbidden him to eat them, but the king
ignored his sound advice on the poet’s principles--
“Ever we strive against the law,
And love to taste forbidden fruit.”
So this meal brought on an evil humour and was followed by the old
violent symptoms, which resulted in a complete collapse, his aged
frame sinking into a deadly lethargy, the natural struggle of his
constitution provoked an acute fever in the effort to throw off the
poison in his system, but his powers of resistance failing, the great
king died on 1 December after a reign of thirty-five years and three
months....
On the death of the great king Henry, his character was freely
discussed by the people, as is usual in the case of the departed.
Some asserted that three splendid gifts especially distinguished him;
supreme wisdom, for he was profound in counsel, acutely farseeing
and brilliant in speech; success in war, for apart from other famous
exploits he overcame the king of France in battle; and wealth, in
which he far surpassed all his predecessors. Others, however, took a
different point of view, and urged that he was tainted by three vices;
avarice, because, like all his house, though rich, he impoverished the
poor with taxes and exactions, and snared them in the toils of the
informer; cruelty also, because he put out the eyes of his kinsman,
the count of Moretuil, when in captivity (this horrible crime could
not be known until death laid bare the king’s secret acts), and other
instances also were alleged, of which I say nothing; and excess
also.... Such was the common division of opinion. But in the terrible
time that followed, amid the savage anarchy of the Norman traitors,
all that Henry had done, whether as king or despot, seemed more than
excellent in comparison with worse evil.
THE ACCESSION OF STEPHEN (1135).
=Source.=--_Gesta Stephani_, ed. Howlett, vol. iii., p. 3. (Rolls
Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I.)
When king Henry, giver of peace to his country and father of his
people, passed away in death, the unhappy event threw the whole country
into anarchy and total confusion. The land, which during his reign had
been the seat of justice and the home of law, became on his decease
a sink of iniquity and a hotbed of all malice. England, formerly the
abode of right, the habitation of peace, the throne of piety, the
mirror of religion, became the dwelling-place of perversity, the refuge
of discord, the school of disorder, and the mistress of all rebellion.
The reverend bonds of sacred friendship were straightway broken among
the people, the most intimate ties of mutual kinship were loosed, and
those who had worn the garments of daily tranquillity were whelmed by
the noise of battle and the madness of war. For every man was seized
with a new passion for barbarity, to run riot against his neighbour,
and to reckon his glory by the measure of his wrongs to the innocent.
The established laws, that restrain an undisciplined people, were
wholly neglected, nay rather annulled, and men straightway accomplished
any crime which their unlawful passions inspired. To use the words of
the prophet, “There was no soundness from the sole of the foot to the
crown of the head,” for from the lowest to the highest their minds were
sick, and either they wrought havoc or assented to the havoc which
others wrought. Even the wild beasts, which were aforetime peaceably
preserved in every district, as though confined by enclosures, were
everywhere loosed and hunted by all and slain by all indiscriminately
and without fear. This, indeed, was a lesser evil, and a matter of
small complaint; none the less it was amazing how so many thousands
of beasts, that before had covered the whole country in thronging
herds, were now suddenly annihilated, so that out of so vast a number
you would scarcely discover two together. When at length this great
and indescribable plenty began so to decline that, as men say, a bird
was a rarity and scarce a stag could anywhere be seen, folk turned
their violence against each other and robbed their neighbours, each
plundering each in turn, and plotting ambush and destruction for each
other, as the prophet said, “Man rose up without mercy against man, and
everyone was set against his neighbour.” Whatever crime was suggested
by passion in times of peace, was now swiftly brought to an issue, when
vengeance might seize its opportunity; dissembled hatred and hidden
malice burst forth to light and was openly avowed.
While the English were indulging in this disastrous anarchy,
breaking the restraints of justice and freely rioting in all sorts
of wickedness, Stephen, count of Boulogne, a man of illustrious and
noble lineage, landed in England with a few followers. King Henry, the
peacemaker, loved him above all his nephews, not only because of his
close tie of kinship, but for the manifold excellencies that specially
distinguished and adorned him. What is rare indeed in our times, he
combined riches with modesty, generosity with courtesy; yet in all
military encounters and any siege of his enemies, he was daring and
courageous, cautious and persistent. Being the man he was, as soon as
rumours of king Henry’s death reached him, he conceived a bold design
in his heart, like Saul, and since he was beyond seas, hurried to the
coast, and obtaining by good fortune a favourable breeze, steered for
England on which his thoughts were set. Landing, as said before, with a
very small following, he hastened to London, the metropolis and queen
of the whole country. Stirred by his coming, the whole city came out to
meet him with a noisy welcome, dancing with joy and festivity to have
recovered in Stephen another Henry, the loss of whose guardianship they
were but now deploring. So the elder and more prominent men summoned
a council, and making common provision, in their judgment, for the
good estate of the realm, unanimously conspired to elect him king.
They urged that the whole realm was liable to the chances of evil
fortune, where the fount of all governance and the head of justice was
lacking. It was vital to them at once to establish a king, who should
restore peace for the common good, punish rebels by force of arms, and
justly administer the laws. Moreover it was their right, their special
privilege, on the death of their king, themselves to set his successor
on the throne. There was no other at hand to fulfil a king’s part and
put an end to the perils of the realm, save only Stephen, who, it
seemed, had been brought to them by the will of Heaven; he was worthy
of the dignity in the eyes of all, as well by the distinction of his
birth as by the excellence of his character. These points were heard
and welcomed by all without open contradiction, and by common counsel
they decided to offer him the throne and to appoint him king with their
unanimous support, both parties covenanting by a treaty confirmed,
it is said, by mutual oaths, that the citizens on the one hand would
support him with their wealth and maintain him with their strength
during his life, and that he, on the other hand, should devote all his
energies to the pacification of the realm for the benefit of them all.
THE PERJURY OF THE BARONS (1135).
=Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_, ed. Arnold, p.
256. (Rolls Series.)
In haste came Stephen, younger brother of Theobald, count of Blois,
an active and resolute man, and though he had sworn an act of fealty
to king Henry’s daughter, yet, relying on swift and bold measures, he
tempted God by seizing the crown of the realm. William, archbishop of
Canterbury, the first to take the oath to the king’s daughter, to his
shame, blessed him as king, wherefore God decreed against him the same
judgment which he had decreed against the priest who smote Jeremiah,
to wit, that he should die within a year. Roger too, the great bishop
of Salisbury, the second to take the aforesaid oath, and dictator
of the oath to all the rest, added his weighty support to Stephen’s
claims; wherefore afterward by the just judgment of God he was seized
and tortured by the king whom he had made, and suffered a miserable
end. But why linger? All who had sworn the oath, prelates and earls and
barons alike, offered their allegiance to Stephen and did him homage.
It was an evil omen that the whole of England, without hesitation,
without a struggle, in the twinkling of an eye, so suddenly submitted
to him.
THE CORONATION OATH OF KING STEPHEN (1136).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _De gestis regum Anglorum_, ed.
Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 541. (Rolls Series.)
“I, Stephen, by the grace of God, by assent of the clergy and people,
elected king of England, and consecrated by the lord William,
archbishop of Canterbury and legate of the holy Roman Church, and
afterwards confirmed by Innocent, Pope of the holy see of Rome, out
of reverence and love for God, grant that Holy Church be free, and
confirm to it due reverence. I promise that I will not do or permit any
simony in the church or in matters ecclesiastical. I admit that justice
and power over ecclesiastical persons and all clerks and over their
goods, and the distribution of ecclesiastical goods is in the hands of
the bishops, and I confirm the same. I decree that the immunities of
churches confirmed by their charters, and their customs observed by
ancient use, remain inviolate, and I confirm the same. I grant that
all possessions and holdings of churches, which they had on the day
on which king William my grandfather was alive and dead, be theirs
freely and absolutely, quit of all recovery by any claimants. But as
touching anything held or possessed before the death of the king,
whereof the church is now deprived, and for which the church shall sue
hereafter, I reserve the same to my indulgence and dispensation for
discussion or restitution. Moreover I confirm all grants made after
the death of the king by the generosity of kings, the benefaction of
princes, or the offering or sale or exchange of the faithful. I promise
to make peace and to do justice in all things, and to preserve the
same so far as in me lies. I reserve to myself the forests which king
William my grandfather, and William the Second my uncle made and held;
the rest, which king Henry added thereto, I give back and grant quit
to the churches and the realm. And if any bishop or abbot or other
ecclesiastical person before his death shall reasonably distribute his
goods, or ordain the distribution thereof, I grant that the same shall
remain valid; and if he be forestalled by death, the same distribution
shall be made for the salvation of his soul by the counsel of his
church. Moreover when sees be void of their proper pastors, both they
and all the possessions thereof shall be committed into the hand and
guardianship of the clerks and good men of the same church, until a
pastor be canonically instituted. I utterly uproot all exactions and
fines and injustices evilly imposed whether by sheriffs or by others
whomsoever. I will observe good laws and the ancient and just customs
in murder-fines and pleas and other causes, and I command and ordain
that the same be observed. Given at Oxford in the year 1136 after the
incarnation of our Lord, in the first year of my reign.”
* * * * *
I scorn to give the names of the many witnesses, for he so basely broke
almost all his promises, as if he had sworn only in order to show
himself to the whole realm as an oath-breaker. I must speak the truth,
gentlest of princes though he was; for if he had lawfully obtained the
kingdom, and in administering the same had not lent too ready an ear
to the intrigues of evil-minded men, verily little would have been
lacking to his royal dignity. Under him, however, the treasure of some
churches was plundered, their landed possessions were given to laymen;
the churches of the clergy were sold to aliens; bishops were imprisoned
and forced to transfer their goods; and abbeys were granted to unworthy
men, either to reward friends or to pay debts. Still I consider that
these evils must be ascribed to his counsellors rather than to himself;
for they persuaded him that he need never lack money so long as there
were monasteries packed with treasure.
FEUDAL ANARCHY UNDER STEPHEN.
=Source.=--_The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 382.
(Rolls Series.)
When the traitors perceived that he was a mild man, and soft and good,
and did no justice, then did they all wonder. They had done homage to
him and sworn oaths, but had held no faith; they were all forsworn
and brake their fealty; for every mighty man built his castles and
held them against him; and they filled the land full of castles. They
cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works. When
the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. Then
they took those men whom they deemed to have any possessions, both by
night and by day, husbandmen and women, and put them in prison for gold
and silver, and tortured them with unspeakable torture, for never were
martyrs so tortured as they were. They hanged them up by the feet, and
smoked them with foul smoke; they hanged them by the thumbs or by
the head, and hung fires on their feet; they put knotted cords about
their heads, and twisted them so that it went to the brain. They put
them in dungeons, in which were adders and snakes and toads, and so
killed them. Some they put in a “crucet hus,” that is, in a chest that
was short and narrow and shallow, and put sharp stones therein, and
pressed the man therein, so that they brake all his limbs. In many of
the castles were ... neck-bonds, so that two or three men had enough to
bear one. It was made thus, that is, fastened to a beam; and they put
a sharp iron about the man’s throat and his neck, so that he might no
wise sit or lie or sleep, but must bear all that iron. Many thousands
they killed with hunger; I cannot and may not tell all the wounds or
all the tortures which they wrought on wretched men in this land; and
it lasted the nineteen winters while Stephen was king; and ever it was
worse and worse. They laid gelds on the towns continually ...; when the
wretched men had no more to give, they robbed and burned all the towns,
so that thou mightest well go all a day’s journey, and thou wouldst
never find a man settled in a town, nor the land tilled. Then was corn
dear, and meat and cheese and butter, for there was none in the land.
Wretched men died of hunger; some went seeking alms, who were sometime
rich men; some fled out of the land. Never yet had more wretchedness
been in the land, nor did heathen men ever do worse than they did; for
everywhere they spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all the
goods that were therein, and then burned the church and all together.
Nor spared they a bishop’s land, nor an abbot’s, nor a priest’s, but
robbed monks and clerks, and every man another who anywhere could. If
two or three men came riding to a town, all the township fled before
them, deeming that they were robbers. The bishops and clergy cursed
them ever, but nothing came thereof, for they were all accursed and
forsworn and lost. However a man tilled, the earth bare no corn, for
the land was all undone with such deeds, and they said openly that
Christ slept, and his saints. Such and more than we can say we endured
nineteen winters for our sins.
WALES AND THE WELSH (1136).
=Source.=--_Gesta Stephani_, ed. Howlett, vol. iii., p. 10. (Rolls
Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I.)
Wales is a land of woods and pastures, adjoining England on its nearest
borders, and jutting into the sea on the other side throughout its
whole extent. It abounds in stags and fish, and cows and oxen. The
men it rears are savage, swift of foot by nature, fighters by habit,
and untrustworthy and unsettled alike. When the Normans had conquered
England in battle, they established their sovereignty over this land
also with numberless castles. They crushed the natives with spirit,
and civilised them with patience; to ensure peace they imposed upon
them law and ordinances, and brought the land to such fertility and
abundant plenty, that you would deem it in no wise inferior to the most
fruitful part of Britain. But on the death of king Henry, when the
peace and concord of the realm were buried with him, the Welsh, who
always cherished mortal hatred of their lords, wholly cast off the yoke
to which their treaties bound them, and issuing in bands from divers
places, made hostile inroads now here, now there, and with plunder,
fire and sword, wasted towns, burned houses, and slaughtered men. They
first attacked the district of Gower on the seacoast, a beautiful and
abundantly fertile spot, and surrounded and entirely put to the sword a
band of knights and footmen massed against them to the number of 516.
Thereafter, exulting in the successful issue of their first uprising,
they boldly overran all the marches of Wales, bent on every crime and
ready for any mischief, neither sparing age nor reverencing rank, and
suffering no time or place to check their violence. Rumours of this
rebellion reached the ears of the king, who, to curb their unbridled
audacity, sent a force of knights and archers, hired at a great
cost of treasure, to crush them. Some, however, after many glorious
exploits, were slain there, while the rest, unable to endure the savage
onslaughts of the enemy, after much toil and expense, retreated with
dishonour.
THE BATTLE OF THE STANDARD (1138).
=Source.=--Richard of Hexham, _De gestis regis Stephani_, ed. Hewlett,
vol. iii., p. 159. (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and
Richard I.)
The king (of Scotland) passing by Durham with his army wasted the crops
as far as the river Tees, and after his custom broke into, plundered
and burned the towns and churches which he had earlier left untouched;
and crossing the Tees also, he began to work the same havoc. But the
pity of God, stirred by the tears of innumerable widows, orphans and
wretched men, suffered him no longer to practise impiety so great
without punishment. The preparations of him and his men for such
wickedness, all his stores, and what he intended to do and whither to
go, did not escape the men of Yorkshire. So the barons of that county,
to wit, archbishop Thurstan, who, as will appear later, was a prime
mover in this business, and William de Aumâle, Walter de Ghent, Robert
de Bruce, Roger de Mowbray, Walter Spec, Ilbert de Lacy, William de
Percy, Richard de Courcy, William Fossard, Robert de Stutevill, and the
other mighty and learned men, assembled at York and discussed eagerly
among themselves what plan to adopt in this crisis. And since many
hesitated, suspecting the treason of others and mutually distrustful,
and since they had no commander and leader in war, for king Stephen
their lord was overwhelmed at that season with equal difficulties in
the south of England and could not come to them at present, and since
they feared to oppose their slight forces to numbers so superior,
it seemed as if they would altogether abandon the attempt to defend
themselves and their country; but Thurstan, their archbishop, a man
of great persistence and worth, encouraged them with his speech and
counsel. For he was the pastor of their souls, and unlike the hireling,
regarded not his own safety by flight from the ravaging wolf, but
rather was torn by the keenest compassionate grief at the scattering
and undoing of his flock and the destruction of his country, and
left no step untried, no stone unturned, to find a remedy for such
monstrous evils. Wherefore, both by the divine authority entrusted to
him and by the royal power then committed to him in this matter, and
by their fealty and honour, he faithfully admonished them not to allow
themselves through cowardice to be overthrown in a single day by the
worst sort of barbarism.... He also promised them that he would cause
the priests of his diocese to march together with them to battle,
with their crosses and their parishioners, and purposed himself, God
willing, to be present at the fight. At the same troubled season
Bernard de Balliol, one of the chief men of that district, came to them
from the king with a large body of knights, and both on the king’s
and his own behalf inflamed their hearts to the same purpose. Urged
therefore by the commands both of their king and of their archbishop,
they were all with one accord confirmed in one same purpose, and each
returned to his home. Soon after they all reassembled at York with
their munitions and arms ready for war. So when they had done penance
privately, the archbishop enjoined on them a three-days’ fast with
alms, and thereafter solemnly gave them absolution and God’s and his
own blessing, and though by reason of great infirmity and the weakness
of old age he was carried in a litter wherever he was needed, yet to
arouse their courage he determined to go with them. But they forced
him to remain, beseeching him to be content to intercede for them by
prayer and alms, watching and fasting and by other godly works; they
would gladly fight the enemy for God’s church and for His minister, as
He should deign to help them, and as their order demanded. Thereupon
he delivered to them his cross and the banner of St. Peter and his
own men; and they went to the town of Thirsk. Thence they sent Robert
de Brus and Bernard de Balliol to the king of Scotland, who was now
wasting the land of St. Cuthbert, as was said above; they begged him,
with the greatest deference and friendliness, to desist thenceforth
from his cruel measures, and promise faithfully to ask the king of
England to confer on Henry, son of the king of Scotland, the county
of Northumberland, which that king had demanded. But he and his men
hardened their hearts, rejected their overtures, and treated them with
scornful contempt. So Robert abjured the homage he had done to him, and
Bernard the fealty which he had once sworn, when captured by him, and
both returned to their fellows. Thereupon all the chief men of that
county, and William Peverel and Geoffrey Halsalin from Nottinghamshire,
and Robert de Ferers from Derbyshire, and other weighty and wise men,
bound and fortified themselves in turn with oaths, that none of them
would desert the others in this business, so long as they could each
render mutual aid, and so all would either die or conquer together. At
the same time the archbishop sent to them Ralph Novellus, bishop of
Orkney, with one of his own archdeacons and other clerks, who in his
stead should enjoin penance and give absolution to the bands of people
daily flocking thither from all quarters. He also sent to them the
priests with their parishioners, as he had promised them.
While, then, they were looking for the coming of the Scots, the scouts,
whom they had sent in advance, returned, reporting that the king had
already crossed the river Tees with his army, and after his custom
was now devastating their district. So they went to meet him with the
utmost haste, and passing through the town of Northallerton, reached
at break of day a field two miles distant therefrom. Forthwith some of
them set up the mast of a ship in the middle of a scaffold which they
had brought, and called it the Standard.... On the top thereof they
hung a silver box containing the body of Christ, and the banners of St.
Peter the Apostle, and St. John of Beverley and St. Wilfred of Ripon,
confessors and bishops. This they did that Jesus Christ our Lord, by
the presence of His body, might be their leader in the war which they
had undertaken for the defence of His church and their country, at the
same time providing hereby that, if any of them should be by chance
separated from their fellows and scattered, they would have a sure
signal by which to return to them and there find assistance. They had
hardly equipped themselves with arms for the fight, when the king of
Scotland was reported to be at hand with the whole of his army ready
and arrayed for battle. Therefore a great part of the knights left
their horses and became footmen, and the choicest of them were arrayed
with archers and set in the front rank, the rest, except the ordainers
and directors of the battle, being packed about the Standard in the
centre of the position, while the remainder of the troops were massed
around them on every side in a dense rampart. The band of horsemen and
the horses of the knights were withdrawn a little farther, that they
might not take fright at the noise and clamour of the Scots. In like
manner among the enemy the king himself and almost all his men became
footmen and their horses were kept farther back. In the forefront of
the battle were the Picts, in the middle the king with his knights
and Englishmen; and the rest of the barbarous horde pressed around on
all sides. While they marched to battle in such order, the Standard
with its banners was seen not far away, and at once the hearts of the
king and his followers were struck with a mighty fear and terror. But
hardened in their malice, they yet strove to fulfil the evil work begun
by them. So on the octave of the Assumption of St. Mary, 22 August,
between the first and third hours, the strife of this battle began
and ended. For straightway at the first onset innumerable Picts were
slain, and the rest threw down their arms and basely took to flight.
The field was choked with corpses, large numbers were captured, and
the king and all the residue fled. Of that great army, all were either
killed or captured or scattered like sheep whose shepherd is smitten
down, and in wonderful wise, as if deprived of their sense, they fled
as much away from their own land into the neighbouring parts of their
enemies’ country, as towards their native land. But wherever they
were found, they were killed like sheep for slaughter; and so by the
righteous judgment of God, those who had woefully slain and left the
dead unburied were themselves more woefully cut to pieces, and found
no burial after the fashion of their own or the foreigners’ land, but
were exposed to dogs, birds and wild beasts, or torn and dismembered,
or left to decay and putrefy under the open sky. The king also, who a
short time before in his excessive pride of heart and in the magnitude
of his army seemed to have raised his head among the stars of heaven,
and therefore threatened to destroy utterly the whole or the greatest
part of England, was now shorn of his glory, and accompanied by but a
few, and covered with the utmost shame and disgrace, scarcely escaped
alive.
The degree of the divine vengeance appeared most clearly in the fact
that the army of the vanquished was beyond estimation larger than that
of the conquerors; nor could the number of the slain be counted by any
man. For, as many bear witness, of the army which left Scotland alone,
more than ten thousand are reckoned to have been missing from the ranks
of those who returned, for throughout divers parts of Deira, Bernicia,
Northumberland, Cumberland and other districts, many more were cut off
after the battle than were slain in the battle. The English army, on
the other hand, lost few of its numbers, speedily gaining a victory
by God’s aid; and dividing the booty which was found there in great
quantities, in a short while almost wholly broke up, and every man
returned to his own home, restoring to the churches with joy and
thanksgiving the banners of the saints which they had received. Verily
they had marched to this battle in their finest array and all their
wealth, as it had been to a royal marriage feast.
KING STEPHEN’S ATTACK ON THE BISHOPS (1139).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _Historia Novella_, ed. Stubbs, vol.
ii., pp. 547-555. (Rolls Series.)
In the year 1139 after the Incarnation of our Lord, the venom of
malice, which king Stephen’s heart had long been fostering, at length
burst forth openly. Rumours were spreading about England that earl
Robert was on the eve of coming from Normandy with his sister;[37] and
in expectation thereof many were disaffected towards the king, not
only in will but in deed, whereupon he repaired his losses by wronging
others. Many were seized at court against the king’s honour, on mere
suspicion of supporting the opposite party, and forced to surrender
their castles and submit to whatsoever conditions he chose. There
were at that time in England two exceeding powerful bishops, Roger
of Salisbury, and his brother’s son, Alexander of Lincoln. Alexander
had built the castle of Newark, for the defence and honour of the
bishopric, as he said. Roger, who wished to display magnificence in
the building of castles, had erected more imposing fortifications
at Sherborne and Devizes, covering a large area of ground with his
buildings. He had begun a castle at Malmesbury in the churchyard
itself, hardly a stone’s throw from the principal church. The castle
of Salisbury, though it was the king’s own property, had passed into
his keeping by grant of king Henry, and had been surrounded with a
wall. Some of the powerful laity, stirred to envy that they should be
surpassed by clerks in their wealth of heaped-up treasure and the size
of their towns, cherished in their hearts a sullen jealousy. So they
poured their discontents into the king’s ear, urging that it would
all unquestionably turn to the king’s destruction, since, as soon as
the empress came, they would welcome their lady by surrendering their
castles, drawn to her by the memory of her father’s favours; they
must therefore be at once forestalled and constrained to yield up
their fortresses.... The king, though too favourably inclined to these
advisers, for some time pretended not to listen to their attractive
proposals, easing the bitterness of postponement either by his regard
for the holy office of the bishops, or, as I incline to think, by his
fear of the odium involved. In the end he only put off the execution of
the policy thus urged upon him until the first favourable opportunity.
That arose in the following manner.
A council of the nobility was held at Oxford on 24 June, which the
prelates aforesaid attended. The bishop of Salisbury was most unwilling
to go. I heard him say: “By my Lady St. Mary, I know not why, but
I have no liking for this journey. This I know, that I shall be of
as much use in the court as a foal in a battle.” For so his heart
foreboded ills to come. Fortune, as it turned out, seemed to favour
the king’s desires; a riot arose between the men of the bishops and
the men of Alan, count of Brittany, over a claim to quarters; the end
was melancholy, for the men of the bishop of Salisbury, who were then
sitting at table, left their meal unfinished and jumped up to fight.
The affair was settled with curses first and swords afterwards. The
retainers of Alan were driven off, his nephew barely escaping alive,
while the bishops’ party did not secure a bloodless victory, many being
wounded and one knight killed. The king seized the opportunity and
ordered the original instigators to summon the bishops to satisfy his
court for their retainers’ breach of the king’s peace; the satisfaction
demanded was the delivery of the keys of their castles as pledges of
their good faith. They were ready to give satisfaction, but hesitated
to surrender the castles, whereupon he commanded that they should
be closely confined, to prevent their departure. So he took them to
Devizes, bishop Roger unbound, but the chancellor, his nephew (or more
than his nephew), in fetters; his object was to take the castle, which
had been built at a great and almost incalculable cost, not for the
glory of the church, as the prelate himself alleged, but, in sober
truth, to its detriment. Upon investment, the castles of Salisbury,
Sherborne and Malmesbury were surrendered to the king; Devizes itself
was given up after three days, bishop Roger voluntarily imposing
abstinence upon himself, that by his personal suffering he might induce
the bishop of Ely, who held the castle, to yield.[38] Alexander, the
bishop of Lincoln, gave way also without more ado, purchasing his
delivery by the surrender of the castles of Newark and Sleaford.
This action of the king was widely discussed from opposite standpoints.
Some said that the bishops were rightly dispossessed of their castles,
because they had defied the canons in erecting them; they ought to be
preachers of the gospel of peace, not builders of houses that might
harbour the authors of evil. This view was urged and further amplified
by the arguments of Hugh, archbishop of Rouen, who stoutly championed
the king with all his eloquence. Others said the contrary, and this
party had the support of Henry, bishop of Winchester, legate in England
of the apostolic see, brother of king Stephen.... “If bishops,” he
said, “in any wise forsake the way of justice, the canons, not the
king, must be their judge; they ought to have been deprived of no
possession without a public ecclesiastical council; the king had acted
not from zeal for righteousness, but for his own private benefit, since
he had not given the castles back to the churches, at whose charges
and on whose lands they had been built, but had delivered them to
laymen, and those by no means favourable to religion.” He urged these
considerations in the king’s presence both privately and publicly,
pressing him to deliver and make restitution to the prelates, but his
labour was wasted, his plea ignored. Wherefore, determined to exert the
force of the canons, he summoned his brother instantly to appear before
the council which was to be holden on 29 August at Winchester.
On the appointed day almost all the bishops of England, with Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury ... came to Winchester.... The bull of Pope
Innocent was first read in the council, whereby from March 1, if I
remember rightly, he had delegated part of his charge to the lord
bishop of Winchester as his legate in England.... Next followed in
the council the legate’s address in Latin, prepared for the learned,
touching the disgraceful seizure of the bishops, of whom the bishop of
Salisbury had been taken in the chamber of the court, and the bishop of
Lincoln in his lodging, while the bishop of Ely, fearing a like fate,
had escaped disaster by a hasty flight to Devizes; it was a scandalous
crime that the king should have been so led astray, at the instigation
of others, as to order violent hands to be laid on his men, especially
bishops, in the peace of his court. To the king’s dishonour was added
an offence against Heaven, to wit, that under the cloak of the
bishops’ guilt, churches were robbed of their possessions. He was so
indignant at the king’s outrage against God’s law, that he would rather
himself suffer great inconvenience to his person and his possessions
than that the episcopal dignity should be so basely humiliated. He had
many times warned the king to make amends for his sin; and at last the
king had consented to the summoning of a council. The archbishop and
the rest should take counsel together as to necessary action; he would
not fail in the execution of their advice either out of love for the
king, his own brother, or out of fear of losing his possessions, or
even of risking his life.
While he was gradually enlarging upon this theme, the king, confident
in his own cause, sent earls to the council to ask why he had been
summoned.... They were accompanied by one Aubrey de Vere, a man well
versed in all kinds of legal causes.... The sum of his charges was as
follows: bishop Roger had committed many offences against king Stephen;
he had scarcely ever been to the court without riots being stirred up
by his men, presuming on his power; as often at other times, so lately
at Oxford they had assaulted the men and even the nephew of count
Alan.... The bishop of Lincoln had instigated his men to riot, out of
his old hatred against count Alan. The bishop of Salisbury secretly
supported the king’s enemies and only disguised his treachery for
the moment; the king had many unquestionable proofs of it, the chief
being that he refused a single night’s lodging to Roger de Mortemer
and the king’s knights led by him, when they were in mortal terror of
the Bristol rebels. Everybody was saying that as soon as the Empress
should have come, he would attach himself to her with his nephews and
his castles. Therefore Roger was seized not as a bishop, but as the
king’s servant, who had at once administered his affairs and received
his wages. The king had not taken the castles by force, but both the
bishops had voluntarily surrendered them to escape the accusation of
the rioting which they had incited in the court. The king had found in
the castles a small sum of money which was lawfully his, for bishop
Roger had collected it in the time of king Henry, the king’s uncle and
predecessor, from the rents due at the royal Exchequer. The bishop had
willingly yielded up both money and castles, for fear of his offences
against the king, and the king had no lack of witnesses thereto. For
his part, the king was willing that his agreement with the bishops
should remain unimpaired.
Bishop Roger exclaimed in reply that he had never been king Stephen’s
minister, and had never received his wages. He threatened, moreover, in
his anger, thinking shame to give way to his misfortunes, that if he
could not obtain justice in that council for the property wrested from
him, he would seek it in the hearing of a higher court....
So much was said on both sides, and at the king’s request the cause
was adjourned to the next day, and then on the morrow postponed to the
following day until the coming of the archbishop of Rouen. When he came
and all were in suspense to hear his opinion, he said that he allowed
that the bishops might have castles, if they could prove by the canons
that they might rightfully hold them; but since they could not, it was
the height of wickedness for them to fight against the canons. “Grant,”
he said, “that they may lawfully have them; surely, in troubled times,
it is the duty of the nobles, as among other nations, to hand over all
the keys of their fortresses to the will of the king, who must make war
for the peace of all. Therefore the whole argument of the bishops falls
to the ground; either it is wrong according to the canons for them
to have castles, or, if this be permitted by the king’s indulgence,
they ought to hand over the keys, yielding to the necessity of the
situation.”
To this the aforesaid pleader, Aubrey, added, that the king had been
informed of the bishops’ intention, expressed among themselves, to send
some of their number to Rome against the king. “And the king,” he said,
“recommends that none of you venture to do it, for if anyone should
leave England against his will and the dignity of the realm, he will
perhaps find it less easy to return. Furthermore he himself, seeing
himself aggrieved, appeals you at the court of Rome.”
The king’s despatch of this message, part warning, part threat, made
his purpose obvious, and in consequence the council broke up, the
king refusing to suffer canonical censure, and the bishops failing
to execute their plans against him, and that for two reasons, first,
because it would have been overbold to excommunicate a prince without
the Pope’s knowledge, and second, because they heard, and some saw,
swords unsheathed about them. The struggle was no mere word-play, but a
matter of life and death. None the less, the legate and the archbishop
did not refrain from pursuing their duty; they humbly knelt before the
king in his chamber and prayed him to take pity on the church and on
his own soul and reputation, and not to allow a schism to arise between
state and church. He courteously rose, but, although he moderated his
disapproval of their action, he made no effort to fulfil his good
promises, following rather his evil advisers.
THE CHARACTER AND CAREER OF ROGER, BISHOP OF SALISBURY.
=Source.=--William of Newburgh, _Historia rerum Anglicarum_, ed.
Howlett, vol. i., p. 35 (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry
II., and Richard I.); and William of Malmesbury, _Historia Novella_,
ed. Stubbs, vol. ii., p. 557 (Rolls Series).
A few words must be said, since occasion offers, of Roger’s early
career and progress, so that his wretched end may show forth the
majesty of the divine judgment. In the reign of king William the
younger he was a quite obscure priest, it is said, who lived by his
office in the outskirts of Caen. At that time the young Henry was at
war with his brother, and going on his way with his knights chanced
to pass the church in which Roger ministered, and asked for service
to be celebrated in his presence; the priest acceded to the request,
and was quick to begin and swift to finish, pleasing the knights twice
over, so that they remarked that nowhere could knights discover a more
accommodating chaplain. So when the prince said “Follow me,” he clove
to him no less than Peter to his heavenly King at the same words.
Peter left his boats to follow the King of kings; he left his church
to follow the son of a king; and as chaplain at will to him and his
knights, became a blind leader of the blind. And though he was almost
destitute of learning, he profited so well by a native cunning that in
a short while he won his lord’s affection and took charge of his most
secret affairs.
* * * * *
On December 11 (1139) Roger, bishop of Salisbury, was relieved by
death from the quartan ague which had long afflicted him; they say
that his illness was the result of vexation at the severe and repeated
injuries suffered by him at the hands of king Stephen. For my part I
consider that God made him an example to the rich of the fickleness of
circumstance, that they should not put their trust in the uncertainty
of riches, for, as the apostle says, some who seek thereafter have
suffered shipwreck of their faith. He attached himself first to prince
Henry, afterwards king, by his wise management of his household and
his restraint on extravagance; for before his reign Henry had been
forced by his scanty resources to study economy and spend carefully,
owing to the ungenerous behaviour of his brothers, William and Robert.
Recognising his habit of mind, Roger earned his gratitude in the time
of his poverty to such a degree that after his ascension to the throne,
Henry could deny him little or nothing that he chose to ask, bestowing
on him estates, churches, prebends of clerks, entire abbeys of monks,
and finally committing to his charge the realm itself; at the beginning
of his reign he made him chancellor, and not long after, bishop of
Salisbury. So Roger heard causes, Roger regulated expenditure, Roger
had charge of the treasury, and that too both when the king was in
England, and also when he was in Normandy, as happened often and for
long periods, without an associate or a witness. Not the king only, but
the barons, even those who were secretly jealous of his prosperity,
and above all the king’s ministers and debtors, gave him whatever he
pleased. If any estate adjoined his own and promised to serve his
purpose, he extorted it forthwith either by prayer or purchase, or if
that failed, by force. He had no rival, in the memory of our own times,
in the building of palaces and the splendour of the houses which he
erected throughout his possessions, to maintain which his successors
but labour in vain. He spared no expense to beautify to the utmost his
own cathedral with marvellous ornament and construction. Verily it was
wonderful to behold how honours of all kinds were heaped about him in
rich abundance, and gathered into his hand; how great was his glory,
and how unbounded his power, that he should have made bishops of his
two nephews, educated by himself to be men of notable learning and
industry; bishops, too, of no mean sees, but of Lincoln and Ely, the
wealthiest, I suppose, in the realm....
Under king Stephen his power declined, except that at the beginning
of his reign he secured for his nephews the offices of chancellor and
treasurer, and for himself the borough of Malmesbury, the king often
repeating to his friends, “By the birth of God, I would give him the
half of England, if he asked for it, until times change; he shall tire
of asking before I tire of giving.” But in his latter years fortune,
which before had smiled upon him overmuch and overlong, struck him at
last with cruel scorpion-sting. What a blow it was to see men wounded,
who had served him well, to see his most devoted knight cut to pieces,
and on the next day to see himself a prisoner, and his nephews, the
great bishops, one forced to fly, and the other, dearest of all, bound
with chains; and afterwards, on the surrender of the castles, to behold
his treasures plundered and himself in the council taunted with the
vilest abuse, and last of all, when he lay at Salisbury at death’s
door, to see the residue of his money and plate, which he had put upon
the altar for the completion of the church, carried off against his
will. Saddest of all I count it, and even I cannot withhold my pity,
that while many thought his end pitiful, there were scarce any who
pitied him; so much hatred and envy had his excessive power drawn upon
him, and that too undeservedly, in the case of some whom he had himself
advanced to honour.
THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN (1141).
=Source.=--John of Hexham, _Symeonis Historiæ Regum Continuatio_, ed.
Arnold, vol. ii., p. 307. (Rolls Series, Simeon of Durham.)
In the month of January at Lincoln, Ranulf, earl of Chester, with
his men, conspired and set their determination on harassing the king
and the realm. Now an earthquake was thrice felt in the city at
Christmastide. The plot was speedily made known to king Stephen, who
forthwith appeared there and besieged the earl. The latter, however,
escaped by night from the tower in which he was shut, and straightway
went to Robert earl of Gloucester, whose daughter he had married, and
persuaded him and the household of the Empress to aid him, and the
Welsh likewise. The king’s elder supporters advised him to gather an
army, declaring that they had come unarmed to have speech with him, and
were not equipped for battle. The king rejected their counsel, saying
that the earls were but lads inexperienced in war, and would not dare
to attack him; for he had been duped by the friendship of the young
earls, who supported the king with words, but cherished the strength
of his enemies with counsel and aid. So on the day of the Purification
of St. Mary, Robert earl of Gloucester, Ranulf earl of Chester, and
William de Romar, his brother, drew near with a strong force, Robert
being the leader and disposer of the battle. The king also led forth
his followers to the fight. Alan, earl of Richmond, with his men,
abandoned the king and the struggle, before the battle was yet begun.
William earl of York, withdrew from the fight and exposed the king to
peril. His opponents therefore, with a boldness born of confidence,
cut down all who resisted. They captured Bernard de Balliol, Roger de
Mowbray, Richard de Courcy, William Fossart, William Peverel, William
Clerfeith and many others. Many were slain and in the end all were
scattered, including even Waleran count of Mellent. But the king stood
in the forefront like a lion, braver than the bravest, afraid of no
man’s onset. He cut down all who came within reach, until his sword
broke in his hands. Thereupon a citizen of Lincoln put in his hand a
Danish axe; and it is difficult to describe the heroic courage with
which he faced his enemies. At last, however, he saw himself left alone
and almost all his fellows scattered; yet no man dared to lay hands
on him to take him. When earl Ranulf attempted an attack upon him,
the king smote him on the head with the axe, and, beating him to his
knees, taught him not to think more highly of himself than he ought to
think. Finally, of his own will he summoned earl Robert, his cousin,
and to him, as the son of king Henry, he, himself a king, consented to
surrender his person.[39] So he was taken to Bristol and there put in
safe keeping.
THE DEPOSITION OF KING STEPHEN (1141).
=Source.=--William of Malmesbury, _Historia Novella_, ed. Stubbs, vol.
ii., p. 574. (Rolls Series.)
On the second day after the Octave of Easter (April 11) a council of
archbishop Theobald and all the bishops of England and many abbots was
opened with great ceremony at Winchester under the presidency of the
legate. Those who were not there sent reasons for their absence by
proctor or letter. The proceedings of this council I will set forth
for posterity with complete accuracy, since I was myself present, and
I remember the whole perfectly. On that day, after reading the letters
of excuse whereby some justified their absence, the legate summoned
the bishops apart and discussed with them his secret intention; and
afterwards the abbots, and last of all the archdeacons, were summoned.
Of his purpose nothing was made public, but the thoughts and speech of
all men were busy with what was likely to be done.
On the third day the legate spoke to this effect: that by the Pope’s
condescension he held his place in England, wherefore by his authority
the clergy of England had been assembled at this council, that they
might deliberate together touching the peace of the country, which
was in grave peril of shipwreck. In the time of king Henry, his
uncle, England had been a unique abode of peace, so that through the
activity, the spirit and the labour of that unrivalled prince, not
only the natives, whatsoever their might and rank, dared not make
trouble, but also by his example all neighbouring kings and princes
themselves yielded to peace and desired or forced their subjects to do
the like. The same king, some years before his death, had caused the
whole realm of England and the duchy of Normandy to be bound by the
oath of all bishops and barons alike to his daughter, sometime Empress,
his sole surviving child of his first wife, if he should fail of a
male successor by the wife he had married from Lorraine. “And cruel
fortune,” said he, “grudged him his desire, so that he died in Normandy
without heir male. So, because it seemed long to wait for the Lady,
who delayed her coming to England, for she was dwelling in Normandy,
the peace of the country was provided for, and my brother was suffered
to become king. Yet, though I pledged myself as surety between him
and God that he would honour and exalt Holy Church, and maintain good
laws and uproot evil, I grieve to remember, I am ashamed to recall,
what manner of king he has shown himself; how no justice has been done
on offenders, how peace was wholly destroyed almost within a year;
bishops seized and forced to surrender their possessions; abbeys sold,
churches plundered of their treasures; evil men’s counsel regarded,
and good men’s put aside or wholly despised. You know how often I
appealed to him, as well by myself as by the bishops, especially in the
council summoned last year for this purpose, and yet I won nothing but
disfavour. It can escape no man, who thinks aright, that I ought to
love my mortal brother, but much rather ought to regard the cause of my
immortal Father. Therefore, since God has judged my brother, permitting
him without my connivance to fall into the power of the mighty, in
my right as legate I have asked you all to assemble hither, that the
kingdom be not imperilled for lack of a ruler. Yesterday the matter was
discussed in secret before the greater part of the clergy of England,
whose right it is above all men to elect and ordain a prince. First,
then, as is justly due, calling God to our aid, we elect as lady of
England and Normandy, the daughter of the peaceful, the glorious, the
wealthy, the excellent king, incomparable in our times, and we promise
her fealty and maintenance.”
After all present had either suitably applauded his declaration or by
silence refrained from opposition, the legate added: “We have summoned
by messengers the men of London, who rank almost as nobles in England
through the greatness of the city, and have sent them safe conduct, and
I trust that they will not delay their arrival beyond to-day; let us
give them good grace until the morrow.”
On the fourth day came the men of London, and after being conducted
into the council, put their case so far as to say that they had been
sent by the commune of London not to raise strife but to pray for the
release of their lord the king from captivity; and that all the barons
who had long been admitted into their commune, earnestly demanded the
same of the lord legate and of the archbishop and all the clergy there
present. The legate answered them fully and clearly, and to prevent the
fulfilment of what they requested, repeated his speech of the previous
day, adding, however, that it did not become the men of London, who
were esteemed in England as nobles, to support the cause of those who
had abandoned their lord in battle, by whose counsel he had dishonoured
Holy Church, and finally who appeared to show favour to the men of
London solely in order to drain them of their money.... They took
counsel together and said that they would report the decree of the
council to their fellows, and give it their countenance so far as they
could.
On the fifth day the council broke up after the excommunication of
many of the royal party, in particular, William Martel, formerly king
Henry’s butler, and afterwards sewer[40] to king Stephen; he had
grossly exasperated the legate by intercepting and pilfering much of
his property.
It was a heavy task, however, to win over the goodwill of the
men of London, for though these events took place, as I have said,
immediately after Easter, it was only a few days before Midsummer that
they consented to receive the empress. By that time the greater part
of England had duly accepted her governance.... But at the very moment
when she thought to secure possession of the whole of England, all was
changed. The men of London, always mistrusted, and murmuring among
themselves, now burst out into expressions of open hatred, and even,
it is said, lay in wait for the Lady and her earls. They had warning
and escaped, and left the city gradually without rioting and with a
kind of knightly discipline. The empress was accompanied by the legate
and David king of Scotland, her uncle, and her brother Robert, then as
always, in all things, the partner of his sister’s fortunes, and, in
short, all of her party escaped to a man. The men of London, learning
of their departure, flew to their houses and plundered everything which
they had left behind in their haste.
THE CAREER OF GEOFFREY DE MANDEVILLE (1143.)
=Source.=--William of Newburgh, _Historia rerum Anglicarum_, ed.
Howlett, vol. i., p. 44. (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry
II., and Richard I.)
At the same time king Stephen seized Geoffrey de Mandeville in his
court at St. Albans, not indeed honourably and according to the law of
nations, but for his deserts and out of fear, with an eye rather to the
expedient than to the chivalrous. For Geoffrey was a man of consummate
daring and of equal strength and cunning, strengthening his hold on
the famous Tower of London with two noteworthy added fortifications,
and achieving great ends by an ingenious subtlety. For these reasons
he inspired fear in the king himself, who, however, was at pains to
conceal his sense of wrong suffered at the other’s hands, and watched
for a convenient season to take his revenge.
Some years before the king had acquired the treasures of the bishop
of Salisbury, and, despatching a large sum of money to Louis, king of
the French, had married his son Eustace to Constance, Louis’ sister,
planning by a match with so great a prince to strengthen his son’s
chance of succession against the count of Anjou and his sons; and
Constance was in London with the queen, her mother-in-law. When the
queen would have gone elsewhere with her daughter-in-law, the aforesaid
Geoffrey, then master of the Tower, prevented her, and seizing her
daughter-in-law out of her hands, in spite of her stout resistance,
kept her, permitting the queen to depart with ignominy. Afterwards
at the king’s demand he reluctantly resigned his noble booty to her
father-in-law, who for the time dissembled his just indignation. Now
this wrong seemed to have been at length forgotten, when the barons
assembled at the royal summons at St. Albans, and among them appeared
this bandit; whereupon, forthwith seizing the opportunity, the king
gave vent to his righteous anger and putting Geoffrey in bonds,
extorted from him the Tower of London with the two other fortresses
which he held. Stripped of his defences, but released, his incapacity
to rest, his mighty spirit, his almost incomparable resource, and his
extraordinary genius for evil, led him to gather together an impious
crew, at whose head he burst into the monastery of Ramsey; without
fear, he drove out the monks, and turned the famous and holy place into
a den of thieves, and the sanctuary of God into the home of the devil,
ravaging the country round with constant sallies and expeditions.
Success increased his confidence, and going further afield, he harassed
and menaced king Stephen with the boldest assaults. During this wild
outburst it seemed as if God was asleep and took no thought for human
affairs, or even his own, that is, the church; and pious men cried
out of their trouble, “Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord?” But, as the
apostle says, after God endured with much patience vessels of wrath fit
for destruction, “he arose,” as the prophet says, “as from sleep, and
smote his enemies in their hinder parts,” that is, in the latter years
of those whose earlier career seemed prosperous. In a word, shortly
before the destruction of that impious wretch, as is proved by the true
testimony of many, the walls of the church into which he had burst,
and of the adjacent cloister, sweated with real blood, by which, as
afterwards appeared, was signified both the enormity of his crime and
the now imminent judgment upon the enormity. But since the evil men,
given over to a reprobate mind, were in no wise frightened by a portent
so horrible, their abandoned leader, while storming a castle of his
enemies among the serried ranks of his followers, was struck on the
head by the arrow of a common footman; and from that wound the reckless
fighter, though at first he made light of it, died after a few days,
and took with him to hell the burden of the church’s anathema, from
which he could never be absolved.
His two most cruel followers, of whom one was over the knights and
the other over the footmen, are reported to have perished by diverse
mishaps. The one died by a fall from his horse, his head being crushed
on the ground and his brains scattered; the other, Rainer by name,
the chief destroyer and burner of churches, when crossing the sea
with his wife, brought the ship to a standstill in mid ocean by the
weight of his sins. The sailors and others who were crossing at the
same time were reduced to stupefaction, but, following the ancient
example, cast lots, and the lot fell upon Rainer; and when, to prevent
the possibility of accident, they cast lots a second and a third time
with the same result, it was declared to be the judgment of God. So,
in order that all might not perish with him and on his account, he was
put out in a boat with his wife and his ill-gotten wealth. The ship
immediately leapt forward and was borne on its usual course. But the
boat sank under the weight of the sinner, and was overwhelmed in the
waves.
THE TREATY OF PEACE BETWEEN KING STEPHEN AND PRINCE HENRY (1153).
=Source.=--Henry of Huntingdon, _Historia Anglorum_, ed. Arnold, p.
289. (Rolls Series.)
Meanwhile archbishop Theobald urgently treated with the king, to induce
him to come to terms with the duke, speaking often with the king in
person and with the duke by messenger.
His efforts were seconded by Henry bishop of Winchester, who before had
woefully disturbed the realm by conferring the crown upon Stephen his
brother; now, stirred to repentance and seeing the whole country ruined
by plunder, fire and slaughter, he shared in the negotiations for
peace, to put an end to the awful evils. Above all, the providence of
God, which makes peace and permits evil, purposing to stay the scourge
that smote England according to her deserts, prospered their work until
their efforts were blessed by the calm of peace and a treaty confirmed
by oaths. Oh! priceless joy, oh! blessed day! when the illustrious
prince, led by the king himself, was received with honour in the city
of Winchester at the head of a splendid procession of bishops and
warriors, amid the acclamation of a numberless throng of the people.
For the king received him as his adopted son and acknowledged him heir
to the throne. Thence the king brought the duke with him to London,
where he was received with equal joy by a numberless multitude of
people and magnificent processions, as so great a man deserved. So did
the mercy of God shed a halo of peace and lighten the darkness of the
ruined realm of England.
This accomplished, king Stephen and his new son parted in joy and
affection, to meet again, for this treaty was confirmed before
Christmas. But on the octave of the Epiphany they met once more at
Oxford, after the duke had spent almost a year in the conquest, or
rather the resurrection of England. There then the chief men of the
English, by the king’s command, did to the duke the homage and fealty
due to a lord saving to the king due honour and fealty during his life.
From this brilliant gathering they joyfully departed to their own
homes, blessed by a new peace. Again after a short interval of time
they met at Dunstable. There a brilliant day was somewhat clouded. The
duke was displeased that the castles, which had been everywhere built
after the death of king Henry and put to the worst uses, were not
destroyed, as had been determined and confirmed by the solemn treaty of
peace between them; a great part had now been razed, but the castles
of some had been spared either by the clemency or the connivance of
the king, whereby their mutual adherence to the compact seemed to
be impaired. The duke, on complaining hereon to the king, suffered
a repulse, but, deferring to his new father, reluctantly postponed
the question, that the light of their harmony might not seem to be
extinguished by him; they parted peaceably, and not long after, by the
king’s licence, the victorious duke returned to Normandy.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] To be “in lot and scot” is in modern phrase “to pay rates.”
[2] _I.e._, if he be killed.
[3] Date unknown.
[4] _I.e._, “alms.” To hold in “almoin” is to hold by the sole service
of prayers for the grantor.
[5] The hide was at once a measure of land normally consisting of about
120 acres, and a fiscal unit; a Domesday manor containing ten hides for
purposes of taxation might comprise a larger area than 1,200 acres.
[6] A socman holds land by the service of attending the lords’ court or
soke.
[7] Highway robbery.
[8] Housebreaking.
[9] _I.e._, the precincts, one mile and a half round.
[10] _I.e._, from all national and local burdens, whether financial,
judicial, or otherwise.
[11] Rights of jurisdiction.
[12] Toll.
[13] Right to summon possessors of stolen property to name the person
from whom they received it.
[14] Apprehension of offenders.
[15] Payment for watch and ward.
[16] Market, fair, and port tolls.
[17] Fine for housebreaking.
[18] Highway robbery and the fine due for the same.
[19] Fine for bloodshedding.
[20] Fine for bastardy.
[21] This clause, from “with sac and soc” to “larceny,” grants to
the abbey full rights of jurisdiction, with tolls, and fines for the
offences specified.
[22] William of St. Karileph, Bishop of Durham, accused of
participation in the rebellion of Bishop Odo.
[23] Dispossessed.
[24] Charged with.
[25] _I.e._, an absolute possession, free from all feudal service.
[26] The chronicler and the archbishop.
[27] Dishbearer to the royal household.
[28] _I.e._, by lavish bribery.
[29] A toll on travellers.
[30] A toll on cargoes.
[31] A soke is a court and an area of jurisdiction.
[32] The money-value set on a man if he were killed.
[33] The fine for changing the ground of an action once begun in court.
[34] Literally, a chess-board.
[35] In actual coin.
[36] _I.e._, agreements with the crown touching feudal payments.
[37] Matilda the Empress.
[38] On the other hand, the author of _Gesta Stephani_ states: “The
king ordered that the two bishops should be separately confined in foul
places and tortured with sharp fasting, and that the chancellor, son
of the bishop of Salisbury, now seized and thrown into chains, should
be hanged in front of the castle gate, unless the bishop of Ely should
surrender the castle and admit the king’s force.”
[39] This account does not agree with that of Henry of Huntingdon, who
states that he was taken by William de Kahaines, after his battle-axe
and sword had broken.
[40] Dish-bearer.
Transcriber’s Notes
As most of the text in this book consists of quotations from different
sources, inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, and hyphenation have
been retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines also have been
retained.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks were retained except as noted below.
Page 47: Closing quotation mark added after “to its ratification....”.
Page 56: Closing quotation mark added after “something for nothing.”.
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