Part 22

[627] D. B. i. 158: Robert de Ouilly holds forty-two houses in Oxford, some meadow-land and a mill 'cum beneficio S. Petri,' i.e. together with the benefice of S. Peter's church. Elsewhere, i. 273, we read that King William gave a manor to the monks of Burton 'pro beneficio suo'; but the meaning of this is by no means clear.

[628] D. B. i. 44 b: 'Duo liberi homines tenuerunt de Alwino sed non fuit alod.' The same phrase occurs on f. 46.

[629] D. B. i. 22: 'Aluuard et Algar tenuerunt de Rege pro 2 maneriis in alodia ... Ælueua tenuit de Rege Edwardo sicut alodium.' Ib. 26: 'Godwinus Comes tenuit et de eo 7 aloarii.'

[630] D. B. i. 60 b: 'Duo alodiarii tenuerunt T. R. E. ... unus servivit Reginae, alter Bundino.'

[631] D. B. i. 1: 'Quando moritur alodiarius, Rex inde habet relevationem terrae.'

[632] D. B. i. 52 b: 'Has hidas tenuerunt 7 alodiarii de Episcopo nec poterant recedere alio vel ab illo.'

[633] D. B. i. 63 b: 'Ibi sunt 5 alodiarii.'

[634] See charter of John for St Augustin's, Canterbury, Rot. Cart. p. 105: 'omnes allodiarios quos eis habemus datos.' This phrase seems to descend through a series of charters from two charters of the Conqueror in which the 'swa fele þegna swa ic heom togeleton habbe' of the one appears in the other as 'omnes allodiarios.' If so, we get from the Conqueror's own chancery the equation þegn=alodiarius. Hist. Mon. S. August. 349-50.

[635] D. B. i. 23: in two successive entries we have 'Offa tenuit de Episcopo in feudo.... Almar tenuit de Goduino Comite in alodium.' So again, i. 59: 'Blacheman tenuit de Heraldo Comite in alodio.... Blacheman tenuit in feudo T. R. E.' The suggestion has been made that _alodium_ represents _book-land_; see Pollock, Land Laws, ed. 3. p. 27; Eng. Hist. Rev. xi. 227; but we gravely doubt whether the humbler _alodiarii_ had books. The author of the Quadripartitus renders _bócland_ by _terra hereditaria_, _terra testimentalis_, _terra libera_, and even by _feudum_ (Edg. II. 2); _alodium_ occurs in the Instituta Cnuti. After this we can hardly say for certain that D. B. does not use _alodium_ and _feodum_ as equivalents, both representing a heritable estate, as absolute an ownership of land as is conceivable.

[636] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 46.

[637] D. B. i. 197.

[638] D. B. i. 238 b: 'Reliquas autem 7 hidas et dimidiam tenuit [_sic_] Britnodus et Aluui T. R. E., sed comitatus nescit de quo tenuerint.'

[639] D. B. i. 23: 'Offa tenuit de episcopo in feudo.' Ib. i. 59 b: 'Blacheman tenuit in feudo T. R. E.'

[640] D. B. i. 28 b: 'Bricmar tenuit de Azor et Azor de Heraldo ... Terra est 2 carucis. In dominio est una et 2 villani et 2 bordarii cum dimidia caruca.'

[641] D. B. i. 75 b: 'De eadem terra ten[ent] 3 taini 3 hidas et reddunt 3 libras excepto servicio.' Ib. 86 b: 'Huic manerio est addita dimidia hida. Tres taini tenebant T. R. E. et serviebant preposito manerii per consuetudinem absque omni firma donante.'

[642] D. B. i. 1: 'Quando moritur alodiarius, Rex inde habet relevationem terrae.'

[643] D. B. i. 179: 'Burgensis cum caballo serviens, cum moriebatur, habebat Rex equum et arma eius. De eo qui equum non habebat, si moreretur, habebat Rex aut 10 solidos aut terram eius cum domibus.'

[644] D. B. i. 50 b: 'Alric tenet dimidiam hidam. Hanc tenuit pater eius de Rege E. Sed hic Regem non requisivit post mortem Godric sui avunculi qui eam custodiebat.'

[645] D. B. i. 238 b: 'Huic aecclesiae dedit Aluuinus vicecomes Cliptone concessu Regis Edwardi et filiorum suorum pro anima sua.' Ib. 59: 'De hoc manerio scira attestatur, quod Edricus qui eum tenebat deliberavit illum filio suo qui erat in Abendone monachus ut ad firmam illud teneret et sibi donec viveret necessaria vitae donaret; post mortem vero eius manerium haberet. Et ideo nesciunt homines de scira quod abbatiae pertineat, neque enim inde viderunt brevem Regis vel sigillum. Abbas vero testatur quod in T. R. E. misit ille manerium ad aecclesiam unde erat et inde habet brevem et sigillum R. E.'

[646] D. B. i. 154: 'Quando Rex ibat in expeditione, burgenses 20 ibant cum eo pro omnibus aliis, vel 20 libras dabant Regi ut omnes essent liberi.'

[647] D. B. i. 230: 'Quando Rex ibat in exercitu per terram, de ipso burgo 12 burgenses ibant cum eo.'

[648] D. B. i. 238: 'Consuetudo Waruuic fuit, ut eunte rege per terram in expeditionem, decem burgenses de Waruuic pro omnibus aliis irent.'

[649] D. B. i. 57 b.

[650] D. B. i. 64 b: 'Quando Rex ibat in expeditione vel terra vel mari, habebat de hoc burgo aut 20 solidos ad pascendos suos buzecarlos, aut unum hominem ducebat secum pro honore 5 hidarum.'

[651] D. B. i. 100: 'Quando expeditio ibat per terram aut per mare serviebat haec civitas quantum 5 hidae terrae.'

[652] Above, p. 156, note 650.

[653] Schmid, App. VII. c. 2. § 9-12; App. V; Pseudoleges Canuti (i.e. Instituta Cnuti) 60, 61 (Schmid, p. 431).

[654] Of this we shall speak in another Essay.

[655] D. B. i. 375 b; above, p. 145.

[656] D. B. i. 87 b: 'Istae consuetudines pertinent ad Tantone ... profectio in exercitum cum hominibus episcopi.... Hae duae terrae non debent exercitum.'

[657] See above, p. 85, note 326.

[658] D. B. i. 172: 'Quando Rex in hostem pergit, si quis edictum eius vocatus remanserit, si ita liber homo est ut habeat socam suam et sacam et cum terra sua possit ire quo voluerit, de omni terra sua est in misericordia Regis. Cuiuscumque vero alterius domini homo si de hoste remanserit et dominus eius pro eo alium hominem duxerit, 40 sol. domino suo qui vocatus fuit emendabit. Quod si ex toto nullus pro eo abierit, ipse quidem domino suo 40 sol. dabit, dominus autem eius totidem solidis Regi emendabit.'

[659] See above, p. 77, note 294.

[660] See Round, Feudal England, 249.

[661] D. B. i. 208: 'Testantur homines de comitatu quod Rex Edwardus dedit Suineshefet Siuuardo Comiti soccam et sacam, et sic habuit Haroldus comes, praeter quod geldabant in hundredo et in hostem cum eis ibant.' It is here noted that though Harold had sake and soke over Swineshead, it paid its geld and did its military duty in the hundred. Our record would hardly mention such a point unless very often the exaction of geld and military service was one of the rights and duties of the lord who had sake and soke.

[662] In the next chapter we shall speak of the bishop's land-loans.

[663] See the capitularies of 807 and 808 (ed. Boretius, pp. 134, 137). Also, Fustel de Coulanges, Les transformations de la royauté, 515 ff. It may well be doubted whether the five-hide rule had not been borrowed by English kings from their Frankish neighbours. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 208 ff.

[664] D. B. i. 152 b: 'duo teigni homines Alrici filii Goding.' Ib. 'Hoc manerium tenuit Azor filius Toti teignus Regis Edwardi et alter teignus homo eius tenuit unam hidam et vendere potuit.'

[665] D. B. i. 84 b: at the end of a list of royal thegns 'Omnes qui has terras T. R. E. tenebant, poterant ire ad quem dominum volebant.'

[666] D. B. i. 41: 'Tres taini tenuerunt de episcopo et non potuerunt ire quolibet.'

[667] D. B. i. 91: 'Hae terrae erant tainland in Glastingberie T. R. E. nec poterant ab aecclesia separari.'

[668] Hamilton, Inquisitio, pp. xviii. xix.

[669] D. B. i. 66 b: 'De hac eadem terra 3 hidas vendiderat abbas cuidam taino T. R. E. ad aetatem trium hominum, et ipse abbas habebat inde servitium, et postea debet redire ad dominium.' Ib. i. 83 b: 'Ipsa femina tenet 2 hidas in Tatentone quae erant de dominio abbatiae de Cernel; T. R. E. duo teini tenebant prestito.'

[670] D. B. i. 64 b: 'Herman et alii servientes Regis ... Odo et alii taini Regis ... Herueus et alii ministri Regis.' Ib. 75: 'Guddmund et alii taini ... Willelmus Belet et alii servientes Regis.'

[671] D. B. i. 56 b (Berkshire custom): 'Tainus vel miles Regis dominicus moriens, pro relevamento dimittebat Regi omnia arma sua et equum unum cum sella, alium sine sella.'

[672] D. B. i. 83: 'Bricsi tenuit miles Regis E.' Such entries are rare. D. B. i. 66: 'De eadem terra huius manerii ten[ent] duo Angli.... Unus ex eis est miles iussu Regis et nepos fuit Hermanni episcopi.' Here the king compels an Englishman to become a _miles_. D. B. i. 180 b: 'Quinque taini ... habebant sub se 4 milites.' The warrior was not necessarily of thegnly rank.

[673] See the passages collected by Schmid, Gesetze, p. 667.

[674] In their treatment of the thegnship of the last days before the Conquest, Maurer lays stress upon the proprietary element, Schmid upon the hereditary. See Little, Gesiths and Thegns, E. H. R. iv. 723.

[675] Cnut, ii. 71.

[676] D. B. i. 280 b.

[677] Hamilton, Inquisitio, 121.

[678] Eyton, Somerset, i. 84.

[679] D. B. iv. 75: 'Dominicatus Regis ad Regnum pertinens in Devenescira.' Ib. 99: 'Mansiones de Comitatu.' Eyton, Somerset, i. 78.

[680] D. B. ii. 119: 'Hoc manerium fuit de regno, sed Rex Edwardus dedit Radulfo Comiti.' Ib. 144: 'Suafham pertinuit ad regionem et Rex E. dedit R. Comiti.' Ib. 281 b: 'Terra Regis de Regione quam Rogerus Bigotus servat.' Ib. 408 b: 'Tornei manerium Regis de regione.' Mr Round, Feudal England, p. 140, treats _regio_ as a mere blunder; but it may well stand for _kingship_.

[681] D. B. i. 30 b: 'Huius villae villani ab omni re vicecom[itis] sunt quieti.'

[682] D. B. iv. 99.

[683] Pseudoleges Canuti (= Liebermann's Instituta Cnuti), 55 (Schmid, p. 430): 'Comitis rectitudines secundum Anglos istae sunt communes cum rege: tertius denarius in villis ubi mercatum convenerit, et in castigatione latronum, et comitales villae, quae ad comitatum eius pertinent.'

[684] D. B. ii. 118 b: 'Terre Regis in Tetford ... est una leugata terre in longa et dim. in lato de qua Rex habet duas partes: de his autem duabus partibus tercia pars in consulatu iacet.' But this seems to mean that only this part of the land is in the county of Norfolk. Ibid. i. 246: in Stafford the king has twenty-two houses 'de honore comitum.'

[685] D. B. i. 246.

[686] Ellis, Introduction. i. 313. When twenty years after Harold's death a question about the title to land is at issue, there seems no reason why the jurors should tell lies about Harold.

[687] D. B. i. 154 b.

[688] D. B. i. 172.

[689] D. B. i. 238.

[690] D. B. i. 56 b: Berkshire custom, 'Qui monitus ad stabilitionem venationis non ibat 50 sol. Regi emendabat.' See also the Hereford custom, Ib. 179; also Rectitudines (Schmid, App. III.) c. 1.

[691] D. B. i. 69. But the meaning of _reveland_ is obscure. The most important passages about it are in D. B. i. 57 b (Eseldeborne), 181 (Getune). D. B. i. 83: 'Hanc tenet Aiulf de Rege quamdiu erit vicecomes.'

[692] D. B. i. 100.

[693] D. B. i. 86, 86 b, 92, 97; so in Devonshire, 117 b: 'Hoc manerium debet per consuetudinem in Tavetone manerium Regis aut 1 bovem aut 30 denarios.'

[694] D. B. i. 38 b.

[695] D. B. i. 101: 'Ipsi manerio pertinet tercius denarius de hundredis Nortmoltone et Badentone et Brantone et tercium animal pasturae morarum.'

[696] Above, p. 155.

[697] Chron. ann. 1085.

§ 9. _The Boroughs._

[Borough and village.]

Dark as the history of our villages may be, the history of the boroughs is darker yet; or rather, perhaps, the darkness seems blacker because we are compelled to suppose that it conceals from our view changes more rapid and intricate than those that have happened in the open country. The few paragraphs that follow will be devoted mainly to the development of one suggestion which has come to us from foreign books, but which may throw a little light where every feeble ray is useful. At completeness we must not aim, and in our first words we ought to protest that no general theory will tell the story of every or any particular town[698].

[The borough in cent. xiii.]

In the thirteenth century a legal, though a wavering, line is drawn between the borough and the mere vill or rural township[699]. It is a wavering line, for stress can be laid now upon one and now upon another attribute of the ancient and indubitable boroughs, and this selected attribute can then be employed as a test for the claims of other towns. When in Edward I.'s day the sheriffs are being told to bid every borough send two burgesses to the king's parliaments, there are somewhat more than 150 places to which such summonses will at times be addressed, though before the end of the middle ages the number of 'parliamentary boroughs' will have shrunk to 100 or thereabouts[700]. Many towns seem to hover on the border line and in some cases the sheriff has been able to decide whether or no a town shall be represented in the councils of the realm. Yet if we go back to the early years of the tenth century, we shall still find this contrast between the borough and the mere township existing as a contrast whence legal consequences flow. Where lies the contrast? What is it that makes a borough to be a borough? That is the problem that we desire to solve. It is a legal problem. We are not to ask why some places are thickly populated or why trade has flowed in this or that channel. We are to ask why certain vills are severed from other vills and are called boroughs.

[The number of the boroughs.]

We may reasonably wish, however, since mental pictures must be painted, to know at the outset whereabouts the line will be drawn, and whether when we are speaking of the Conqueror's reign and earlier times we shall have a large or a small number of boroughs on our hands. Will it be a hundred and fifty, or a hundred, or will it be only fifty? At once we will say that some fifty boroughs stand out prominently and will demand our best attention, though a second and far less important class was already being formed.

[The aid-paying boroughs of cent. xii.]

In the middle of the twelfth century the Exchequer was treating certain places in an exceptional fashion. It was subjecting them to a special tax in the form of an _auxilium_ or _donum_. This fact we may take as the starting point for our researches. Now if we read the unique Pipe Roll of Henry I.'s reign and the earliest Pipe Rolls of Henry II.'s we observe that an 'aid' or a 'gift' is from time to time collected from the 'cities and boroughs,' and if we put down the names of the towns which are charged with this impost, we obtain a remarkable result[701]. Speaking broadly we may say that the only towns which pay are 'county towns.' For a large part of England this is strictly true. We will follow the order of Domesday Book, beginning however with its second zone. If London is in Middlesex[702], it is Middlesex's one borough. In Hertfordshire is Hertford. In Buckinghamshire is Buckingham, but no aid can be expected from it. In Oxfordshire is Oxford. In Gloucestershire is Gloucester, but Winchcombe also asserts its burghal rank. In Worcestershire is Worcester, while Droitwich appears occasionally with a small gift. Hereford is the one borough of Herefordshire. Turning to the third zone, we pass rapidly through Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire; each has its borough. This will be true of Leicestershire also; but Leicester is by this time so completely in the hands of its earl that the king gets nothing from it. Nor, it would seem, does he get anything from Warwick. Half in Warwickshire, half in Staffordshire lies Tamworth; Stafford also pays. At times Bridgenorth appears beside Shrewsbury. Nothing is received from Chester, for it is the head of a palatinate. Derby, Nottingham and York are the only representatives of their shires. Lincolnshire has Stamford on its border as well as Lincoln in its centre. Norfolk has Thetford as well as Norwich; but Suffolk has only Ipswich and Essex only Colchester.

[Aid-paying boroughs in the south.]

In the southern zone matters are not so simple. Kent contains Canterbury and Rochester; Surrey contains Guildford and Southwark; Sussex only Chichester. Hampshire has Winchester; Southampton is receiving special treatment. Wallingford represents Berkshire. When we get to Wiltshire and Dorset we are in the classical land of small boroughs. There are various little towns whose fate is in the balance; Marlborough and Calne seem for the moment to be the most prominent. In Somersetshire, whatever may have been true in the past, Ilchester is standing out as the one borough that pays an aid. Exeter has now no second in Devonshire. If there is a borough in Cornwall, it makes no gift to the king.

[List of aids.]

We may obtain some notion of the relative rank of these towns if we set forth the amounts with which they are charged in 1130 and in 1156, though the materials for this comparison are unfortunately incomplete.

Pipe Roll Pipe Roll 31 Hen. I 2 Hen. II £ £ London 120 120 Winchester 80 Lincoln 60 60 York 40 40 Norwich 30 33-1/3 Exeter 20 Canterbury 20 13-1/3 Colchester 20[2] 12-2/3[703] Oxford 20 20 Gloucester 15 15 Wallingford 15 Worcester 15 Cambridge 12 12 Hereford 10 Thetford 10 Northampton 10 Rochester 10 Nottingham} 15 15 Derby } Wiltshire boroughs 17 Calne 1 Dorset boroughs 15 Huntingdon 8 8 Ipswich 7 3-1/3 Guildford 5 5 Southwark 5 5 Hertford 5 Stamford 5 Bedford 5 6-2/3 Shrewsbury 5 Droitwich 5 Stafford 3-1/3 3-1/3 Winchcombe 3 5 Tamworth 2-3/4 1-1/4[704] Ilchester 2-1/2 Chichester[705]

[Value of the list.]

Now we are not putting this forward as a list of those English towns that were the most prosperous in the middle of the twelfth century. We have made no mention of flourishing seaports, of Dover, Hastings, Bristol, Yarmouth. Nor is this a list of all the places that are casually called _burgi_ on rolls of Henry II.'s reign. That name is given to Scarborough, Knaresborough, Tickhill, Cirencester and various other towns. New tests of 'burgality' (if we may make that word) are emerging and old tests are becoming obsolete. We see too that some towns are dropping out of the list of aid-paying boroughs. In 1130 Wallingford has thrice failed to pay its aid of £15 and the whole debt of £45 must be forgiven to the burgesses _pro paupertate eorum_[706]. So Wallingford drops out of this list. Probably Buckingham has dropped out at an earlier time for a similar reason. But still this list, especially in the form that it takes in Henry I.'s time, is of great importance to those who are going to study the boroughs of Domesday Book. It looks like a traditional list. It deals out nice round sums. It is endeavouring to keep Wallingford on a par with Gloucester and above Northampton. It is retaining Winchcombe.

[The boroughs in Domesday.]

If we make the experiment, we shall discover that this catalogue really is a good prologue to Domesday Book. We will once more visit the counties which form the second zone. The account that our record gives of Hertfordshire has a preface. That preface deals with the borough of Hertford and precedes even the list of the Hertfordshire tenants in chief. Buckingham in Buckinghamshire and Oxford in Oxfordshire are similarly treated. In Gloucestershire the city of Gloucester and the borough of Winchcombe are described before the body of the county is touched. In Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire[707], Shropshire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire[708] and Yorkshire the same procedure is adopted: the account of the shire's city or borough precedes the account of the shire. In Lincolnshire the description of the county is introduced by the description of Lincoln and Stamford; also of Torksey, which had been a place of military importance and seems to have been closely united with the city of Lincoln by some governmental bond[709]. Convenient arrangement is not the strong point of 'Little Domesday'; but what is said therein of Colchester is said at the very end of the survey of Essex, while Norwich, Yarmouth and Thetford stand at the end of the royal estates in Norfolk, and Ipswich stands at the end of the royal estates in Suffolk.

[Southern boroughs in Domesday.]

If now we enter the southern zone and keep in our minds the scheme that we have seen prevailing in the greater part of England, we shall observe that the account of Kent has a prologue touching Dover, Canterbury and Rochester. In Berkshire an excellent account of Wallingford precedes the rubric _Terra Regis_. Four places in Dorset are singled out for prefatory treatment, namely, Dorchester, Bridport, Wareham and Shaftesbury. In Devon Exeter stands, if we may so speak, above the line, and stands alone, though Barnstaple, Lidford and Totness are reckoned as boroughs. Of the other counties there is more to be said. If we compare the first page of the survey of Somerset with the first pages that are devoted to its two neighbours, Dorset and Devon, we shall probably come to the conclusion that the compilers of the book scrupled to put any Somerset vill on a par with Exeter, Dorchester, Bridport, Wareham and Shaftesbury. In each of the three cases the page is mapped out in precisely the same fashion. The second column is headed by _Terra Regis_. A long way down in the first column begins the list of tenants in chief. The upper part of the first column contains in one case the account of Exeter, in another the account of the four Dorset boroughs, but in the third case, that of Somerset, it is left blank. In Wiltshire Malmesbury and Marlborough stand above the line; but, if we look to the foot of the page, we shall suspect that the compilers can not easily force their general scheme upon this part of the country. In Surrey no place stands above the line. Guildford is the first place mentioned on the _Terra Regis_; Southwark seems to be inadequately treated on a later page. The case of Sussex is like that of Somerset; the list of the tenants in chief is preceded by a blank space. In Hampshire a whole column is left blank. On a later page the borough of Southampton has a column to itself; in the next column stands the _Terra Regis_ of the Isle of Wight. And now let us turn back to the Middlesex that we have as yet ignored. Nearly two columns, to say nothing of some precedent pages, are void[710].

[The boroughs and the plan of Domesday Book.]