5. =Scutage.=--If Henry was to carry out justice everywhere it would be necessary for him to weaken still further the power of the barons. He reintroduced a plan which had been first adopted by his grandfather, which had the double merit of strengthening the king upon the Continent and of weakening the barons in England. Henry needed an army to defend his Continental possessions against the king of France. The fyrd, or general levy of Englishmen, was not bound to fight except at home, and though the feudal vassals were liable to serve abroad, they could only be made to serve for forty days in the year, which was too short a time for Henry's purposes. He accordingly came to an agreement with his vassals. The owner of every knight's fee was to pay a sum of money known as scutage (_shield-money_) in lieu of service. Both parties gained by the arrangement. The king got money with which he paid mercenaries abroad, who would fight for him all the year round, and the vassal escaped the onerous duty of fighting in quarrels in which he took no interest. Indirectly the change weakened the feudal vassals, because they had now less opportunity than before of acquiring a military training in actual war. [Illustration: Ecclesiastical costume in the twelfth century.] 6. =Archbishop Thomas. 1162.=--Henry, who meditated great judicial reforms, foresaw that the clergy would be an obstacle in his way. He was eager to establish one law for his whole kingdom, and the clergy, having been exempted by the Conqueror from the jurisdiction of the ordinary law courts in all ecclesiastical matters, had, during the anarchy of Stephen's reign, encroached on the royal authority, and claimed to be responsible, even in criminal cases, only to the ecclesiastical courts, which were unable to inflict the penalty of death, so that a clerk who committed a murder could not be hanged like other murderers. As large numbers of clerks were only in the lower orders, and as many of them had only taken those orders to escape from the hardships of lay life, their morals were often no better than those of their lay neighbours. A vacancy occurring in the Archbishopric of Canterbury, Henry, who wished to make these clerks punishable by his own courts, thought that the arrangement would easily be effected if Thomas, who had hitherto been active as a reformer in his service, were Archbishop as well as Chancellor. It was in vain that Thomas remonstrated. "I warn you," he said to Henry, "that, if such a thing should be, our friendship would soon turn to bitter hate." Henry persisted in spite of the warning, and Thomas became Archbishop.