Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth CenturiesRound, John Horace
History
Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Round, John Horace
Domesday book; Feudalism -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- History -- Norman period, 1066-1154; Normans -- Great Britain
After careful examination, I propound the solution that this survey
was originally made under Henry I, and was subsequently corrected here
and there, to bring the entries up to date, down to the days of Henry
II. The late transcriber, to whom we owe the survey in its present
form, has incorporated these additions and corrections in a single
text with the most bewildering result. We trace exactly the same
process in the Red Book of the Exchequer. In the Black Book the
later additions that were made to the barons' _cartae_ of 1166 are
distinguished by the difference in handwriting. But in the Red Book
these interpolations are found transcribed in the same hand as the
genuine original returns. To the uninitiated this has been the cause
of no small confusion. So, too, in the above list of Peterborough
knights (p. 157), the very first entry, made _temp._ Hen. I, has
been carried on by a later hand to the time of Henry III. But there
Stapleton, who transcribed the list, carefully discriminated between
the two.[11] It is probable that the lists of Abingdon knights,
published in the Abingdon cartulary, are rendered untrustworthy in
places from the same cause of error.
The transcriber's ignorance is clearly shown by such a name as 'Comes
Mauricius', which is evidently his erroneous extension of an original
'Comes Maur'', _i.e._ Count of Mortain! So also we are enabled to
detect proof of the theory I advance in such an entry as 'Willelmus
Meschin de feodo Wellelmi de Curcy'; for William de Curcy held,
_temp._ Henry II, the barony held by William Meschin (his maternal
grandfather, according to Stapleton[12]) _temp._ Henry I. Thus, the
original entry will have run 'William Meschin', while a later hand,
in his grandson's days, will have added, by way of substitution, 'De
feodo William de Curcy'.[13] Our transcriber, combining the two, has,
of course, made nonsense of the whole. The same explanation applies to
the entry, 'Robertus filius Regis de feodo Glovernie', where the first
three words represent the original entry, while the others were added,
probably under Henry II, to connect the holding with the fief of [the
Earl of] Gloucester. 'Brien filius Comitis de feodo de Wallin[g]ford'
is another instance in point, and so, I suspect, is 'Odo [_sic_]
dapifer de feodo de Colcestra'; for I take it that the entry was
originally made in the lifetime of Eudo Dapifer (d. 1120) and that, as
his 'honour' passed into the King's hands, the 'de feodo de Colcestra'
was added at a later time.[14]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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