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
II. (FIXED ?) A _donum_ of (it is said) two marcs on the fee
from the under-tenants of the lay barons, raised partly _by
counties_ and partly _by fiefs_.
III. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the church tenants-in-chief
themselves, irrespective of their fees.
IV. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from some of the non-feudal
religious houses (tenants _in elemosina_, and not by military
service).
V. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the towns.
VI. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the sheriffs.
VII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the Jewries.
VIII. (ARBITRARY) A _donum_ from the moneyers.
Of these, the _first_ was strictly regular, being merely a repetition
of the scutage of 1156, at the rate of two marcs instead of twenty
shillings. The _second_ presents some difficulty. Subject to
correction, there are some fifteen cases in which the payment is made
separately by fiefs, and in which the rate is clearly two marcs, while
there are twenty-two in which the _milites_ of the county pay as a
group through the sheriff, and in which, therefore, we cannot actually
test the rate of the levy or the manner of raising it. Swereford's
_ipse dixit_ as to the rate in these latter cases was probably based
on analogy, here our only guide.
With the _third_ and _fourth_ divisions we return to sure ground.
To them I invite particular attention, because it is to them (and
especially to the third) that apply the complaints of the church
chroniclers, and not (as has always, but erroneously, been supposed)
to the perfectly legitimate levy of two marcs on the fee. It is
necessary to emphasize the fact that the matter has been wholly
misunderstood. The bitter complaint of John of Salisbury that
Henry, on this occasion, 'omnibus (contra antiquum morem et debitam
libertatem) indixit ecclesiis ut _pro arbitrio_ ejus satraparum suorum
conferrunt in censum', would have been without meaning had it referred
(as alleged) to the latter levy (or even to the insignificant sums
contributed _ut supra_ by eight foundations); but when we learn that,
over and above this legitimate levy, a far larger sum was arbitrarily
wrung from the church, the truth and justice of the protest are
at once made evident. I here give two tables illustrative of this
exaction. Each is divided into three columns. In the first column
I give the number of the knights due from each bishopric and each
religious house. In the second column I give the marcs due, and paid
on this occasion, on the old assessment (_servitium debitum_). In the
third will be found the exaction complained of, namely, the _dona_
extorted from the spiritual 'barons' themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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