Here also, perhaps, it may be allowable to glance at the foreign parallels to fiefs of sixty fees and smaller multiples of five. There is a charter of Charles the Fair (1322-28) 'qua Alphonsum de Hispania "Baronem et Ricum Hominem" Navarræ creat; et, ut Baronis et Rici Hominis statum manu tenere possit, eidem de gratia speciali 60 militias [knight's fees] in regno sua Navarræ concedit modo consueto tenendos et possidendos',[180] while an edict of earlier date proclaims: 'De Vasvassore [_i.e._ baron] qui _quinque milites_ habet, per mortem [? pro morte] ejus, emendetur 60 unciæ auri cocti, et per plagam [? pro plaga] 30, et si plures habuerit milites, crescat compositio sicut numerus militum.'[181] IV. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF KNIGHTS DUE 'Ad hoc solicitius animum direxi ut per regna Angliæ debita Regi servitia militaria quatinus potui plenissime percunctarer.'[182] So writes Swereford, who proceeds to explain that neither the famous Bishop Nigel himself, nor his successor, Bishop Richard, nor William of Ely (_ut supra_) had left any certain information on the subject; while he (Swereford) could not accept the common belief that the Conqueror had created _servitia_ of knights to the amount of 32,000.[183] The cause of his failure is found in the fact that he confused two different things: (1) the _debita Regi servitia_, which formed the only assessment of fiefs down to 1166; (2) the assessment based on the _cartae_ of 1166, which superseded the _debita servitia_, and is not evidence of their amount.[184] But then, as I have already explained above, the exchequer official was concerned only with the actual claims of the crown; for him the original 'service due' had a merely academic interest. There are two estimates for the total of which we are in search. One is 32,000 knights; the other 60,000. 'Stephen Segrave,' Dr Stubbs reminds us, 'the minister of Henry III, reckoned 32,000 as the number' (which confirms Swereford's statement); but he himself wisely declines to hazard 'a conjectural estimate',[185] adding that 'the official computation, on which the scutage was levied, reckoned in the middle of the thirteenth century 32,000 knights' fees, but the amount of money actually raised by Henry II on this account, in any single year, was very far from commensurate'. Gneist repeats this figure, but holds that 'as far as we may conjecture by reference to later statements, the number of shields may be fixed at about 30,000'.[186]