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
We will now work upwards from the _cartae_ to the Conquest.
Allusions to early enfeoffment are scattered through the _cartae_
themselves. Henry fitz Gerold begins his return: 'Isti sunt milites
Eudonis Dapiferi', and Eudo, we know, 'came in with the Conqueror'. We
learn from another return (_Lib. Rub._, p. 397) that Henry I had given
William de Albini, 'Pincerna, de feodo quod fuit Corbuchun xv. milites
feffatos'. Now this refers to 'Robertus filius Corbution', a Domesday
tenant in Norfolk. The _Testa_, again, comes to our help. Thus we
learn from Domesday that Osbern the priest _alias_ Osbern the sheriff
(of Lincolnshire) was William de Perci's tenant at Wickenby, co.
Lincoln, but the _Testa_ entry (p. 338_a_) proves that William had
enfeoffed him in that holding by the service of one knight.[215] So
too Count Alan (of Brittany) had enfeoffed his tenant Landri at Welton
in the same county for the service of half a knight (_ibid._, 338_b_),
and we find his son, Alan fitz Landri, tenant there to Count Stephen,
a generation later than Domesday, in the Lindsey Survey. The barony of
Bywell in Northumberland, we read in the _Testa_(p. 392_a_), had been
held by the service of five knights[216] since the days of William
Rufus, who had granted it on that tenure.[217] After this we are not
surprised to learn that the barony of Morpeth had been held 'from the
Conquest' by the service of four knights, and that of Mitford as
long by the service of five (_ibid._, p. 392_b_), or that those of
Calverdon, Morewic, and Diveleston had all been similarly held by
military service 'from the Conquest'. In Herefordshire, again, John
de Monmouth is returned as holding 'feoda xv. militum a conquestu
Anglie'.[218] So too Robert Foliot claims in his _carta_ (1166)
that his predecessors had been enfeoffed 'since the conquest of
England';[219] and William de Colecherche, that his little fief was
'de antiquo tenemento a Conquestu Angliae' (_L.R._, p. 400); Humphrey
de Bohun enumerates the fees 'quibus avus suus feffatus fuit in primo
feffamento quod in Anglia habuit' (_ibid._, p. 242), and refers to his
grandfather's subsequent enfeoffments in the days of William Rufus
(p. 244), while Alexander de Alno similarly speaks of sub-infeudation
'tempore Willelmi Regis' (p. 230). To take one more instance from the
_cartae_, an abbot sets forth his _servicium_ due to Henry, 'sicuti
debuit antiquitus regibus predecessoribus ejus' (p. 224). This brings
us to the instructive case of Ramsey Abbey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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