[Footnote 44: These references are to the pages of the forthcoming edition of the _Liber Rubeus_. It will be observed that the second three returns are too closely alike for accidental coincidence; the three Shropshire 'barons' who made them must have been in some communication. Note here the remarkable use of the term 'compares'.] [Footnote 45: Audivi praeceptum vestrum in consulatu Herefordiae.] [Footnote 46: Audito praecepto vestro.] [Footnote 47: Praeceptum vestrum, per totam Angliam divulgatum, per vicecomitem vestrum Northumberlande ad me, sicut ad alios, pervenit.] [Footnote 48: Mandavit nobis ... Vicecomes Stephanus, ex parte vestra quatinus, etc.] [Footnote 49: Praecepit dignitas vestra omnibus fidelibus vestris, clericis et laicis, qui de vobis tenent in capite in Eboracsira ut mandent, etc.... Quorum ego unus, etc.] [Footnote 50: It should be scarcely necessary to warn the reader against confusing the _dominium_, or non-infeudated portion of the entire fief, with the _dominium_, or demesne portion, of each Manor upon that fief.] [Footnote 51: An instance in point is afforded by the Bardolf barony (_i.e._ fief) _temp._ John: 'Heres Dodon' Bardulf tenet feoda xxv. militum per totum. Inde xv. milites sunt feoffati et x. feoda sunt super dominium' (_Testa de Nevill_, p. 19).] [Footnote 52: (1) Old feoffment, (2) new feoffment, (3) demesne.] [Footnote 53: He and his successors are consequently found paying, time after time, on thirty-five fees.] [Footnote 54: William de Beauchamp, of Worcestershire, is virtually a solitary exception. He inserts, _cavendi causa_, this significant clause: 'De hiis praenominatis non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum, nec antecessores mei unquam plus fecerunt, sed quia dominus Rex praecepit michi mandare quot milites habeo et eorum nomina, ideo mando quod istos [_i.e._ 16] habeo fefatos de veteri feffamento; sed non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum.' But William was a sheriff at the time, and may have had special information which put him on his guard.] [Footnote 55: Compare the case of the Irish bishops six years later (1172), who sent the king 'litteras suas in modum cartae extra sigillum pendentes' (Howden). Note also that the addition of the seal made the return essentially a _carta_. In Normandy, the tenants by knight-service were only required (1172) to seal the return (_breve_) of their _servitium debitum_.] [Footnote 56: The point is of some importance in its bearing on the right of the individual to assess himself, which is held in this case to have been exercised. 'The assessment,' writes Dr Stubbs, 'of the individual depended very much on his own report, which the exchequer had little means of checking.'--_C.H._, i. 585.]