1041. “Hoc anno rex Anglorum Hardecanutus suos huscarlas misit per omnes regni sui provincias ad exigendum quod indixerat tributum. Ex quibus duos, Feader scilicet et Turstan, Wigornenses provinciales cum civibus, seditione exorta, in cuiusdam turris Wigornensis monasterii solario, quo celandi causa confugerant, quarto Nonas Maii, feria secunda peremerunt. Unde rex ira commotus, ob ultionem necis illorum, Thurum Mediterraneorum, Leofricum Merciorum, Godwinum Westsaxonum, Siwardum Northimbrorum, Ronum Magesetensium, et caeteros totius Angliae comites, omnesque ferme suos huscarlas, cum magno exercitu ... illo misit; mandans ut omnes viros, si possint, occiderent, civitatem depraedatam incenderent, totamque provinciam devastarent. Qui, die veniente secundo Iduum Novembrium, et civitatem et provinciam devastare coeperunt, idque per quatuor dies agere non cessaverunt: sed paucos vel e civibus vel provincialibus ceperunt aut occiderunt, quia praecognito adventu eorum, provinciales quoque locorum fugerant. Civium vero multitudo in quandam modicam insulam, in medio Sabrinae fluminis sitam, quae Beverege nuncupatur, confugerant; et munitione facta, tam diu se viriliter adversus suos inimicos defenderunt, quoad pace recuperata, libere domum licuerit eis redire. Quinta igitur die, civitate cremata, unusquisque magna cum praeda rediit in sua; et regis statim quievit ira.” Flor. Wig. 1041. ----- There is another important document of nearly the same period as the grant to Werfrið, by which Eádweard the son of Ælfred gave all the royal rights of jurisdiction in Taunton to the see of Winchester[815]. He freed the land from every burthen, except the universal three, whether they were royal, fiscal, comitial or other secular taxations: he granted that all the bishop’s men, noble or ignoble, resiant upon the aforesaid land, should have every privilege and right which was enjoyed by the king’s men, resiant in his royal fiscs[816], and that all secular jurisdiction should be administered for the bishop’s benefit, as fully as it was elsewhere executed for the king’s. Moreover he attached for ever to Winchester the market-tolls (“villae mercimonium, quod anglice ðæs túnes cýping adpellatur”), together with every civic _census_, tax or payment. Whatsoever had heretofore been the king’s was henceforth to belong to the bishop of Winchester. And that these were valuable rights, producing a considerable income, must be concluded from the large estates which bishop Denewulf and his chapter thought it advisable to give the king in exchange, and which comprised no less than sixty hides of land in several parcels. The bishops, it is to be presumed, henceforth governed Taunton by their own geréfa, to whom the grant itself must be construed to have conveyed plenary jurisdiction, that is the _blut-ban_ or _ius gladii_, the supreme criminal as well as civil justice. ----- Footnote 815: Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. Anno 904.