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STENHOUSE,
A
UNIVERSITY
BOOK EMPORIUM.
COLLEGE GATE,
HILLHEAD, GLASGOW.
A
Piekarolijapalabr
1979q+{{#1}/panzijnpaymanatha 25 Myralarinate
OF
ROBERT MARK WENLEY
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
FROM THE LIBRARY
1929
GIFT OF HIS CHILDREN
1896
TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
AH";AA:BRIHLL
NHW Bicknell del at Sc
1938
ATYKABUKENGITEN DUTERT/L/DRUPTUETESTIAREN AZKARIEREJOAMAANANTA COILER
NORMAN BRITAIN.

Stanford's Geog? Estab
MICH
OF
NIV
842500
IMO
จ
Bryt
St Michaels M
St David's
Anglesey
M
Strathearn
Strathel
Stirling
Freystrop
St Negts
Galloway
Isle of Man
Abernethy
Edinburgh
Lothian
Rhuddlan
Ceredigion
Scone
Gwynedd
Trematon
Exeter
R.Usk
Carlisle
Roxburgh
St Andrews
Morganwg
Llantwit
S&F Holms
R.Ribble
R.Mersey
Chester
R.Wve
Hereford
Chepstow
Shrewsbury
Llanfair
Montgomery Wenlock Bridgenorth
YEAR
mus
Glastonburyo
Tone
Bridport
Alrowick
Ilchester
Montacute
Berwicke
Wells
Newcastle
Stafford
Bristol
Berkeley
Durham
• Richmond
Fountains
O
Riport
Kirkstall
Dorchester
Tynemouth
Wearmouth
Worcester Warwick
Evesham
Gloucester
Derby
Leeds
Coventry
Wilton
Salisbury
Malmesbury
Southwell
Leicester
Occford
Yorke
Nottingham
Wallingford
Alwinestune
Winchester
Romsey
Reading
10
NORMAN BRITAIN
Scale of Statute Miles
20 30
40 50
RAZ
1.of
Wight
England in 1087
Red
Where Domesday boundary
differs
England 1092 to 1100
Parts under Norman
influence
Forests are shewn thus
Marshes
Lincoln
Rockingham
Crowland
Abingdon
Dorchester London
Peterborough
Ely
Ramsey
Bedford
M
R. Humber
Waverley
Chichester
Arundel
Cambridge
Waltham
Rochester
Colchester
Battle
Lewes
Thetford
Tunbridge
Norwich
St Edmunds
R.Thames
Canterbury
100
Hastings
Dover
EARLY BRITAIN.
NORMAN BRITAIN.
BY
WILLIAM HUNT, M.A.
WITH MAP.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION of
THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION
APPOINTED BY THE
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C.
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.
26, ST. GEORGE'S PLACE, HYDE PARK CORNER, S.W.
BRIGHTON : 135, NORTH STREET.
NEW YORK: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
1884.
019 353 005
1-14-39
PREFACE.
THIS little book does not profess to be a history of
events. In a series of short essays, treating facts
rather as illustrations than as invested with any inde-
pendent importance, I have endeavoured to describe
how the Teutonic Northmen were brought under
Romance influences before they conquered our Teu-
tonic land; and, considering the Norman period as
a crisis in the long story of our people, when a
Romance element was violently introduced into the
population itself and into every phase of its life, to
show how this foreign element, overwhelming as it
seemed at the time, consummated many changes
already in progress, preserved much, destroyed little,
and made no violent break in our history. I have
also tried here and there, as my space would allow,
to point out some of the effects of the Norman rule
on our later history, both as to what we have kept
and as to what we have cast aside as hindrances to
our national development. As Mr. Freeman, besides
his great works on the Norman Conquest and on the
reign of William Rufus, has also published a hand-
book of the Norman period, it may seem that in
writing this volume I have been fishing in his waters.
vi
NORMAN BRITAIN.
It was, however, at his request, and with his generous
invitation to me to make use of all he had written,
that I undertook to attempt the subject that he has
made his own. Such as my work is, it will, I hope,
be evident that it has not been done without some
familiarity with original authorities acquired not for
this occasion only. References to most of the
authorities I have used will be found in the foot-
notes. Since the publication of the Introduction
to English History by Professor S. R. Gardiner and
Mr. J. B. Mullinger, brief notices of these authorities
are no longer wanted, and for any longer account of
them I have no space.
Although my references to the works of Professor
Stubbs and Mr. Freeman are manifold, my obligations
to them both as my teachers and friends deserve a
special acknowledgment, for they are far greater than
can be expressed in foot-notes. Mr. Freeman, with
that unvarying kindness which he has shown me for
many years, has spared time to read through the
proofs of this little book, and has given me the
benefit of his criticism and counsel. It is right,
however, to state that neither he nor Professor Stubbs
is to be held responsible for any statements I
have made, save where I have directly referred to
them. If here and there I have ventured to differ
from either of them, I hope that in doing so I have
not forgotten what is due to them from all students
of our history, and especially from myself. My obli-
gations to many other modern writers are also great.
These, I hope, I have adequately acknowledged in
my foot-notes. I have also to express my thanks for
PREFACE.
vii
help of various kinds given me by my friends,—
Mr. York Powell, Dr. J. Beddoe, M.D., Dr. F. Glad-
stone, Mus. Doc., and Mr. S. L. Lee; and especially
to Mr. F. Storr, who has most kindly assisted me in
the revision of my pages, and has given me many
valuable suggestions; and to the Rev. E. McClure for
much help and supervision of the same kind.
1884.
W. H.
Cathleen.
A
Richard III., Robert,
o.s.p. 1028. ob. 1035.
William
the Conqueror,
ob. 1087.
THE HOUSES OF ROLF AND OF ETHELRED II.
Rolf (Gangr), = 1. Popa.
ob. 927? ? 2. Gisla.
2. Richard the Good,
ob. 1026.
Robert,
ob. 1134.
William,
o.s.p. 1128.
1. William Longsword,
ob. 943.
...
Richard,
o.s.p.
1. Richard the Fearless,
ob. 996.
Judith of
Britanny.
Matilda, dau. of
Baldwin V.,
Count of Flanders.
1. Sprota Asperleng,
2. Leodgardis.
Herleva Herlwin. Malger, Dau.
Arch-
bishop
of Rouen.
William Rufus,
0.5.p.
I. Emma, dau. of D. Hugh.
2. Gunnor.
Odo,
Bishop of
Bayeux.
T
2. Emma (Ælfgifu). = 1. Æthelred II.*
2. Cnut.
ob. 1052.
Robert, Count
of Mortain.
Å
Henry I., = 1. Eadgyth (Matilda),
ob. 1135.
dau. of Malcolm.
2. Adeliza of Löwen.
I. Gerloc.
(Adela)
TH
cnut,
Baldwin IV., 1. Ælfred, 1. Eadward, 2. Hartha-
Count of
o.s.p. Confessor,
Flanders. 1036.
o.s.p. 1066.
William,
Count of
Poitiers.
Matilda, dau. of
Roger of
Montgomery.
o.s.p.
1042.
Adela Stephen,
Count of
Blois.



1. William, 1. Matilda 1. Henry V.,
0.s.p. 1120.
Emperor.
2. Geoffrey,
Count of Anjou.
|
2. Henry II.,
ob. 1189.
1. Eadmund Ironside,
ob. 1016.
d
Eadgar Ætheling,
o.s.p.
Eleanor,
of Aquitaine.
Eadmund.
2. Ælfred.
Eadgar, Alexander, Eadgyth
o.s.p. 1107. o.s.p. 1124. (Matilda.)
* Ethelred II., = 1. Ælfgifu?
ob. 1016.
Margaret,
ob. 1093.
Robert,
Earl of
Gloucester.
A
Henry I. Mary
Eustace,
o.s.p. 1153.
2. Emma (Ælfgifu).
|
Stephen,
ob. 1154.
2. Eadward, Confessor.
Matilda
Eadward,
ob. 1057.
Malcolm of Scotland,
ob. 1093.
Eustace, Count
of Boulogne.
Stephen.
不
​Agatha.
Matilda, of
Boulogne.
William,
Count of Boulogne,
o.s.p. 1160.
1
David,
ob. 1153.
Henry
Bishop of
Winchester,
ob. 1171.
2. Godgifu 1. Drogo of
Mantes.
2. Eustace
of Boulogne.
T
1. Earl Ralph.
Christina,
nun.
Matilda, d. of
E. Watheof.
Henry, E. of Huntingdon,
ob. 1152. ^
|
Duncan,
ob. 1095.



Humfrey de Vetulis.
Robert of Beaumont,
o.s.p.
Robert, Count of Meulan,
Earl of Leicester, ob. 1118.
Robert, Earl of Leicester,
ob. 1167.
Robert, Earl of Leicester,
ob. 1190.
Robert Fitz Parnell,
Earl of Leicester,
o.s.p. 1204.
THE HOUSE OF BEAUMONT,
Torf.
Pont
Turold of Pont Audemer
Roger of Beaumont
Isabel, dau. of
Count of Vermandois.
Petronilla, dau. of
Hugh of Grantmesnil.
Amicia
T
Simon IV. of Montfort,
Earl of Leicester, ob. 1218.
Weva, sister of Gunnor.
Simon V. of Montfort,
Earl of Leicester, ob. 1265.
Joscelina.
Waleran,
Count of
Meulan.
^
Simon III. of Montfort l'Amauri.
John, King.
Adeliza, dau. of Waleran,
Count of Meulan.
不
​Eleanor.
Hugh of Montgomery.
Hugh the Poor,
Earl of
Bedford.
Henry, Earl of Warwick,
ob. 1123.
1
Roger, Earl of Warwick,
ob. 1153.
^
Margaret
Saer de Quenci,
Earl of
Winchester.



Robert of Belesme,
Earl,
imp. 1113.
THE HOUSE OF MONTGOMERY,
Roger of Montgomery.
Hugh Joscelina, dau. of Turold.
(See House of Beaumont.)
Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury,
ob. 1094.
Agnes, dau. of
Count of
Ponthieu.
1. Mabel, dau. of William Talvas,
of Belesme, Seez, &c., ob. 1082.
2. Adeliza of Puisat.
Hugh, Earl,
o.s.p. 1098.
Roger of Poitou,
Earl of Lancaster,
o.s.m.p.
William Talvas, Count of Ponthieu.
À
Arnulf, Matilda. Robert,
Earl of
Pembroke.
of Mortain.
(See House
of Rolf.)
[The foregoing genealogies are not complete; they include such names only as are of special importance during
the period treated in the text.]

NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER I.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
Ar first sight, the year 1066 seems like the end and
beginning of all things. A careless comparison of the
England of Eadward the Confessor with the England of
Edward I. would lead us to believe not merely that
our country had passed through a period of change,
but that there had been an uprooting and a new
planting of ideas and institutions. Compare, for
instance, the armed Witenagemot, held at London in
1051, with the Parliament of 1295. There seems
little connexion between the assembly in which the
king and his party, upheld by the forces which
Eadward had gathered, were able for a while to defeat
the overweening ambition of the house of Godwine,
and the Parliament at Westminster, to which each
of the three estates was summoned to take its own
share in "that which should be ordained of their
common counsel." Or compare the arms and array
of the host which Harold led to the overthrow of
Gruffydd with those employed by Edward in his Welsh
wars, and the fruitlessness which necessarily attended
In
B
2
NORMAN BRITAIN.
English conquest in the eleventh century with the
abiding results of the annexation of Wales which
followed the wars of Edward. Or listen to the words
in which English gleemen sang how-
Eadward king,
Sent his soothfast
Of Angles lord,
Soul to Christ,
and then contrast them both in sentiment and form
with the song which speaks of the death of the
greater Edward as a calamity touching all Christian
lands as well as England, and describes how, when
the news came to the Papal court,-
The Pope himself the lettre redde,
Ant spec a word of gret honour,
Alas! he seide, is Edward ded,
Of Christendome he ber the flour.
In her constitutional life, her arms, her songs, and to
some extent even in her language, it seems as though
the England of one epoch was wholly different from the
England of the other, as if the battle of Senlac [or
Hastings] must have been the catastrophe of the exist-
ence of a nation. Yet nothing can be further from the
truth than this idea. In spite of the changes which the
Norman Conquest effected, the English people have pre-
served their identity and the continuity of their history.
If any one were to take the accession of William the
Norman as a starting-point for the study of English
history, he would, at the very outset, meet with many
things which cannot be understood except by reference
to far earlier times; and as he read the history of later
reigns, he would find his difficulties increase rather
than diminish, for, as soon as the shock of conquest
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
3
passed away, our old institutions began to show their
inherent force. The Norman Conquest is not a
starting-point. From the very nature and circum-
stances of the two peoples it could not be so. Stead-
fast and home-keeping, with institutions which were
of slow growth, of gradual and spontaneous develop-
ment, and which for six centuries had been closely
connected with the land in which they dwelt, the
English people could not easily adopt foreign ways.
Nor did the Normans try to uproot old institutions.
They were not founders of new systems. They were
quick at adapting and organizing those which were
ready to their hands. As in the land called by their
name they had in a century and a half become
French, so in England, at the end of a period of the
same length, the Great Charter bore witness that our
land contained one people, and that that people was
composed of Englishmen.
While the Norman Conquest did not put an end to
our old national life, it wrought great changes in it.
Although it did not destroy our laws, our language,
or our social order, it modified them all. It did
not people our land afresh, but it brought in new
colonists. And until all distinctions of race ceased,
the chief men in England were not Englishmen ;
strangers took the highest places. The Norman period
was a crisis, for it was a period of change; it was a
discipline, for that change was wrought by suffering.
This discipline of conquest came from the hands of
men who, though they were our kinsmen by descent,
had adopted a foreign civilization. The latter part
of the ninth century saw the Danish dominion re-
B 2
4
NORMAN BRITAIN.
cognized in all the north-east, yet the influx of the
new settlers left few signs save an increase of vigour
in the people. Only fifty years before the battle
which handed England over to the Norman duke
the crown was won by Cnut. But the rule of the
Danish dynasty made no great change in England.
The third invasion of men of Scandinavian race left
marks which abide, after the lapse of eight centuries,
on every phase of English life. The reason of the dif-
ference is to be found in the character of the invaders.
The Danes of Guthrum's time were untouched by
Roman influence, and were inferior to the English
in civilization. With Cnut himself the case was
different. He had learned imperial ideas of consolida-
tion and order; but the lesson was only half learned :
he desired the end without knowing how to gain it.
A division of England between powerful earls, who held
their government at his will, was the device which he
formed for the attainment of unity. It was a dan-
gerous experiment, for its success depended on the
strength of the crown. When Cnut was dead and
the crown became weak, his earldoms threatened to
become governments of a feudal type, and the con-
fusion was worse than ever. In the Norman Conquest,
though the invaders were to no small extent akin to
us in blood, and might have traced their descent from
the sea-kings of the North and their followers, they
had adopted the civilization of the South. During
the hundred and fifty years of their residence in
Normandy they had learned to combine the ideas and
habits of a Romance people with their own hardy
tempers. In their language, their religion, and their
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
5
political and social life, they had become Frenchmen,
while at the same time they retained their peculiar
characteristics and energy. Above all, their duke,
William the Conqueror, after a severe struggle, had
become master in his own land and knew how to
enforce order. The object of this book will be to
describe how the sea-rovers of the North adopted the
Roman civilization of Gaul; how they inflicted on
England the discipline of conquest; and how that
discipline affected our national life.
As the character, social condition, and religion of
the Northmen will be fully described in another
volume of this series, it will not be necessary to give
a detailed account of these matters. The people
dwelling in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are called
Scandinavians. They are a Teutonic people, and
their speech is nearer akin to the Low German than
it is to the High German language. There seems
little reason for believing that the Northmen
worshipped idols: they shared the religious myths of
their Teutonic kinsmen, and looked on the powers
of nature as endowed with spiritual life.¹ Priests
offered up cattle and horses in their temples, and
great feasts were held, at which the worshippers drank
ale to their gods. In old times human sacrifices were
often made, and this custom did not wholly die out
until the Northmen became Christians. Woden, the
father of gods and men, at once the Heaven and
the Lord of Heaven, was also the wise one who, like
Prometheus, gained inspired wisdom for men by his
¹ For the Beliefs and Worship of the Northmen, see Vigfusson'
and Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i., 407-427 ; ii., 458-466.
6
NORMAN BRITAIN.
craft. Thor, the Thunder, the red-bearded god, the
active ruler of the clouds; Loki, the tormented and
earth-tormenting giant; and Hel, at once the place of
the dead and the power that ruled there, are all forces
of nature invested with personality, and made the
subject of myths. Besides these common beliefs each
family worshipped its ancestors. Magic and witch-
craft of every kind had a strong hold upon their
minds. A special sanctity was attached to certain
objects, such as running water. The names of beasts
borne by men, and the stories of the mixed descent
of some of the Scandinavian heroes, are signs of the
animal-myths once believed in all lands. When the
Northmen were brought into contact with Christianity
and western civilization, they formed a new religious
system. This religion was the faith of the sea-rovers
rather than of the people in their old homes. Under
the influence of Christianity, which tinged their
religion before displacing it, they learned to conceive
the victory of life and light over darkness and death.
At the same time this new religion, which belonged
to the age of the early pirate expeditions, was to a
great extent materialistic. All who could show the
marks of battle went to dwell with Woden in Walhalla.
There on the broad plains they fought with one
another by day, and at evening the slayer and the
slain returned together to feast upon the flesh of
the boar and drink deep draughts of mead.
The social and political institutions of the Scandi-
navian kingdoms were nearly the same as those of
our forefathers. Settlements were made by village
communities founded on the tie of kindred, and
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
7
land was in early times cultivated in partnership
by the members of the community. The land held in
common by the kindred is called the mark,2 and this
mark system has left its traces in the local assemblies,
regulating their own affairs in accordance with by-laws
which they made, and in the respect paid to the heads
of the village communities, who were regarded as the
descendants of the original founders of the settle-
ment. Numerical divisions, founded on the arrange-
ment of the host or the people in arms, also entered
largely into their judicial and territorial systems. The
importance of number in the allotment of land and the
administration of justice naturally comes into special
prominence in the settlements of the Northmen in
new colonies. Offences were, for the most part, atoned
for by a money payment, and a man's social position
was distinguished by his wer, or the value of his life
in money. Even adultery was a matter for damages,
and was regarded rather as the theft of a man's most
valued possession than as a crime in itself. In their
piratical expeditions the Northmen took many women
captives, and this had a bad influence in lowering
their morality and in giving women an unworthy place
in society. Judicial matters were decided by compur-
gation or sworn witness, and by trial by battle, which
had no place in the Anglo-Saxon courts. Society was
divided, as amongst our forefathers, into nobles and
freemen (jarls and karls), and slaves (thralls). The
kingship belonged to one family, which traced its
descent from Woden. In Norway, the king had little
power before the middle of the ninth century, and
2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., pp. 49-51.
8
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Harold Harfager, or Fairhair, may be considered as
the founder of the royal authority. Coincident with
the increase of the dignity and importance of the king-
ship was a change in the character of the class of jarls,
from a nobility of birth to a nobility derived from office.
The various assemblies of the people were called
Things. Like the witenagemot of England, the
national thing was aristocratic in character. The
Scandinavians were thus closely allied to the Teutonic
invaders of Britain in race, religion, and institutions,
and in the early part of the ninth century were much
in the same state of civilization as our forefathers
were in the middle of the fifth century. A strong
idea of law and a special aptitude for discipline
existed among the Northmen, and mutiny was un-
known in their ships.
Dwelling in barren lands, the peoples of the North
sought their living on the sea, and were skilful in
managing their ships. Famines and the chances of
internal strife drove them to seek other lands, and
whether in their own seas or on some longer voyage
the love of battle and the hope of plunder made
them pirates. At the end of the seventh century
the long Norse ships began to appear off many a
southern shore. Sweden, for the most part, sent her
sea-rovers eastward. The Danes and the Norwegians,
to whom the name of Northmen more strictly
belongs, began to infest all the coasts of Western
Europe. No other land, not even our own, suffered
so severely from their ravages as the kingdom of
the Western Franks. The monk of Saint Gallen &
'Mon. Sangall, ii., 14.
3
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
ge
tells us how, on a time, it happened that the emperor
Charles the Great was in a town upon the coast of the
province of Narbonne, and, as he sat at dinner, he
saw some ships of the Northmen enter the harbour.
Hearing that the great emperor was in the town,
the pirates hastened away. Charles rose from table,
and as he stood alone at a window his courtiers.
could see him shedding tears. He wept, he said,
because the knowledge of the evils which these
people would bring upon his house and on those
subject to it filled him with anguish. If Charles did
indeed speak thus, his words were terribly fulfilled.
And if the story is but a piece of romance, it at least
serves to show how far and how boldly the Northmen.
sailed their ships, even in the lifetime of the mighty
emperor. When Charles was dead, the wars of his.
grandsons left the empire defenceless, and the long
black ships of the Northmen entered the wide mouths
of the Seine and the Loire. In 841, the sons of
Lewis the Pious arrayed the nations of the west
in battle at Fontenay, where, in the words of the
chroniclers, "the Frankish people was well-nigh
blotted out by slaughter." In that same year the
Northmen sailed up the Seine through the land which
was to be called by their name, and which, under the:
rule of their descendants, was to become of the first
importance in the history of Europe.
114
Between the Somme and St. Michael's Mount,.
the history of successive colonizations may still be
read in the characteristic features of the inhabitants.
When Cæsar conquered Gaul (B. C. 58-50), the
4 Lambert of Herzfeld, Ann. 841.
10
NORMAN BRITAIN.
district between the Seine and the Loire was inhabited
by the Kelts, a tall race, with light hair, blue eyes,
and broad or round skulls. These Kelts had dis-
possessed and driven to the south and west an earlier
Iberian race, small of stature, dark, and with long
heads.5 By Cæsar's time, however, the Kelts were
being pressed on by the Belgæ, a kindred people, who
already held the land from the Seine to Scheldt, and
were being driven onwards in their turn by tall
Germanic tribes. The present inhabitants of the
central part of Normandy, between the Seine and the
Cotentin, are, for the most part, fairly tall, with light
complexions and eyes, and may be of Celtic, Belgic,
or Teutonic ancestry. On the north of the Seine,
and in the Cotentin, a large number of the population
are of shorter stature, and have brown hair and grey
eyes; for in these districts the darker people probably
made a stand, and some fusion of races took place.
Exposed as these parts are to foreign invasion, it is
likely that they received many Teutonic settlers, of
whose coming we know nothing; while the Cotentin
was destined to become the chief stronghold of the
Scandinavian colonists of Northern Gaul. During
the rule of the Merovingian dynasty in Gaul, there
seems to have been but slight connexion between the
land we now call Normandy and the Frankish kings
of Neustria, and the character of the population was
little changed by the Teutonic conquest. Although the
superior political organization introduced by Charles
the Great brought the land into more frequent rela-
tions with the crown, the Franks remained a small
military caste. Besides these different types of physiog-
5 W. Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, 319.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
II
6
nomy, the records of history and of science alike bear
witness to the presence of another element in the
population peculiar to this part of France, in the
Saxon colonization of the country about Bayeux.
In accordance with the policy of the later days of
the empire, a colony of Saxons was stationed on
the coast, in the third century, to ward off the
attacks of their own countrymen. It is evident that
the colonists long kept their own speech, for as late as
853, in a capitulary of Charles the Bald, their land is
called Otlingua Saxonica. Their type of physiognomy
can still be discerned in the fair and oval-faced
people to be met with in the modern department
of Calvados. Save that here the Saxon tongue may
yet have lingered, the people of this district spoke
the Romance language, of which the famous oath
taken by the soldiers of Charles the Bald at Strass-
burg is the earliest monument. The province of the
archbishop of Rouen was enriched by the devotion
of the Franks. Many noble churches adorned the
city of his see, and outside the walls stood the famous
monastery of St. Ouen. Evreux, Lisieux, Seez,
Bayeux, Coutances, and Avranches were the sees of
bishops. Monastic foundations, some of them great
and splendid, such as the abbeys of Jumièges and
Fontanelle, were scattered through the land. The
conquering Franks adopted the religion, the habits,
and the language of the conquered people. The land
was still full of the comforts and luxuries of Roman
civilization, and was, even as it is now, fruitful and
pleasant to dwell in.
In May, 841, the Northmen, under their leader
6 Recueil des Historiens, vii., p. 616.
12
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Asker, sailed up the Seine.7 Passing by stately
churches and pleasant dwellings, through a land
which must have been in the full beauty of spring-
tide, the black ships sailed up to Rouen. The city was
plundered and burned and then the pirates turned and
sailed down stream, destroying the abbey of Jumièges
as they passed. After this, each year has its tale of
plunder, fire, and massacre.
The heathen scourge
seems to have fallen with special weight on churches
and on churchmen. Rich in money and costly offer-
ings, the monasteries were the repositories of the
wealth of the land, and as, for the most part, they
were built, like St. Ouen's at Rouen, outside the walls
of the towns, they were easily plundered. Buried
stores of gold and silver, found from time to time in
the home of the Northmen, may once have adorned
the shrine of a saint or filled the coffers of a Neustrian
abbey. Yet, though the woes of ecclesiastics are
naturally described with special fulness by monastic
chroniclers, no one escaped where the Northmen
came, for they ever brought with them death or
captivity. "In every street where they had been,"
the chronicler says, 8 "there lay the corpses of clerks
and laymen, of nobles, and of all alike, of women and
of little children, so that there was no road and no
place where the dead were not." Paris was sacked
more than once, for the island city lay right in the path
of the Northmen. Not yet a capital, she was now rising
into importance; and while her position was perilous
to herself, it marked her as the spot where the course
of the enemy might be checked. The thoughts and
7 Chronicon Fontanellense, 841.
8 Annales Vedastini, in Recueil, viii. 83.
SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTHMEN.
13
aims of the king of the West Franks were all turned
to other objects than the deliverance of his land
from the northern invaders. Happily, a power was
rising up which would perform this duty for him.
The grant made to count Robert the Strong, in 861,
of the march between the Seine and the Loire led to
the defence of Paris against the pirates. The city
was besieged in 885 by a fleet manned, it is said,
though the number must be exaggerated, by 30,000
Northmen, and led by Sigeferth and Hasting. It
was bravely defended by count Eudes, the son of
Robert, who was afterwards chosen king. The settle-
ment of a band of Northmen at Rouen, in alliance
with the Frankish king, proved a permanent defence
against further attacks. Other colonies of Northmen
settled in various parts of the empire; for the vigorous
advance of the royal power in Norway under Harold
Harfager (900-945?), made many a restless jarl turn
rover; and as the policy of Ælfred shut England
against further immigration, it became necessary to
look out for a new field for colonization. One famous
sea-king, named Guthred, received Frisia from Charles
the Fat, along with the hand of Gisla, a daughter of
Lothar, on condition of baptism. A colony under
Ragnald, for a while at least, planted itself at the
mouth of the Loire. Hasting and his band estab-
lished themselves at Chartres. None of these settle-
ments led to any permanent results. A settlement
of the same kind as these was made by the pirates
of the Seine under Rolf, and from it came the
Norman duchy.
9 Annales Mettenses, 882.
14
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER II.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
THE origin of the Norman duchy was the settlement
of a band of Northmen under a leader called Hrolf,
or Rolf, —a name which the French changed into Rou,
and which in Latin becomes Rolio. We know very
little for certain about the circumstances of this settle-
ment, though some histories describe them as though
they were well ascertained. A considerable gap
occurs in most of the French chronicles about the
beginning of the tenth century, a forcible, though
silent, witness of the miseries inflicted by the North-
men. The story of the treaty which laid the founda-
tion of the Norman state depends almost wholly
on the word of Dudo, who was neither a Norman
by birth nor a contemporary witness.
Dudo was
canon, and afterwards dean, of St. Quentin, and was
probably a native of Vermandois. He was a frequent
guest at the Norman court, and wrote his history at
the request of Richard the Fearless, about a hundred
years after the settlement of the Northmen round
Rouen. A careful examination has lately been made¹
of Dudo's account of the life of Rolf, and the result
has been to show how little dependence is to be
placed upon it. Dudo wrote with the evident inten-
tion of pleasing the Norman court, and so, instead of
1 By Mr. H. Howorth in The Archæologia, vol. xlv.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
15
trying to find out from the oldest warriors what their
fathers had told them of the actions of Rolf, he seems
to have assigned to the life of his hero many events
which really belonged to the lives of other sea-kings.
In the first place, he makes Rolf a Dane, and this
shows that he could not have sought for information
from living men.
For the sagas tell us that he was
a Norwegian, and though it is true that these sagas
were put together at a considerably later time, this is
one of the points on which it must be quite safe to
trust them. Rolf, it seems, was the son of Reginwald,
the Jarl of More, and was called Gangr, or the
Walker, .because no horse could bear his weight. He
lived by piracy, and we read² how that, one summer
day, "when he came from his sea-roving from the
east into the Bay (between Norway and Gothland),
he made a strand-slaughter (drove off cattle and
killed them on the shore for his crews). King Harold
was in the Bay at the time. He was very wroth when
he heard it, for he had laid a great ban against any
plundering within the land. And at the Thing he
had Rolf outlawed from Norway. But when Hild,
his mother, the daughter of Rolf Neb, heard it, she
went to the king and prayed peace for Rolf; but
the king was so wroth, that she got no good of her
prayer." Then Rolf sailed away "west of the main
(the North Sea) to the south islands (Sodor), and
thence he went westwards into Welshland (Gaul),
and got him an earldom there, and settled it thick
with Northmen, and it has been called Northmandy
ever since." Such is the story of the life of Rolf, as
2 Saga of Harold Fairhair, c. 24.
16
NORMAN BRITAIN.
we have it from the traditions of his own people.
Dudo gives a minute account of his expeditions, and,
to please his readers, makes him behave like a devout
Christian and a gallant gentleman, instead of as a
heathen and a pirate. For when Dudo wrote, French
manners had come into fashion at the Norman court.
His utter untrustworthiness becomes apparent when
he makes Rolf the leader of the Northmen at the
siege of Paris in 885. We know a good deal about
this famous siege, for, besides notices of it in different
chronicles, we have a detailed account of it written
by an ecclesiastic named Abbo who took an active
part in the defence of the city. The two leaders
were Sigeferth and Hasting, and neither Abbo nor
any other chronicler mentions Rolf as present at
the siege at all; while, according to Dudo, he is
the great person throughout its whole progress.
While the siege went slowly on, Dudo takes Rolf
to Bayeux, and there he represents him as taking
to wife Popa, the daughter of a Count Berengar.
Considerable doubt has been thrown on this mar-
riage. It has been suggested that the story was
made up to satisfy the vanity of Rolf's descend-
ants, by giving them a French ancestress. Rolf
already had a daughter named Cathleen, who is
mentioned in the "Landnama-bok" of Iceland.³
Cathleen was probably born to Rolf by a captive
wife in Ireland or the western isles: she married
an Irish king, and became the ancestress of
one of the most famous families in Iceland. It is
quite possible that William Longsword was the son of
Corpus Poeticum Boreale, ii. 491.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
17
Cathleen's mother. On the other hand, the arguments
against the marriage of Popa do not seem conclusive.
Rolf may have been at the siege of Paris, though not
as a great leader, and there seems to have been an
expedition made against Bayeux at this time.
The pirates of the Seine, a mixed multitude
of Norwegians and Danes, formed a distinct com-
munity under their own leaders. One among the
many bands which spoiled the land of the Franks, it
alone was destined to have a great history. That
history began when, in 911, according to Dudo,
Charles the Simple made a treaty with Rolf at Clair-
sur-Epte, granting him all the lands which lay between
the Epte and the sea, with Britanny also, and giving
him his daughter Gisla to wife. In return, Rolf was
baptized and became the vassal of the king. The
fact of the vassalage is passed lightly over by the
courtly chronicler, and is made to redound to
Norman honour by a famous story. Rolf was bidden
to do homage to the king for his fief. He flatly refused
to perform this act, which he deemed beneath his
dignity, and at last, being urged by the Franks, he
bade one of his men do it for him. The man refused
to bend his knee, and, standing upright, with true
Norse humour, raised the king's foot so high as to
tilt him backwards. The story of the marriage of
Rolf and Gisla seems like a repetition of the story of
the marriage of Guthred and Gisla. And as Charles
the Simple was born in 879, and was probably not
married until 907, it is difficult to refuse to accept the
opinion, that in this matter, as well as in several
* Mr. II. Howorth, as above,
4
с
18
NORMAN BRITAIN.
others, Dudo has appropriated to Rolf events which
really belonged to the lives of other Norse leaders.
From his desire to please his patrons, he has given
a false account of the fief which was given to Rolf.
So far from having any rights over Britanny, the
Northmen did not receive the grant of the Cotentin
until some time later. So also, with regard to the rela-
tions between Rolf and the king, Dudo speaks almost.
as if Charles and Robert, duke of the French, were
forced to become the Northman's vassals.5 The main
facts, however, seem certain. Rolf received a grant
of territory from Charles the Simple, "for the defence
of the realm." The extent of this grant was probably
determined by the land which the Northmen already
occupied, and included Rouen and some territory on
either side of the Seine. Rolf and his comrades were
instructed in the Christian faith, and were baptized
by Wido, archbishop of Rouen. The lands which
were made over to him were part of the duchy of
France held by Robert, the brother of Eudes; and so
5 Mr. Howorth believes the date of this treaty "to be utterly
wrong," and refers to Frodoard, who says (Hist. Rem., iv.
14), that the cession was made after the defeat of the Northmen
at Chartres (Carnotenus) by Duke Robert, and goes on to speak
of Heriveus, Archbishop of Rheims, as giving advice about the
evangelisation of Rolf's men ; see also Richer, i. 30. "Heriveus
did not," says Mr. Howorth, "become archbishop until 920,
and therefore the treaty was not made until 921. Against this
conclusion may be set the record of the Council of Rheims, held
900, "primo scilicet die quando ordinatus est Heriveus in archi-
episcopatu Remensi episcopus" (Bouquet, ix., 318); and a charter
of Charles the Simple, 918, ibid., 536, which refers to the grant
to "the Northmen of the Seine." There seems no reason for
refusing to accept 911-912 as the date of the treaty.
""
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
19
duke Robert played a conspicuous part in the treaty
and stood godfather to Rolf, giving him his own
name. The treaty between Charles and Rolf was
perhaps suggested by the Peace of Wedmore between
Ælfred and Guthrum. In both cases alike the
lands ceded to the Northmen were not part of
the immediate possessions of the kings who ceded.
them. Both Ælfred and Charles merely gave up
territories which belonged to subject lords. Ælfred,
indeed, by the overthrow of the northern sub-
kingdoms, actually increased his immediate territory.
This was not the case with the Carolingian king.
Yet he, too, gained much, for, by the evangelization
and settlement of the Northmen of the Seine, he
gained for the time a powerful and faithful vassal,
and raised up a rival to the house of Eudes."
The territory granted to the new settlers did not
answer to any political or geographical division, and
was called simply "Terra Northmannorum," the land
of the Northmen. Their leader gained no new title
by the treaty of Clair-sur-Epte. To his own country-
men he was the Jarl of Rouen. And in spite of their
zeal for religion and their importance in the kingdom,
the counts or dukes of the Northmen were, in the
eyes of the French to the third generation, the leaders.
of the pirates. Little is known of the administration.
of the new state. Norman writers, judging by the
position held by the dukes of their own time, naturally
speak of Rolf as holding supreme power from the
first. There are indications, however, that his position
6 Freeman, Norman Conquest, i., c. iv., p. 189.
C 2
20
NORMAN BRITAIN.
8
was changed and established by the successful issue
of his enterprise. Just as the settlement in Britain
changed the Saxon ealdorman into a king, so probably
the Northmen's settlement in Neustria changed a
leader of small repute into a count or duke. A story
is told how, when the crews of the Northmen were
rowing up the Seine in 867, they were challenged to
tell their names and the name of their lord. "We
have no lord," was the proud answer, "for we share
the command." It is possible that this equality was
more apparent at the treaty than the Norman writers
would lead us to believe. A tradition, preserved by a
late chronicler, of the origin of the counts of Blois
seems to indicate that the authority of Rolf was
shared by others; and in a charter of Charles, the
grant of 911 is said to have been made "to the
Northmen of the Seine, namely, to Rolf and his
companions." Be this as it may, no Scandinavian
principle of equality between settlers such as was so
strong in the early stage of the colonization of Iceland,
which was effected at this time, found place in the
new Norman state. This difference may have arisen
from the fact that the colonization of Iceland was
peaceful, while the Northmen of the Seine were in
a hostile land. The count was supreme, ruling as a
personal lord. The stories which represent Rolf as
a lawgiver are practically worthless. No need of new
laws or of a new system of administration could have
existed. Round the count was gathered an assembly
of the usual Teutonic type, such as we find the
7 Chron. Sithiense, Recueil, vii., 207.
Diplomata, Recueil, ix., 536.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
2I
Al-thing of Iceland, in which, while in theory every
freeman had a voice, all matters were really decided
by the nobles, who in the early days of the colony
were the chiefs of the original settlers or their
descendants. With the consent of this assembly,
Rolf is said to have abdicated in favour of his son
William. During his life, the Bessin was added to the
Terra Northmannorum. In this new district, already
colonized, as we have seen, by Teutonic settlers, the
Northmen seem to have found a congenial home, and
Bayeux quickly became thoroughly Norse in religion,
feeling, and language. Some rights were also acquired
by the Northmen over Britanny. Rolf is said⁹ to have
divided the land between his followers by measuring it
with a rope. This was the usual practice of the North-
men. It does not imply that they found the land
vacant or that they expelled the inhabitants. The new
settlers, as in the English Denalagu, or Danelaw, were
an armed host and not agricultural colonists. All the
land was taken into their possession, and the former
owners dwelt upon it and cultivated it in dependence
on their new lords. Except in the Rouen district, the
settlers of the first immigration must have been few
in number, compared with the native inhabitants,
though possibly they were more numerous than the
Franks. They formed a small military caste. The
bulk of the population remained Gallic in blood,
speaking their own language, living under Frank law,
and in the enjoyment of their local institutions.
The reign of William Longsword is marked by
9 Dudo, ii., 85.
22
NORMAN BRITAIN.
progress and transition. With swift, though uncertain,
steps the Norman state advanced towards a thorough
adoption of French institutions. It was a period of
geographical extension, though not as yet of consolida-
tion. It is marked by the beginning of a policy which
brought the Norman duchy into close connexion with
the French kingdom under a new dynasty. William
was brought up by Botho, one of the companions
of Rolf. Botho, however, had adopted the Christian
religion and French feeling, and William learned
from him to become a Frenchman rather than a
Northman. His example was followed by his subjects.
Large numbers embraced Christianity. French, the
Romance tongue of the natives, was spoken instead of
Norsk. Such a change was in accordance with the
nature of the Northmen, who showed in all their
settlements the same facility for adopting the institu-
tions of others. And, to say nothing of the relative
strength of the two languages, the fact that the
Northern warriors took wives of the people of the
land insured the victory of the speech of the natives.
Quickly as Norsk began to disappear in conversation,
it has left its mark in the local nomenclature of
Normandy. Many names, for example, ending in
ville have a Norsk name prefixed, as Rouville and
Beuzeville. Others have a northern termination, such
as beuf, as in Coulibauf, corresponding to our Danish
by in Whitby, or as bec, our brook, in Caudebec.10
While in the district of the first colonization the
language and feelings of the Normans were rapidly
10 Depping, Hist. des Expéditions, &c., ii., 339; Thorpe's
Lappenberg, Norman Kings, p. 97.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
23
changing, the old language and manners of the
north found a home in the lately-acquired Bessin.
Bayeux, with its Saxon and Scandinavian popula-
tion, stood in opposition to Rouen, where the North-
men were fast becoming French. The area of the
Scandinavian opposition was widened by events
which followed the wars with the Bretons. These
wars led to the acquisition of the Cotentin, which
was now incorporated with the Norman state, as well
as to a more decided superiority of the Norman
count over Britanny. In the newly-acquired district
there were Norse settlers who were independent of
the lord of Rouen, and who, it may be, had received
grants in the same way as Rolf had received his
territory. A combination of these two parties in the
Bessin and the Cotentin produced a heathen and
Scandinavian revolt against the Christian and French
ruler at Rouen. The overthrow of this rebellion
established the triumph of Roman civilization over
the Northern conquerors. William reigned as a
French prince. His first wife was Sprota, a Breton
woman, whom he married "Danish fashion," that is,
without the rites of the church. It was not an unusual
connexion among the Northmen. The position of
the lady depended, to some extent, on the treatment
which she received, and would not, while her lord
remained unbound by any more legitimate tie, be
necessarily considered disgraceful except in the eyes
of the church. Sprota bore William a son named
Richard. She was, however, put away, for William
carried out his policy of reigning as a French
prince by marrying the daughter of the count of
24
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Vermandois. After the death of this new wife,
William took Sprota back again. In spite of this
irregularity, William was much under the influence of
religion. He refounded the abbey of Jumièges, and,
it is said, could hardly be hindered from becoming a
monk of his new foundation.
While William thus reigned as a Christian and
a French prince, he did not wholly break with
the party which clung to the old religion and
thoughts of his fathers. Although by his victory
over the western rebels he had secured the pre-
dominance of his religion and of his social and
political tastes, he probably found it unsafe to push
matters to an extreme. Towards the end of his
reign he evidently courted the Norse party. When
the Cotentin was added to his duchy, it seems that a
large number of Bretons emigrated from it rather
than live under the Normans. Wishing probably to
strengthen himself for the part he played in the
affairs of France, he allowed a fresh colony of North-
men to settle in the vacant land. The vast fortifica-
tion called the Hague dyke, in the north-west corner
of the peninsula, is possibly the work of these new
colonists, who seem to have been Danes. He also sent
his son Richard, under the care of the old Northman
Botho, to be brought up at Bayeux, the strong-
hold of Norse sentiment. His reason for this was,
that Richard might learn the language of his fathers,
which was no longer spoken in Rouen. Botho was,
indeed, one of the Christian and French party.
Nevertheless, the step shows a distinct drawing towards
the old national element in his dominions. His
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
25
relations with the French kingdom exhibit a policy
no less transitional and indecisive than that which
he pursued at home. With the death of Charles the
Simple, in 929, ended the steady support which the
Northmen gave to the Carolingian house. In the
struggles of Lewis with Hugh of Paris, duke of the
French; with the count of Vermandois; and at last with
Otto, the king of the East Franks, or Germans, William
changed sides frequently. In spite of his French
tongue and of the important part which he took in
the affairs of the French kingdom, Frenchmen still
looked on William as inferior to other Christian
princes, as nothing more than "the leader of the
pirates." And, indeed, with all his admiration for a
monastic life, the lover of Sprota had not lost the
reckless violence of the Northmen. Otto and Lewis,
the rival kings of the two Frankish peoples, had made
peace and alliance together. They met and held a
Council at Attigny.11 Thither came all the princes,
and William, who had of late upheld his king, Lewis,
came with the rest. Into the council chamber went
duke Hugh the Great and Herbert of Vermandois,
who had just deserted the cause of their king, and
Arnulf of Flanders. William alone was shut out.
He waited for a while, expecting to be called in.
Then, seeing that it was meant to put a slight upon
him, he fell into a rage. The door of the council
chamber was locked. William with main strength
burst it open and stood before the astonished kings
and princes. He saw his king, though in his own
dominions, sitting on a lower seat than the Saxon
11 Richer, ii., 30.
26
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Otto, while the traitor princes were seated in his pre-
sence. "Had I no right here?" he cried. "Am I a
foul traitor?" Then with magnificent insolence he
turned to Lewis. 'Rise a moment," he said, and as
the king obeyed, he sank into his seat. Sitting thus,
he said "it was not for his king to sit lower, let who
would be higher," and so at his bidding the kings
changed places. No wonder that such a man met with
a violent end. Some three years after, in 943, he was
treacherously slain by Arnulf, who probably carried
out the plans of others, perhaps of King Otto among
them. Filled at one time with monastic fervour, at
another with Berserk fury, now appearing as a politic
French prince, and now as the leader of the pirates,
and in all cases gaining his point, William himself
illustrates the character of his reign. It was a period
of transition and of progress, of growth and yet of
indecision.
The reign of his son, Richard the Fearless, is
marked by the triumph of French influence in the
Norman state. It definitely decided the place of
Normandy as a province, and as the most powerful
province of the French kingdom, and laid it open to
those southern ideas which entered largely into the
Norman character and organization. This decision,
which affected its internal condition as well as its
external relationships, was not made without a violent
struggle. About the time of the death of William,
our king, Eadmund, was establishing his power in the
northern part of his kingdom, and Danish adventure
was turned away from England. Soon after the
accession of the young duke, a large Danish fleet,
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
27
under the sea-king Sihtric, sailed up the Seine. The
Norse party in Normandy, under the leadership of a
chief named Thurmod, rejoiced at their coming, and
many turned back to their old idolatry. The young
duke was forced to join the heathen worship. In
their distress the Christians of Normandy commended
themselves, some to King Lewis and others to Duke
Hugh, that is, they offered to take the one or the
other as their lord if he would protect them. Lewis
invaded Normandy, defeated the Danes, and slew
Thurmod. Having delivered the country, he was in
no haste to leave it, and for some time ruled in
Rouen. Dudo makes Lewis keep the young duke in
captivity, and gives a long account of his dangers
and of his escape. After a while, the Normans grew
tired of the rule of the French king, and saw that he
intended to make their land his own. A new Danish
invasion saved them from this danger. A certain
Harold, called by Dudo Harold Haygrold, landed in
the Cotentin, which was already colonized by North-
men. This sea-rover has been generally held to be
Harold Blaatand, or Blue-tooth, the Danish king,
though there is no absolute proof of their identity.
Harold was joined by the men of Teutonic Bayeux,
and at their invitation took up his quarters in their
city. He defeated Lewis, took him prisoner, and
kept him for a while in captivity. Harold did not
try to set up his own power in Normandy. He estab-
lished Richard as duke, and brought matters into
order again throughout the land. He is said to have
made men abide by the laws of Rolf. As in England
Cnut restored the law of Eadgar, and as in later times
-
28
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Norman kings gave men the law of Eadward, when a
promise was made that the state should be ordered
as it was in the days of a king to whose reign men
looked back as a good old time, so the renewal of
Rolf's law meant that the state should be restored as
it was before the French invasion. When Harold
had done this he sailed away. The immigrations
which took place in the reigns of William and Richard
made the population of the Cotentin thoroughly
Norse, for the flight of the Bretons had left the penin-
sula void of inhabitants. Nowhere in Normandy
does the Scandinavian type prevail so completely as
in the district about Cherbourg, where one can almost
fancy oneself in Denmark. Richard requited the
good service which Harold rendered him by sheltering
Danish ships which were engaged in plundering
England. Some disputes, perhaps some actual hostili-
ties, between Æthelred and the Norman duke were
allayed in 991 by the mediation of Pope John XV.
The letter 12 which speaks of the Marquess Richard,
for such was the title by which this prince styled him-
self,13 as the pope's spiritual son, may be taken as
significant of the admission of the Northmen into the
fellowship of Christian states. Richard spent the
latter part of his life in securing and consolidating his
dominions, and in building religious houses.
He was
magnificent in his ecclesiastical foundations. Chief
among these was the abbey of Fécamp, which he
raised from desolation, and where he rebuilt the
church, adorning the plaster walls of the interior with
12 William of Malmesbury, ii., 166.
13 Diploma Ric. 1, in Recueil, ix., 731.
CONFLICTING ELEMENTS IN NORMANDY.
29
paintings. All his benefactions were confined to the
regulars, and when he rebuilt the abbey of St. Michael-
in-Peril-of-the-Sea, he turned out the secular clergy
and put monks in their place.14 The secular clergy
indeed were in little honour. No episcopal synods
were held in Normandy for a century after the cession
to Rolf. 15 On one occasion, however, the clergy
helped to bring Richard to conform to the law of
Christendom in a matter in which he and his father
had taken their own course. For, on the death of his
wife Emma, the daughter of Hugh the Great, they
joined with the lay nobles in persuading him to marry
Gunnor, who had borne him children. Thus Nor-
mandy became decidedly Christian.
The reign of Richard also decided the French
character of the duchy. In the long struggle between
the descendants of Charles the Great and the house
of Robert the Strong-the counts of Paris and the
dukes of the French-the Karlings reigning at Laon
were a Teutonic dynasty, Franks in the old sense of
the word, the counts of Paris were Frenchmen in the
new.16
It was a struggle between the Teutonic and
the Romance elements in the kingdom of the West
Franks. The accession of Hugh Capet, the son of
Hugh the Great, in 987, was the triumph of the
Romance element,-the birth of modern and Parisian.
France. William Longsword halted between the two
parties. The occupation of Rouen by Lewis and the
deliverance of Normandy from the Frankish king,
14 Recueil, ix., 629.
15 Lappenberg, p. 71.
16 Freeman's Historical Essays, i., p. 191.
30
NORMAN BRITAIN.
wrought by Harold decided the course of Richard.
In 946 Richard commended himself and his dominions
to Hugh the Great. By doing homage, or becoming
the man of duke Hugh, he acknowledged that he
held Normandy of him, and not of the Carolingian
king. The relationship thus created between Nor-
mandy and the Parisian house was evidently some-
thing much closer than the almost nominal superiority
of the Frankish kings over the ceded land. For
instance, in a grant made by Richard to the abbey of
St. Denys, he expresses the consent of his lord.16
Normandy was now on the side of ducal France,
and the accession of Hugh Capet was, in no small
degree, the work of the Norman duke, for Richard
deserted the alliance of the Carolingian king who
reigned at Laon, and upheld the Parisian duke
against him. But when at length the duke of Paris
became king of France, and France and Normandy
no longer stood in need of each other, after a while
the two fell back into their natural state of mutual
hatred. The friendly connexion, however, between
Rouen and Paris decided the French character of
the duchy, and brought Normandy under those
southern influences which the Normans, in their
turn, introduced into England by the Conquest.
17 Diploma Ric. 1, in Recueil, ix., 731.
NORMAN BRITAIN.
31
CHAPTER III.
ROMANCE INFLUENCES IN NORMANDY.
FROM the commendation of Richard the Fearless
may be dated the triumph of Romance or Gallic
influences in Normandy. Evidences of this triumph
are conspicuous in the character of the court and the
nobles during the reign of his son, Richard the Good.
The various titles, count, patrician, and marquess,
borne by the earlier rulers of Normandy, gave way to
the loftier title of duke. The leader of the pirates, as
even Richard the Fearless was called by a French
writer,¹ was at last recognized as a French prince, and
became the mainstay of the new French dynasty.
The ducal court was arranged after the French model,
and had its seneschal or steward, its cupbearer, and
other great officers, like the court of the French king.
A new idea of nobility arose, founded on connexion
with the reigning house. Along with the descendants.
of the companions of Rolf now appear men whose
claim to nobility was derived from the amours of
Richard the Fearless, or from the marriage of his
mother Sprota to Asperleng the miller. A nobility
of this kind marks an exalted idea of the dignity
of the person of the ruler, which was foreign
'Richer, iv., addit.
32
NORMAN BRITAIN.
to old Teutonic sentiment. Richard combined this
idea with the distinctly Gallic spirit of chivalry. He
would give the offices of his household to none save
"gentlemen." The highest honours were closed
against all who were not of noble blood, and the
ranks of the aristocracy overflowed with men whose
nobility consisted in legitimate or illegitimate rela-
tionship to the reigning house. This increase in the
number of noble families produced two notable
effects,—the revolt of the peasants, and the renewal
of Norman adventure.
The increase of private lordships caused their
owners to look more narrowly after the profits which
might be derived from the cultivation of the soil.
Vast tracts of land which had formed the forests of
the count were given to private lords, and the new
possessors strictly enforced forest rights. The com-
mendation of Richard to duke Hugh may be taken
as a sign of the introduction of French feudalism.
Numberless possibilities of extortion were contained
in the relationship between the lord and the culti-
vator of the soil. It only needed to reduce that
relationship to a system, and carry out that system to
its full extent. There was a legal spirit in the Nor-
mans which rendered such a process congenial to
them. The relations between the lords and the
peasants became harsh and strained. Services were
made heavy and grievous, and tolls were diligently
enforced. Norman oppression was carried out by the
sure and grinding process of law, even as it was destined
to be carried out at a later time in our own land. Sum-
monses to pleas of every kind and crowds of bailiffs
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
33
and such like officers left the peasants no peace.2
These peasants were the Romanized Kelts, the
natives of the land, who retained their local organiza-
tion, and the memory of the comparative indepen-
dence in which they lived in the days of the Frankish
dominion. In their revolt against the oppression of
their lords they showed a wonderful degree of political
insight. Each district throughout the land elected
two representatives to attend a central Parliament.
All were bound by the decision of the general as-
sembly. The character and aim of this peasant
organization are described in the riming chronicle
of the twelfth century by a word which afterwards
became famous in the history of municipal liberty:
They made a Commune." The movement was put.
down with severity, and the horrible punishments.
inflicted on the peasantry illustrate the innate ferocity
of the Normans, and their utter disregard of human
suffering. In spite of its overthrow, this revolt
was perhaps not without some fruit. Villenage
assumed a milder form in Normandy, and the villeins
of England during the Norman period were in a far
better position than that to which they sank in the
next age.³
3
Another result of the increase of the nobility was
the revival of the old love of adventure. In some
cases, men of high lineage, like Ralph of Toesny, who
was of the great house founded by Malahulc, the
uncle of Rolf, disgusted, it may be, at the rise of
lowborn rivals, set out to seek a principality for them-
،،
2 Roman de Rou, 5975-6092.
* Freeman, Norman Conquest, i., c. iv., 282–284.
D
34
NORMAN BRITAIN.
selves. Some houses, too, as yet of lesser fame
and fortune, sent forth their sons to win loftier
names than those borne by the favoured offshoots
of the ducal stock. Great as the glories were
which the savage Ralph of Toesny won against
the Moors in Spain, his rule at Barcelona had no
abiding result. The expeditions of the Normans to
Italy were destined to a higher fate. A chance occur-
rence led them to mix themselves in the affairs of the
peninsula. Among the practices of Latin Christianity
there was none which attracted the Normans more
strongly than the performance of pilgrimages. It
was a mode of atonement for their reckless sins
which was congenial to their taste. Some Norman
pilgrims saved the city of Salerno from the Saracens.
They were entreated by the Lombard prince to send
some of their countrymen to help him. Adventurers
came from Normandy in great numbers. Under the
valiant sons of Tancred of Hauteville, Southern Italy
and Sicily were conquered. From one obscure house
in Normandy came Robert Wiscard—who made the
two Emperors, of the East and the West alike,
tremble at his might—and the line of Norman kings
of Sicily, a race equally famous in peace and in war.
Though these expeditions were made by private men,
and were independent of the Norman duke, the
success which attended them must have had consider-
able influence in bringing men to follow their duke's
banner when William set out to conquer England.
One step towards that Conquest, though none could
foresee its issue, was taken in 1002, when Emma, the
sister of Richard, married our King Æthelred. By this
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
35
marriage was formed the close connexion between the
reigning families of England and Normandy which
furnished the Conqueror with one of his claims to
succeed his cousin Eadward. From this marriage
came the immigration of Normans into England and
their struggle for power in the days of the Confessor.
Our forefathers little guessed the ills-these, and
others also-which were to follow the coming of their
king's bride ("the gem of the Northmen," as she was
called) when they gave her the sweet name Ælfgifu,
the elves' gift. The Norman court gave shelter to
Richard's daughter and her sons in the troublous
times of the last Danish invasion, and for a little
while to King Ethelred also. Preparations made
by Robert for an invasion of England, on behalf of
Ælfred and Eadward, the sons of Æthelred and
Emma, may have prepared the minds of the Normans
for the expedition of William. The attempt came
to nought, and the English æthelings remained in
Normandy, Ælfred until his fatal expedition in
1036, and Eadward until he was recalled by Hartha-
cnut in 1040. His long residence in Normandy made
Eadward a Frenchman at heart, and his return to
England was the real beginning of French influence
in our land.
St
Before William invaded England he had to bring his
own duchy into order. His reign in Normandy before
1066 saw the triumph of the ducal authority over
the nobles, and a fresh access of Romance or southern
influence. The early days of the Conqueror were
full of trouble. Lax as the Normans were in morality,
the circumstances of William's birth offended them.
D 2
36
NORMAN BRITAIN.
The marriage more Danico was a thing of the past.
No national custom excused the relations of Robert
and Herleva, the daughter of the tanner of Falaise. No
after marriage, as in the case of Gunnor, legitimated
the issue of their union. The Norman nobles deemed
that the grandson of the tanner was unfit to be their
duke. A picturesque story in the Roman de Rou
illustrates their feelings. It is said that William
Talvas, head of the great house of Belesme, was
called one day by a burgher to enter a dwelling at
Falaise and see the son of his lord. Before him
lay the child of Herleva. In bitterness of soul, the
fierce noble cursed the babe, for he said, "by
thee and thy line shall shame and harm come to
me and mine." If indeed the words were spoken,
they were a true prophecy. The child lived to
humble the class of which Talvas was the spokesman.
His son Henry, the Lion of Justice, crowned his
work when he sent Robert of Belesme, son of the
cruel Mabel, the daughter of Talvas, into lifelong
imprisonment.
When Duke Robert died on his pilgrimage, in
1035, William was seven years old. Disorder broke
out on every side. Castles sprang up everywhere.
New mounds were raised or ancient earthworks
were used again, and on these were built the
square and massive donjon towers which mark the
Norman fortress. The lords of these castles acted
as independent princes, and filled the land with.
violence. The three guardians whom Robert left
in charge of his son were slain. William was
reared in the school of adversity and danger. In
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
37
addition to the internal troubles of the duchy, the
good understanding between the Norman duke and
his lord the French king, which had lasted ever since
the commendation of Richard the Fearless, was now
broken. The kings of the Capetian house were no
longer dependent on Norman support. The Norman
duchy cramped their kingdom, and shut it out from
the sea. A short war was the fruit of French jealousy,
but a far more dangerous conflict was imminent.
The old rivalry between Teutonic and Romance
Normandy, between the west and east, broke out
afresh, under a slightly different form. Guy of Bur-
gundy, son of a legitimate daughter of Richard the
Good, claimed the duchy against William the Bastard.
All the lords of the west took up his cause, for he
offered to share the land with them. Neal of Saint
Sauveur, Viscount of Coutances, Ranulf of Bayeux, and
Hamon of Thorigny, called Dentatus, were the chief
leaders of the rebellion. Their cause implied the
independence of the west, the separation of the
Cotentin and the Bessin, the lands of the virtually
independent colonies of the Northmen, of the later
Danish settlements and of the old Teutonic population
from French Rouen.
Had this rebellion been so far successful as to shake
off the dominion of William from the western part of
the duchy, the conquest of England would have been
impossible. William had first to bring all his own land
under his power before he could go forth on foreign
conquest. He called on his lord for help. King
Henry saw that the establishment of Guy at Rouen
and of a number of independent lordships in the west
38
NORMAN BRITAIN.
would be worse for him than the rule of a duke
whom he could bind to himself by ties of gratitude.
He came to the help of his vassal. The forces of the
French king and of the Norman duke met the rebels, in
1047, at Val-ès-Dunes near Caen. The battle was fierce.
"Danish Coutances and Saxon Bayeux were brought
face to face with Romanised Rouen and Evreux and
with royal Paris itself."4 The French battle-cry, "Mont-
joie !" the Norman "Dex aie," so soon to be heard on
English soil, were answered by the shouts of "Saint
Sever!" and "Saint Amant !" 5 The rebels were ut-
terly routed. It was the conquest of the greater part of
Normandy by its duke. It was followed by the destruc-
tion of the castles which had been raised with rebel-
lious intent. 6
The other wars of William have a far less im-
portant bearing on English history. He requited.
the French king for the service done him at Val-ès-
Dunes by helping Henry against Geoffrey Martel,
count of Anjou. This war was the beginning of a
long struggle between Normandy and Anjou, which did
not end until the duchy and the county were united
through the marriage of Geoffrey Plantagenet and the
Empress Matilda. In spite of these friendly relations
between the French king and the Norman duke,
Henry gave constant help to all who rebelled against
William. After Val-ès-Dunes, there was no further
danger of a division of the duchy. Nevertheless,
Normandy did not at once become wholly loyal,
4 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 253.
5 Roman de Rou, 9094-9102.
• William of Poitiers, p. 82.
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
39-
and chief among those who rebelled were various
members of the ducal family. These rebellions
would have been of little consequence if they had
not been upheld by the French king, by the count
of Anjou, and by other French princes. A dangerous
confederacy against William was overthrown, in 1054,
by his victory at Mortemer, and, in 1058, the French
king in person was forced to flee before the Normans
at Varaville. The importance of the victory at Val-
ès-Dunes was now evident, for in these wars the men
of the Bessin and the Cotentin were conspicuous
amongst those who stood by their duke.
-
Meanwhile, William extended the frontier of his
duchy towards Anjou. The conquest of Maine, in
1063, has a double bearing on the conquest of Eng-
land. It made William supreme in the north-west of
France, and so enabled him to gather together the
vast force which he needed four years later. And it
was accomplished by a combination of military force
with legal claims derived from a bequest, a homage,
and a proposed marriage, such as he afterwards used
in the case of England.7 The predominance of
William in the north-west was secured by a successful
war against the Breton count in 1064.
In this war,
Harold, the son of Godwine, accompanied William,
and the events on which the Normans based their
charge of perjury against the English earl took place
at this time. Thus William, having reduced his own
duchy to obedience, fitted himself to become the
conqueror of England. He was one of the mightiest
7 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii., 214.
40
NORMAN BRITAIN.
lords of the west, and was, in truth, stronger than the
king to whom he owed allegiance. His early troubles
and the victories which ended them have an impor-
tant bearing on his great expedition of 1066, on
account of the influence they exercised on William
himself, as well as on his political position. They
formed the character of the Conqueror, and called
forth his military skill. Brought up in the midst
of danger, he owed his triumphs to his extraordinary
strength of will. It was this strength of will that,
in spite of every obstacle, brought Normandy from
anarchy to order, and from weakness to power. He
knew no restraints, save those which he laid upon
himself: these he strictly observed. He was chaste
and temperate. Wrathful by nature, he could restrain
his anger or let it blaze out as it pleased himself.
He knew when it was politic to be merciful. Never,
save on one memorable occasion, did he punish
men with death. After the victory of Val-ès-Dunes
he did not revenge himself on the defeated rebels.
At the same time, he was merciless in his wrath.
Though he forbore to slay his enemies, he inflicted
horrible mutilations on them, and so made them
living memorials of his stern cruelty. When the men
of Geoffrey of Anjou defended his own town of
Alençon against him, they taunted him by beating
hides upon the wall and calling him "Tanner."
William swore his special oath, "By the splendour
of God," that he would make them rue the word,
and when he took the town he caused the hands
and feet of thirty-two captives to be cut off and flung
into the castle, which still held out. The connexion
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
41
8
between Normandy and Italy taught the Normans
the art of poisoning, and William was suspected
of having employed this means on more than one
occasion to rid himself of those who stood in his
way. He had a reverent regard for the things of God,
but he never allowed religious scruples to hinder
him in his designs. French feudalism and chivalry
exercised considerable influence over him during this
period of his life. In his Angevin war he sent
to tell the count how he would meet him, and
how he was to be known in battle. He is said to
have shrunk from meeting the king, his lord, face
to face in fight. It was in these years that William
learned to adopt the system of southern warfare, the
full use of cavalry, and the employment of archers.
Compare the battle of Mortemer, which was wholly
an engagement of horsemen, and the charge of the
knights at Senlac, and it will be evident that be-
tween the two events William found out how to use
heavy cavalry. Now, too, he made the Norman
infantry terrible by arming them with the southern
weapon, the bow and arrows. The first mention of
this new equipment, which was destined to be so
fatal to England, and in after years to become her
peculiar glory, is in the account of the battle of
Varaville.
The earlier half of the eleventh century saw the
dominance of southern influence in the Norman
Church. Ecclesiastical benefices were long regarded
as property to which the natives of Normandy alone
8 Will, of Malmesbury, iii., 232.
42
NORMAN BRITAIN.
had a right, and bishoprics as a provision for younger
branches of the ducal family. In this spirit, William
gave the archbishopric of Rouen to his uncle Malger,
and the bishopric of Bayeux to his half-brother Odo.
In no other part of western Christendom did the
ruler have such absolute power in ecclesiastical mat-
ters as in Normandy. The bishops thus appointed
were often men of whclly secular tastes. Malger,
for example, who never received the pall, lived as a
layman, and Odo, who was made bishop when twelve
years old, was rather a statesman or a warrior than a
priest. Bishops and clergy alike indulged in marriage
or concubinage, and many an unlettered priest wore
arms and lived as though his parish were a lay
fee. A considerable change in these matters was
wrought when Normandy was brought under the in-
fluence of the religious revival of the German popes.
William approved the movement, and during the rest
of his life appointed fit men to bishoprics. The
deposition of Malger by a papal legate in a council
of Norman bishops, and the appointment of Maurilius,
a Frenchman, who had studied at Lüttich [Liege], and
had been abbot of St. Mary's at Florence, are signs of
this change. The rich monastic foundations of Nor-
mandy were already filled with monks of every nation.
As the Norman knight was at home in every land, so
the churchmen of every land found a home in Nor-
mandy. The excuse of Lewis, that he carried off the
young duke Richard to Laon in order that he might
have a better education than he could have in his
own land, would have had no meaning in the days of
William. At St. Evroul, the abbot, Theodoric, himself
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
43
a skilful transcriber, founded a library, and urged his
monks to serve God by work. He made his monas-
tery a school and a workshop for transcribers. In
vain his monks grumbled that it was little good for an
abbot to sit reading and writing, while they wanted one
to look after their food. "Remember," he used to say,
"that only one devil tempts a monk when he is doing
good work, but a thousand attack him when he is idle,”
and then he would repeat his watchwords: " Pray,
read, sing, write.” 9
A more famous teacher was Lanfranc, the prior
of Bec, who was destined to take a leading part not
only in the Benedictine revival in Normandy, but
in the conquest and government of England. The
abbey of Bec was founded by a Norman gentleman
named Herlwin, who retired from the world and
formed a little community on his own estate. He
and his brethren worked with their own hands,
digging for the foundations of their church and
raising its stone work. In the midst of this toil
Herlwin found time to learn to read. He was made
priest and abbot. After a while, the new brotherhood
sought a more convenient spot. They settled in the
wooded valley watered by the Bec, and there raised
the abbey of Bec-Herlwin. There the founder pre-
sided as abbot when, in 1041, Lanfranc entered its
walls. Lanfranc was a native of Pavia. He was a
learned man, well versed in law, and a skilful pleader.
Like many another, he was drawn to Normandy by
the welcome which all learned men found there. He
9 Orderic, 470.
44
NORMAN BRITAIN.
taught at Avranches, and a crowd of scholars came
to learn of him, for he knew all the learning of the
Latin world and, it seems, also understood Greek.
Suddenly he gave up all and entered the austere
brotherhood of Herlwin. Crowds came after him to
Bec, and his learning made the house rich and famous.
After a while he became prior. The peace of the
Latin church was disturbed by Berengar of Tours, a
teacher of great reputation, who declared his dis-
belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation. At the
synods of Rome and Vercelli, Lanfranc appeared as
the successful champion of Latin Christendom. His
victory had consequences which affected the doctrine
of the Church of England, when, in after years, he be-
came its chief pastor. Lanfranc had honour in his own
land, for he became the favoured counsellor of the duke.
Once he fell into disgrace. In 1049, William married
Matilda, daughter of Baldwin V., of Flanders. It was
a noble alliance for the Norman. Unfortunately,
there was some canonical impediment to the marriage,
and it had been forbidden by the popes. Lanfranc
expressed his disapproval, and the duke ordered his
banishment. As he left Bec he met William, and by
a ready jest turned his wrath away. He was taken
back to favour, and successfully pleaded the cause of
the marriage at Rome. As an atonement for their
sin, the duke and the duchess were ordered each to
build a religious house. The stern and stately
abbey of St. Stephen's at Caen is the record of
the submission of William, and the smaller and more
ornate church of the Holy Trinity in the same
town is the work of Matilda. Lanfranc was made
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
45
the first abbot of St. Stephen's, in 1066, and was
succeeded at Bec, as he was afterwards succeeded
at Canterbury, by Anselm. The Norman church
thus yielded to Roman influence in the reign of
William.10
The Norman brought nothing with him, and can
scarcely be said, by the middle of the eleventh century,
to have developed anything which he adopted. All
was taken by him; all was developed for him. Up
to this time, at least, he entered on the labours of
others and reaped what they had sown. The only ex-
ception to this statement is, perhaps, to be found in
the architecture of Normandy. In the earliest build-
ings of the century, traces may be found of a change
from the primitive Romanesque to a special local
style. The progress of this change was probably, to
some extent, the result of Lombard influence.¹¹ During
the reign of William, this change was more fully deve-
loped, as may be seen in his church at Caen. The
special Norman style is distinguished from primitive
Romanesque work by its greater severity. Where
richness exists it is gained by ornament and not by
any variation of form. The usual shape of the larger
churches built in this style is cruciform, with a central
tower, and with two smaller towers flanking the west
end, with long naves and apsidal chancels. They
exhibit the threefold division of arcade, triforium,
and clerestory. Massive rectangular piers, relieved
by shafts in the angles, support the arches of the
arcade. The windows are small and round-headed
10 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii., 110.
11 Freeman, Norman Conquest, v., 623.
46
NORMAN BRITAIN.
with a deep single splay. Small spaces, such as the
chancels, were vaulted, but the naves were covered
with a ceiling. In St. Stephen's, traces may be dis-
cerned of the presence of the old timber roof. The
characteristics of the style are clearly marked, and
seem to attest an independent development. With
this exception, the Normans at the date of the Con-
quest had nothing of their own.12 Their language,
law, and religion they had taken from the conquered
people. They had no literature. In warfare, in cul-
ture, and in church discipline they had yielded to
foreign influence. As regards morality, they had
scarcely emerged from the laxness of barbarism, and
the purity of William's life stands in strong contrast
to the prevailing corruption. French hatred gave the
Normans the nicknames of bigots and beer-drinkers. 13
The language in which, the chronicler of Tours.
tells us, Rolf swore, "Ne se bi Goth," that he
would not do homage to Charles, and which
sounded like English to those who heard the
words, may have survived in a common oath.¹ The
reproach of beer-drinking showed an adherence to
the old habit of their forefathers, while in Norman
eyes the English, in their turn, seemed drunkards.
Love of gain was strong in the Normans, and they
sought it alike in peace and in war. Unlike the
English, they were thrifty and magnificent withal.
They combined stateliness and simplicity. Courteous
in manner and fond of pleasantry, they concealed
14
12 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. vii., 81.
13 Roman de Rou, 9902.
14 Chron. Turon., Recueil, viii., 316.
ROMANCE INFLUENCE IN NORMANDY.
47
beneath the smooth surface of their behaviour a fierce
temper, which now and then broke out in deeds of
startling brutality. Their women had no education,
and, speaking generally, no influence for good.
An arbitrary code of chivalry was already beginning
to take the place of duty and honour. Yet the
Normans were strong. They were a young people,
full of energy, unrivalled in war, equally at home in
every land, with a versatile and acquisitive genius,
with a wonderful talent for organization, and with a
love for such cultivation as they had yet acquired.
They were exactly suited to give England those
things which she lacked; to give her order, unity,
and organization; and to be the means of bringing her
Teutonic civilization under those Roman influences
to which they had themselves yielded.
"
•
48
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST.
DURING the period immediately preceding the Norman
Conquest, England was thoroughly disorganized.
There was much provincial vitality, but scarcely any
signs of national life; there was much civilization,
but scarcely any progress. Our political strength lay
in local institutions, and there was no vigorous cen-
tral power to collect that strength and use it. Our
civilization was our own, and insular prejudice shut
out the desire for progress. The Norman Conquest did
not put an end to our existence as a nation or supersede
our national civilization. In political ideas, in culture,
and in the habits of social life, England was in advance
of her conquerors, and in time led them captive.
And they were willing captives. As the Normans had
already become Frenchmen, so, in turn, they became
Englishmen ; but the change was not all on one side.
As they adopted our political institutions, they added
the elements of order and cohesion which England
needed to make her strong; as they entered upon
our civilization, they gave every part of it a new and
wider development. They brought into England
those Romance influences which had given them
their language, their law, their religion, and such cul-
ture as they knew. These influences indeed gavę
us no new gifts, yet nevertheless they did their work,
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST. 49
and left their abiding mark on our language, law,
religion, and culture also.
The disorganization which prevailed in the state
during the reign of Eadward the Confessor was caused
partly by the great earldoms of Cnut, and partly by
defects inherent in our constitution. The jealousies
and wars between the ancient house of Leofric and
the new and ambitious family of Godwine divided
the kingdom. Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex
alike seemed "destined to be the seats of govern-
ments of a feudal type. The earldoms, indeed, were
not hereditary. Earls were appointed and deposed
by the king and his witan. Hence, it has been
argued,—“it is a mistake to think that the position
of these powerful viceroys at all proves that England
was at this time tending to separation; it was, in
truth, tending to closer union.' On the other hand,
it should be remembered that the king and the witan
were, for the most part, only the instruments of the
contending parties, and that the appointment or the
deposition of an earl was not the evidence of the
strength of the central power so much as of the par-
ticular house or party which succeeded in snatching
a triumph. In the outlawry of Godwine and his
sons by the witenagemot in 1051, and in their
restoration by the same body in 1052, are implied,
not the energy of the central authority, but, in the
one case, the triumph of the foreigners who con-
stituted the court party, and, in the other, the
renewal of the strength of Godwine's faction, which
"1
Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 50.
E
50
NORMAN BRITAIN.
represented English feeling. So, when Elfgar, the
son of Leofric, was banished and his earldom taken
from him by the gemot held in 1053 for little or
no fault at all, it is not the preponderance of the
king and the witan that strikes us so much, as the
growth of the power of his rival Harold. No signs,
indeed, exist of a tendency to establish wholly separate
states; such a development would have been con-
trary to the spirit of the age. The nature of the
danger was rather lest England should reproduce on
a small scale the German polity. The tendency was
towards a feudal disruption.
Cnut's great earldoms were not the only cause of
disorganization. The lack of any signs of national
unity in the different parts of England does not seem
to have been conjoined with any lingering local
patriotism, derived from the remembrance of the
separate kingdoms of a bygone time. It was caused
by the very nature of the constitution. The growth
of England was the growth of the supremacy of one
kingdom-of Wessex-over the rest. The political
machinery of Wessex became the political machinery
of England; but that which answered well enough
for one part of the land broke down when it was
applied to the whole. The witenagemot of Wessex
may have fairly represented the will of the kingdom;
the witenagemot of England was insufficient to
represent the will of the nation or to become a means
of cohesion. Every part of the central administra-
tion suffered from the same cause. A vigorous king
• Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., 212.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST.
5I
would probably, to some extent, have overcome
this defect, and would have become a head, giving
unity of life and action to the different members of
the state; for the tenth century had seen a consider-
able advance in the theoretical power of the kingship.
But Eadward, in spite of his personal holiness, was a
bad king; his virtues would have adorned the cloister,
they could not fit him for the throne. The labour
of government was distasteful to him. He was pas-
sionate, changeful, and easily led; he valued men
who, like Archbishop Ealdred, made matters smooth.
He never allowed kingly duty to come before his
private wishes. Above all, he was a foreigner at
heart. His education in Normandy made him.
thoroughly French in taste and feeling. Normans
came over to England in great numbers. They were
the men in whose society he delighted and whom he
loved to promote. Instead of being the means of
uniting the discordant parties in his realm, he added
to them a faction of his own, a foreign court party.
While the central machinery failed, local institutions
preserved their vitality. Cohesion, self-government,
and organization were in full strength in the commu-
nities of the township and the shire, and were upheld
by the local courts. All holders of land still met
together in their village assembly as members of one
community to make by-laws for their common advan-
tage, and to choose those who should represent them
in the higher courts. They still had a place in the
court of the shire, where the smallest landholder
could claim right before judges in whose election he
had taken part. Each shire still sent its separate
E 2
52
NORMAN BRITAIN.
contingent to the host, and still made, through its
sheriff, its separate contribution to the state. The
vitality which existed in these local institutions sur-
vived the pressure of the Conquest. The feebleness
of the central authority gave place to the strength of
the Norman kingship.
Although feudalism, as a system, was unknown in
England before the coming of the Normans, the
tenure of land in the earlier part of the eleventh
century was connected with conditions which bore a
feudal aspect.³ Grants of large estates by the crown
were accompanied by rights of private jurisdiction.
While the popular organization of the Hundred court
remained, the court itself became in many cases the
court of the lord. The king's thegns, or the higher
nobility, were in the jurisdiction of the king alone,
while they, in turn, had jurisdiction over others. Mili-
tary service became, in like manner, connected with
the tenure of land. Though the duty of national
defence never ceased to be a personal obligation
binding on each man as a member of the state and
not as an owner of land, certain special services were
required of the thegns. These thegns were the
nobles of the later English kingship, and their rank
depended on the land which they held and the
rights of jurisdiction which they exercised. There
is no evidence that the amount of service due
from these thegns varied in proportion to the amount
of their land. Whatever the military service was
which was due from them, they expected it to be
3 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., 184-194.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST. 53
performed by their tenants. And many men who
once were regarded as fully independent were now in
this position, and were in different degrees dependent
upon others. Police regulations providing for a
system of suretyship caused the landless freeman
to sink into a state of dependence, and even led
many small landholders to commend themselves and
their holdings to a lord for protection. The rights
of private jurisdiction were naturally confounded
with lordship, and the poor landholder who put
himself under the jurisdiction of some great man
was gradually considered to hold his land of the lord
on the condition of suit and service at his court or of
following him in war. While, however, considerable
signs of a feudal spirit may be discerned in land
tenure before the Conquest, there was no organized
system of feudalism until the Norman times. The
small freeholders had lost their independence, but,
though the word "ceorl" was translated into Latin by
villanus, English villenage was the effect of foreign
lordship.
4
The English church at the beginning of the eleventh
century stood apart from the rest of Christendom.
Her connexion with Rome was slight, scarcely
extending beyond the confirmation of bishops. The
union of the secular and ecclesiastical powers was strict.
In theory the right of electing bishops lay with the
chapter of the cathedral church, whether composed of
canons or monks, though, in the case of the arch-
bishopric of Canterbury, the clergy of the province also
Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., 188.
54
NORMAN BRITAIN.
see.
claimed to have a voice. In reality, however, bishops
were appointed by the king and the witan, and the
rights of the chapter were not always regarded. In one
instance the saintly Eadward paid little attention to
them. On the death of Archbishop Eadsige, in 1050,
the monastic chapter of Christ Church elected a
monk of their own house, named Ælfric, to the vacant
Ælfric was well skilled in business, and a great
favourite in the convent. The clergy of the province
seem to have concurred in his election. The arch-
bishop elect was a kinsman of Earl Godwine, and, as
the convent lay in his earldom, the monks had a
double reason for begging him to promote their
wishes. The earl, though he had promised to do
all he could, found the foreign influence at court.
was too strong for him. The king set aside the
canonical election of Elfric, and Robert of
Jumièges, the Norman bishop of London, was ap-
pointed in his stead. Few of the English bishops.
were men of especially religious character. Some were
busy politicians-like Lyfing, bishop of Crediton, the
eloquent partisan of Godwine-or diplomatists--
like Ealdred, of York. One alone, Wulfstan of
Worcester, was famed for his religious life. For the
most part, they looked on their bishoprics as lucra-
tive offices. They took as many of them as they could
get, and clung to them as long as they could.
When they could not perform their duties, they still
kept their sees, and served them by deputy. Accusa-
tions of simony and ignorance were frequent and
well founded. Church councils seem to have ceased
5 Vita Edw., 399, ed. Luard, R. S.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST.
55
during this period. In the close union between
church and state, the action of the witan in eccle-
siastical matters took the place of conciliar activity.
This union was carried into judicial administration.
There must, indeed, have been a sphere of ecclesias-
tical jurisdiction more or less distinct from civil causes,
for certain sacred things and persons were under the
protection and jurisdiction of the bishops. In these
causes a customary canon law was administered by
the bishop or his archdeacon. But this law was
administered in the ordinary civil courts of the Hun-
dred or the shire, and the form of procedure was
probably the same as that which was followed in lay
causes.6
The national character of the church extended to
a question of doctrine. In the famous homilies of
Ælfric, the abbot of Ensham, which were largely
used throughout England, transubstantiation is
vehemently rejected, and there is reason to believe
that the doctrine found little acceptance here at
this period. National heroes, like Archbishop
Ælfheah, were counted as saints, though uncanon-
ised by papal authority. The parochial clergy were
generally married, and the bishops, while they
recommended celibacy, made no attempt to force
them to put away their wives. The church of
England stood apart from the ecclesiastical revival
which spread from Rome over Latin Christendom.
It remained for the Normans to bring our land
under Romance influence in religious matters as in
6 "On the History of the Canon Law in England." Two
Public Statutory Lectures by Prof. Stubbs, 1882.
56
NORMAN BRITAIN.
all others. Signs of the coming change are to be
seen in the appointments of foreigners to bishoprics
in the reign of Eadward. The promotion of French-
men by the king did not arise from any principle, and
was not regulated by any consideration of the fitness of
the person promoted. It was simply a matter of the
king's private taste. These appointments, as part of
the conquest of England, will be best noticed in
another chapter. Increased communication with the
Continent, and especially with the empire, led to the
appointment of Lotharingians as bishops. This
movement has been ascribed to the influence of
Godwine and Harold.7 An attempt to bring in a
new religious rule was connected with these appoint-
ments. Canons, for the most part, lived in their own
houses with their wives and children, and were often
so taken up with their worldly affairs that they were
careless of their sacred duties. Gisa, the Lotharin-
gian bishop of Wells, and Leofric of Exeter, tried to
make the canons of their churches eat and sleep
together. Ealdred, the archbishop of York, who had
learned a good deal about ecclesiastical discipline.
while on an embassy at Köln, seems to have done
the same at Beverley, and to have built common
refectories at York and Southwell.8 If we look at
this movement by the light of the time in which it
was made, we shall see that the common dormitory
and common refectory were real improvements. For
as long as canons lived in their own houses they
lived like laymen, or, at best, like parish priests. It
7 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 80.
• T. Stubbs, Actus Pontif. Ebor., 1704.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST. 57
was no hardship to make them live according to
their rule, and perform the duties which they had
undertaken. And it was better to try to make them
do so than to turn them out of their churches
and put monks in their place, as some ecclesiastical
reformers had done. King Eadward favoured
monks, as might be expected from his Norman
bringing up, and built his great church of St. Peter
at Westminster for a monastic body. Harold, on the
other hand, made his church at Waltham a secular
foundation, and designed that it should help forward
the cause of education. In the early part of the
century, English learning was increased by the labours
of Ælfric. Besides compiling his books of homilies,
works on church discipline, and other subjects, Ælfric
wrote schoolbooks, for he was anxious that English
boys should be well educated. He did all that he
could for them, speaking to them in his books in
gentle and playful terms, and making them understand
how great a thing sound knowledge is. From one of
these books Elfric was called the Grammarian. His
writings represent the secular clergy, the "mass
priests," as ignorant. "The unlearned priests," he
says, "if they understand some little of Latin books,
then think that they shall soon be great scholars."
Ælfric tried to make these priests live worthier lives,
and not “drink to madness in God's house, nor make
merry over dead men [attend wakes], and such like."
Yet, although the priests did not live after a strictly
ecclesiastical fashion, they seem to have done good
work in teaching. All priests were bidden to keep
schools, and "if any brought their little ones to them for
58
NORMAN BRITAIN.
learning to take them gladly, and teach them kindly."
A far higher education was to be had at some of the
great monastic schools, such as Abingdon. Thither
Ælfric went, after he left his first master, the mass-
priest whom he despised for his ignorance of Latin.
Harold's college at Waltham was an attempt to set
up a place of education on a wider basis than the
monastic house. Although there is no record of any
Englishman of literary eminence in the reign of the
Confessor, the republication and enlargement of some
of the schoolbooks of the Abbot Ælfric, by his former
pupil Ælfric Bata, show that the work of education
still went on.
Nor was England less advanced in general civi-
lization than in intellectual culture. Merchants
brought to our shores from distant lands silks, skins,
gems, gold and ivory, oil, pepper, and wine. The
lithsmen, or merchants, of London, were so important
as to take a distinct share in a royal election. He
who "by his own means fared thrice over the wide
sea" attained the rank of thegn. Colonies of mer-
chants from Normandy and from the empire were
settled in London. A trade in slaves was carried on
chiefly from Bristol, whence they were exported in
large numbers to Ireland. The English towns, made
up as they were of a collection of small communities,
had just so much unity as to have their own courts,
and to pay their own dues to the crown. London
was naturally far in advance of the rest. There the
tendency, which in later times became universal, of
the government of the borough to become vested in
the guild of merchants was already visible. And the
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST.
59
port-reeve, or chief civil magistrate of London, was
perhaps at once the royal officer and the head of the
merchants. Yet, though London and some few other
towns had guilds of considerable wealth and im-
portance, their administration was not based on com-
mercial organization.
Until Eadward the Confessor imported a new style
from Normandy, English buildings followed "the
Roman fashion." They belonged to the primitive
Romanesque style, which was at one time common
to all western Christendom. Certain special features,
found also in Romanesque buildings of other lands,
distinguished the primitive English building from
those of Norman times. Among these are baluster
columns, such as may be seen at St. Albans, pilaster
strips, and the long-and-short work of the masonry.
The tall towers, standing without buttresses, some-
times in the centre of the church, but far more often
at the west end, usually plain, sometimes, -as in the
famous example at Earls Barton,-loaded with rude
ornament, present a striking contrast to the low and
massive towers of the Norman builders. It is per-
haps hardly necessary to say that our forefathers were
able to build with stone and brick before the Con-
quest. An almost perfect specimen of their building
may be seen on a very small scale in the church of
St. Laurence, at Bradford-on-Avon, which was pro-
bably raised three centuries and a half before the
introduction by King Eadward of the new fashion
from Normandy. Wood was, however, often used for
building churches. The houses of the English
were also built of wood, and seemed to Norman
бо
NORMAN BRITAIN.
eyes small and mean. In some arts the English
excelled all Romance people. They were skilful in all
kinds of metal work. Gold and silver were plentiful,
and were made into cups, personal ornaments, and
church vessels, richly wrought, and sometimes studded
with gems. Armourers, smiths, and leather-workers
furnished the English host with the implements of
war. Rich and varied robes were produced by the
weavers and dyers. English ladies of the highest
rank practised the arts of embroidery in gold and
other thread. The tapestry of the fight at Maldon
was the work of the widow of the hero Brihtnoth, and
the more famous stitch-work at Bayeux contains evi-
dences that English hands portrayed the story of their
country's fall. The Norman chronicler speaks with
wonder of the spoils of England with which the Con-
queror enriched the churches of his land. He tells
how Englishwomen were skilled in the use of the
needle and gold thread; how Englishmen knew every
artistic handicraft, taught by German workmen, and
by the cunning work which came to their shores from
distant lands. All arts flourished in the monasteries.
Chief among them was the illumination of manuscripts.
The designs of these books display extreme intricacy
and richness in the ornamental letters, much grace in
the drapery and expression and life in the faces of the
figures. Music was a national accomplishment. The
harp, the zither, the flute, the horn, and the trumpet
were all in common use, and organs were to be
found in some churches. All Englishmen could sing,
9
9 Will. of Poitiers, 154-5.
ENGLAND ON THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST. 61
and improvisation was no uncommon accomplish-
ment. The stave of four lines, with notes on the
lines and spaces, was probably used here as early
as the reign of Æthelred. The domestic life
of the English was not without its comforts and
refinements. If their houses were poor, they con-
tained convenient furniture, splendid hangings, and
soft beds. Our forefathers bathed constantly, and
washed before and after eating. Women held a high
place in society. They owned land, made wills, and
had rights to a part of their husband's property on
widowhood. Good women were held in honour, and
exercised considerable influence in all matters. The
two blots on English society were the habit of exces-
sive drinking and the cruelty with which slaves were
often treated.
Full of a civilization and a culture of native
growth, England was trodden down by a people who
had no literature, arts, or refinement of their own.
The conquerors had, however, been apt scholars
during the hundred and fifty years that they had
been settled in their new land. With ignorant dis-
dain they trampled on much in England of which
they did not know the value. At the same time, they
gave the conquered much that they lacked before.
English political life was disorganized, our national
spirit was weak. Isolated in ecclesiastical and secular
affairs, our country had need of some power to draw
her within the system of medieval Christendom, to
bring her under fresh influences, and to quicken her
dormant energies. She needed to be saved from a
state of helpless and discordant confusion in her
62
NORMAN BRITAIN.
state, and from the increasing danger to her church of
a spirit of secularism, arising from its intimate con-
nexion with the state, and from the marriage of the
clergy, which threatened to turn her priesthood into
an hereditary possession. Rich as our literature was,
and adorned even in the early part of the eleventh
century by the versions of the Chronicle and the
writing of Ælfric, in the time of the Confessor it was
showing signs of exhaustion and of the need of a fresh
impetus. Advanced as our general culture was, it
was distinctly insular, and needed the development
which Romance influence alone could give. In spite
of all that the Normans destroyed, our vigorous local
institutions survived the Conquest. Our national
identity, our language, and our law sustained the
shock, and conquered the conquerors themselves. In
the general overthrow, national life was preserved by
the church.10 Her monasteries kept alive the spirit
of patriotism; her services perpetuated our language
and the memories of the past; and her ministers led
the people to join in every struggle which was made
against violence and wrong.
10 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., 245.
NORMAN BRITAIN.
63
CHAPTER V.
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
THE establishment of the Danish dynasty showed
that England might be conquered by a foreign prince.
The marriage of Ethelred and Emma, the daughter
of Richard the Fearless, decided that the future
conqueror should be the Norman duke. Of the two
sons of Emma by her English husband, the younger
Ælfred perished in an attempt on England, the elder
Eadward remained in Normandy until he was sent
for by his brother Hartha-cnut. Some immigration of
Normans and Frenchmen followed the marriage of
Emma. The position held by Hugh, "the French
churl," at Exeter, and possibly also the legend
which made Ælfwine, bishop of Winchester, a relation
of Emma, who came over with her and held the
earldom of Hampshire before he took orders,¹ point
to the promotion of foreigners in church and state
before the coming of Eadward. Fresh encourage-
ment was given to foreign immigration by his return.
His accession was hailed in France with delight.2
Frenchmen had good cause to rejoice, for the new
king, not content with sending magnificent presents
to the French nobles, made all foreigners welcome,
1 Hist. Rames., Gale, iii., 447.
2 Vita Edw., Luard, 395.
64
NORMAN BRITAIN.
settled them on English soil, and enriched them with
offices and gifts. The name Frenchman was applied
to these foreigners from France, to the Normans, and
to others equally. French nobles were promoted to
offices in the king's household, and the welcome.
which was extended to all monks was doubly warm
in the case of those who came from beyond sea.
One sign of the foreigners' power in England was
the castle which Richard, the son of Scrob, raised
in Herefordshire, and the wonder and hatred with
which men saw this new thing in their land is
preserved in the name, Richard's Castle, which the
place still bears. It was the first fortress which was
raised in England for the indulgence of private
insolence and greed, and not for the protection of
Englishmen; it was to be the first of many, and the
evil deeds which Richard's men wrought were a fore-
taste of the evil times when fortresses such as his
were common in the land.
3
Godwine, the West Saxon earl, stood as the cham-
pion of English national feeling against the prevailing
French influence. Wise in counsel, eloquent in
speech, and with perfect command over himself, he
was well fitted for the work which he had to do. His
position was full of difficulty. The king, in a great
measure, owed his crown to the influence of the earl,
and married his daughter Eadgyth, yet he had no
love for him. Eadward liked to surround himself with
foreigners; Godwine, though he never forgot his duty
to his king, was indignant at their promotion. Eadward
³ A.-S. Chron., 1048; Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii.,
138.
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
65
4
was full of religious feelings, of alms and fastings;
he was a worker of miracles and a dreamer of holy
dreams. Godwine, in an age specially given to religious
foundations, built no churches. Besides these differ-
ences of taste, the part which Godwine had in the
death of his brother, Alfred, was an abiding source of
distrust and dislike in the king's heart. Eadgyth
seems to have had little influence over her husband;
and if she had any she used it on behalf of foreigners,
rather than of Englishmen. The lawlessness of his
son, Swegen,5 weakened the power of the earl, and
the partiality which he showed towards his own
family was discreditable to him. He was not indeed
a man of heroic mould. He was a greedy and some-
what unscrupulous politician. Nor was he, by any
means, upheld by the whole English people. The
earls Leofric and Siward, the rulers of Mercia and
Northumbria hated the upstart house which had risen
so rapidly to power, and which was ever growing
greater. In order to strike an effectual blow at the
predominance of the earl, it was needful to combine
against him the jealousies of his English rivals
and of the self-seeking foreigners who formed the
court party, and to undermine his influence over the
king. Robert of Jumièges, the Norman arch-
bishop of Canterbury, was well fitted to manage this
matter. His appointment to the see of London,
in 1044, was a distinct step towards the conquest
♦ Ælfred landed in 1036, in the reign of Cnut's son Harold,
hoping, no doubt, to gain the throne. He was seized at
Guildford, it is said, by Godwine, and put to death at Ely.
5 Will, of Poitiers, p. 127.
F
66
NORMAN BRITAIN.
of England,-it declared that English bishoprics
were to be open to foreigners. It was followed
by the promotion of another Norman, Ulf,—
one of the swarm of foreign priests at the court
-to the see of Dorchester. These appointments
were not made with any idea of increasing the
learning or spirituality of the church: they were
made by the king simply to reward his foreign
favourites. Robert, as far as his life in England
is concerned, was an intriguing politician. Ulf was
ignorant and "did naught bishoplike" in his diocese.
At the council of Vercelli, "they well-nigh could have
broken his staff, if he had not given great gifts, for
that he could not do his duty so well as he should."
Another and far more important gain was made
by the foreign party when Eadward set aside the
canonical election of Ælfric and made Robert arch-
bishop. The appointment marked the decline of
Godwine's power. The new archbishop exercised an
unbounded influence over the king, so that "had he
said that a black crow was white, the king would
sooner have believed his word than his own eyes."
He used this influence against the head of the national
party. An opportunity was given him by the refusal
of the earl to march against the men of Dover, who
defended themselves against the violence of count
Eustace of Boulogne, the king's brother-in-law, and
by the anger with which Godwine and his sons beheld
the evils which the Welshmen,7 for so the foreign
" 6
• Anglia Sacra, i., 291.
? The word is here used in the Peterborough Chronicle,
1048, in its original sense of foreigners.
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
67
garrison of Richard's Castle were called, wrought in
Herefordshire, the earldom of Swegen. The king's
anger against the earl and the combination which
drove Godwine and his family into exile, were the
work of the archbishop.
The banishment of Godwine and his house, in 1051,
gave the Frenchmen undisturbed pre-eminence in the
state. During their absence, William of Normandy
came over to see his cousin Eadward with a great
body of followers. The strangers received a warm
welcome, and when they left they carried away rich
gifts. A greater gain than the gold of England fell
to the share of the duke, for it must have been
during this visit that he received from Eadward the
promise of England itself. Such a promise could
not of course bind the witan. Yet, in the eyes of
men of the eleventh century it was, I venture to
believe, something more than a pledge "to make a
recommendation in favour of William." 8 Viewed in
connexion with the promise said to have been given
by Cnut to Emma, that the succession should
belong to the children of their marriage, with the
bequest made by Cnut on his death-bed in accord-
ance with this promise, and with the election of
Hartha-cnut to a share of the kingdom, it points to a
new idea of kingship. Like the change of folcland
into king's land, these promises are evidence that
men were beginning to look on the throne as a
personal possession,-an idea which was common
enough in Romance countries, though, fortunately, it
9
8 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 301.
9 Encomium Emmæ, p. 24, Pertz, in usum Schol.
F 2
68
NORMAN BRITAIN.
never gained a lasting place in our constitution. The
rule of the strangers ended with the return of God-
wine, in 1052. Archbishop Robert and many other
Normans were outlawed, because they "had raised up
unjust law, and judged unjust judgments, and coun-
selled evil counsels in this country." Stigand, bishop
of Winchester, was made archbishop, and Robert
went back to his abbey. He laid his case before the
pope, and complained loudly of his uncanonical
deprivation. His complaints formed another plea
for Norman invasion. The position of Stigand was
regarded as doubtful. The pope, from whom he
received the pall, did not succeed in establishing his
authority, and his recognition did harm to the cause
which he espoused. After the death of Godwine, his
son Harold, who succeeded him in the earldom of
Wessex, was the foremost man in the kingdom. Like
his father, he was wise and politic; unlike him, he
was also generous and self-denying. In spite of the
irregularity of his private life, he had strong religious
feelings. A pilgrimage to Rome, his foundation at
Waltham, and his special reverence for the Holy
Cross, made him acceptable to the saintly king. The
legend that Eadward confided to Harold his vision
of the seven sleepers, and that the earl sent a mes-
senger to Constantinople to ascertain whether in truth
the sleepers had turned, though foolish enough, is a
witness to the belief that the king and the earl had
feelings in common about religion. With these
feelings Harold combined a love of culture and an
absence from insular prejudice of which his educa-
tional arrangements at Waltham, his promotion of
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
69
Lotharingians to bishoprics, and his conduct to
foreigners generally are sufficient evidences. His
attempts to conciliate the house of Leofric by his
marriage with Ealdgyth, the sister of the earls
Eadwine and Morkere, and by yielding to the
Northumbrians who rose against his brother Tostig
and demanded Morkere for their earl, show his
desire to end the disunion in the kingdom, as well as
to smooth his own path to greatness. They are
examples of his power of subordinating all things
to the attainment of great ends, and point to the
union between his own interests and his country's
good. Patient, just, and affable to all men, strenuous
in action, valiant in fight, the biographer was not
wrong when he spoke of him as a second Judas
Maccabæus. While virtually ruling the kingdom
for the last thirteen years of the reign of Eadward,
he did not attempt to root out all Frenchmen from
the land. After the triumphant return of Godwine,
strangers were no more appointed to high posts in
England. Foreign administration was over, and with
it the fruit of "unlaw," of which the chronicler
complains. Good law, English law administered by
Englishmen, was proclaimed for all. Nevertheless,
many strangers were allowed to remain or to return.
Offices about the king's person were filled by strangers.
There were Norman stallers, or masters of the horse,
and a Norman treasurer. One Norman bishop,
William of London, was allowed to keep his see.
Norman Richard still held his castle in Herefordshire.
Many Normans or Frenchmen were settled on
English land and lived as Englishmen ; still more
70
NORMAN BRITAIN.
probably dwelt and carried on business in English
towns.10
When the Confessor sent to fetch the atheling
Eadward, the son of Eadmund Ironside, out of Hun-
gary, it is evident that the Norman influence over
him was shaken. By calling the ætheling to England,
the king virtually declared him his heir, and tacitly
revoked the promise made to William. The ætheling
came with his wife and his three children, Eadgar,
Margaret, and Christina. He died soon after he
landed, and died without having been allowed to see
the king, his kinsman. By whose means and for what
reason he was thus kept from the royal presence the
contemporary chronicler, who bewails his death, did
not know. It may have been the work of the French-
men at the court, or possibly of Harold.
This failure of the king's design brought both
Harold and William a step nearer to the throne.
From this time, indeed, it must have become plain to
all men that one or other of them would succeed the
king, for Eadgar was but a child. By the shipwreck
of Harold on the coast of Ponthieu and his enforced
stay with William, the Norman duke, acquired a new
and powerful claim. Why the earl went on the
voyage which ended so disastrously cannot be said
with certainty. It may be that he was sent on some
errand by the king, perhaps about the return of his
brother and cousin, who are said to have been given
as hostages by Godwine to the king and sent over to
the Norman court. Or it may be that he was overtaken
10 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., c. ix., 358–361.
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
71
by a storm when on a mere pleasure party." This
theory however rests only on the authority of William
of Malmesbury, and on the probabilities of the case.
And as Harold is represented in the Tapestry as having
an interview with the king before his embarkation, as
three ships are used in the voyage, and the earl takes
with him horses and dogs, it seems clear that the
worker intended to portray something more than a
mere fishing excursion. Harold accompanied the duke
on his expedition against the Bretons. William invested
him with his own arms,-a common ceremony among
Teutonic warriors, which was elaborated into the later
knighthood with its attendant observances. Either
at this ceremony, or at some other time during his
visit, Harold took the celebrated oath. Again it is
impossible to be certain as to the exact nature of the
event. Some oath was certainly taken upon the relics
of saints. A famous story, which, whether it be true
or not, illustrates the feeling of the time as to saints
and relics, records that the duke, wishing to bind the
conscience of the English earl, filled a chest with
relics. Over all he placed a sacred covering, the
phylactery of St. Pancras, called the Eil-de-boeuf
from the great gem which was in the centre of it. On
this he caused Harold to lay his hand while he swore.
Then he removed the covering, and the earl saw that
he had sworn before a company of heavenly witnesses.
The oath, however it was taken, was, that he would
marry a daughter of the duke, and was an oath of
homage, binding him to the duke. He also pro-
bably promised something more definite, for he
11 Norman Conquest, iii., 677.
72
NORMAN BRITAIN.
was in the Norman's power. Norman writers say that
the earl swore, that, on the death of the king, he would
do his utmost to gain the crown for William, and that
meanwhile, he would put the castle of Dover and such
other fortifications as the duke chose in the hands of
his men. English writers are silent about the whole
matter, and, as they knew the accusations of perjury
made against Harold, their silence is eloquent.
Whether William expected that the earl would feel
bound to help him in his designs on England or not,
he certainly gained a powerful weapon by thus forcing
him to give him some pledge which would be broken
by resistance.
For a long time, at least ever since the ætheling
had been called home, the promise made to William
must have been set aside by the king. Next the
throne, almost a partaker in the kingly dignity,
stood Harold, and to him the king, as he lay
dying, commended his wife and kingdom. The
election of Harold was the natural consequence of
his position during the latter years of Eadward; nor,
until we come to writers of a later date, is there any
mention of a wish having been expressed for Eadgar
or for William. Yet it was a strange event, for it
was wholly contrary to Teutonic ideas that any one
should be made a king who was not of a kingly line.
It was this sentiment which, when Harold Harfager
became king, caused the genealogy-makers, hopeless
of proving his royal descent in Norway, to trace his
parentage to the gods and heroes of Sweden. 12 Is it
12 Ynglinga-tal, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, i., 242-251.
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
73
possible that the assertion so roundly made by the
biographer,13 that his mother, Gytha, was the sister,
instead of the sister-in-law, of Cnut, may have been
believed, and that Harold may have been looked
upon as a Danish ætheling? It is certainly unlikely
that this should have been so; yet the thought that
otherwise his election must have seemed strange, even
to those who most desired it, invests the error in the
life of Eadward with a special interest.
Harold was chosen king by the chief men of all
England, in accordance with the bequest of Eadward.
He was crowned and anointed; but whether the
ceremony was performed by the uncanonical arch-
bishop of Canterbury, as the Norman writers say, or by
Ealdred, archbishop of York, as Florence of Wor-
cester declares, cannot be decided with certainty.
The question had some importance, as regards the
position of Harold as king; and the historian of the
Norman Conquest considers that "the evidence of
true history" sets Harold before us as consecrated
"at the hands of a primate whose canonical position.
no man ventured to gainsay.”14 On the other hand,
it should be remembered that Florence of Worcester,
though a valuable authority, wrote distinctly on
the English side, and that, from the connexion be-
tween his church and Archbishop Ealdred, he would
be likely to hear and believe anything which added
to the renown of the northern primate. And, though
William of Poitiers and Orderic were naturally inclined
to adopt any story against Harold, their testimony
13 Vita Ead., p. 392.
Norman Conquest, iii., 41, 616.
74
NORMAN BRITAIN.
is confirmed by the witness of the Tapestry. Of
the bequest of Eadward, of the election by the
witan, and of the coronation by either the one or
the other of the archbishops, there can be no reason-
able doubt. When the duke sent to Harold to claim
the fulfilment of his oath, the king answered that the
daughter to whom he had pledged himself was dead;
and that as to what he had sworn about the kingdom,
nothing he had promised could have any force with-
out the assent of the witan; that he had given his oath
when he was but a subject, being forced at the time
to do so, and without the knowledge of England or of
his king; and that it was not to be expected that he
would retreat from the position to which he had been
called by the favour of his countrymen.15 Harold,
therefore, did not deny some obligation to William.
He had made a promise indeed, but he had done so
without having any right to make it; he had no right
to keep his promise; it would be wrong, as well as
foolish, to attempt to do so. The claim of William
rested on a subtle accumulation of assertions, no one
of which, taken singly, gave him any right, though
taken together they made up a case which was fair
enough in the eyes of the men of his time. He was
akin to the last king. Eadward had promised to
leave him the throne, and it was asserted, though
without any truth, that he had actually bequeathed it
to him when he was dying. Harold had become his
man, he had sworn to gain for him the kingdom
which he now had, according to the Norman's view,
wrongfully seized for himself. This Harold was one
15 Will. Malmes., iii., 238.
A
PRELUDE TO THE CONQUEST.
75
of the family which had slain his kinsman Ælfred, and
which had by its machinations 16 banished Archbishop
Robert, and, indeed, all the Frenchmen. With such
arguments, by which the wrong done by Harold and
old accusations against the house of Godwine were
made to strengthen the slender foundations of
William's right, the Norman duke appealed to his
own people and to foreign nations for help to win
the throne of England, enforcing his appeal by pro-
mises of the plunder of the conquered land. His
seneschal, William Fitz-Osbern, son of one of those
faithful guardians of his youth who lost his life in his
service, persuaded the barons of Normandy to uphold
their duke. This was no easy task. The Normans
declared that they were too few in number to attack
so great a nation, that they dreaded the dangers of
the sea-so entirely had they lost the habits of their
forefathers—and that they did not see how a fleet
was to be prepared.
William also sent a messenger to Rome.
Alexander II. was pope, and the papal policy was
directed by Hildebrand. William's ambassador laid
the duke's case before the pope. There was much
to tempt the interference of the Holy See. The
appeal itself made the pope the arbiter of the destiny
of England, and the success of the invasion, if it was
undertaken at his bidding, would imply a more com-
plete subordination of the English church to Rome.
Yet many of the cardinals withstood Hildebrand
when he advocated the cause of the duke, and in
after days reproached him with the bloodshed in
16 "Arte sua." Henry Hunt., 761.
76
NORMAN BRITAIN.
which he made himself partaker. Hildebrand, how-
ever, gained his point. A consecrated banner and a
ring were sent from Rome to mark the pope's
approval, and William went forth as on a holy war to
bring the Church of England into subjection to
Rome. Nor were the Normans left to undertake the
enterprise by themselves. Lured by the hope of
plunder, adventurers flocked from every part of France,
from Britanny most of all; but also from Poitou and
Burgundy, from Flanders, and from the border-lands
of the Walloon people, to join the great host which
was gathering round the duke. For the most part,
indeed, the host was led by Normans; for it was no
undisciplined horde which marched beneath the
order of him "who was stark beyond bounds to men
who gainsaid his will." Its life and order were sup-
plied by the conquerors of Mortemer-by men, it may
be, who had met and routed the Saracen in Italy and
in Spain. Nevertheless, the conquest of England was
the work not of one duchy alone, but of men from
every part of Gaul and Flanders. 17
17 Orderic, 493, 494; Guy of Amiens, 250-260.
NORMAN BRITAIN
77
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONQUEST.
THE battle which on the 14th October, 1066, decided
the fate of England, has received from Orderic the
name of Senlac. In our native Chronicle it is simply
the battle "at the hoar apple tree," the mark of
some ancient boundary. No lack of valour caused
the defeat of the English: no lack of skill on the part
of Harold made their valour unavailing. No better
plan could have been devised than that which drew
up the English host in a position of defence, so as to
bar the road to London. Set in close array behind a
palisade forming a kind of fortification, shoulder to
shoulder and shield to shield, the army of Harold
presented a steady and immovable front to the
Norman attack. The battle-cries of both sides have
been recorded in the verse of Wace. The Norman
shout "Dex aie" was answered by the English
"God
Almighty," or by the name of the Holy Cross, the
object which Harold loved to honour, while as each
foe tried in vain to press through the palisade or break
the shield wall, the cry "Out out" declared the swing
of the English battle-axe. A detailed account of the
battle has been given elsewhere with a rare com-
bination of critical exactness and epic grandeur.¹ It
¹ Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii., c. 15.
78
NORMAN BRITAIN.
will be my endeavour here to mark the causes of the
Norman success. The invasion of Tostig and Harold
Hardrada, king of Norway, which was undertaken in
concert with William, did something to weaken the
English power of defence. At Stamfordbridge, where
after half a century the place of battle was still
heaped with the bones of warriors, many of the
bravest English fell in the long day's struggle. On
the third day after Harold's victory over the
Northmen, William landed at Pevensey. It was
always hard to keep an English army together, com-
posed as it was of levies from the different shires.
Earlier in the month, while the fleet of William waited
for a favourable wind, the ships and men dispersed
which Harold had gathered. And now, after the
victory, some left the army, angry, it is said, because
Harold made no division of the Northmen's spoils. Far
more serious was the defection of the northern earls,
Eadwine and Morkere, who, in spite of the efforts
of Harold to heal the old jealousy between the houses
of Leofric and Godwine, and of the deliverance which
he had wrought for them at Stamfordbridge, now stood
selfishly apart from him in his hour of need. It is
impossible to determine the numerical strength of the
English army. By native writers Harold is said to
have "fought before his host had all come," while the
Normans speak of its immense number. The most
serious effect of these divisions was, that his army
contained no well-armed troops, except in the centre,
where the house-carles and thegns of the king and
2 Will. Malmes., ii., 228.
THE CONQUEST.
79
such picked bodies as the levy from London were
massed closely together. The light-armed foot had
only such weapons as they could find,-stakes or
forks, or the like.
The victory of the Normans, however, was due to
the organization, discipline, and arms of the south,
rather than to any incidental causes. It was due to the
perfect use which William made of his archers and his
cavalry, the special instruments of southern warfare.
Against the downward shower of arrows the hardi-
hood of the English could avail nothing. Repeated
charges of horsemen covering and relieving the foot
wearied the defenders of the hill. A feigned retreat
and a rapid rally, movements which William's dis-
ciplined cavalry was well able to perform, induced the
irregular troops of the English right to leave their
station, and really decided the fortune of the day. A
fatal sameness in weapons and tactics pervaded the
English host. Every man fought on foot. Among
the light-armed there were scarcely any archers, for
though the bow was used commonly enough in sports,
it was not until the Normans had taught us its use as
a weapon that the English became the best archers in
Europe. All the most efficient troops had, like the
Normans, coats of mail, helmets, and shields. They
had javelins to cast at the first attack : and when these
were thrown, some depended on the old national broad-
sword, and by far the greater number on the heavy two-
handed axe, which had been more lately brought into
use. Terrible as this axe was in the hands of men like
Harold, who, as each foe came within his reach, smote
down horse and man at a blow, it left the body exposed
80
NORMAN BRITAIN.
at the moment of using it. Far more fatal was the
national formation of the English battle, where men
stood in the closest order, forming a wall with their
shields. While no mode of array could be stronger so
long as the line remained unbroken, it made it hard
to form the line again. It also had a tendency to en-
courage a want of self-reliance. In his place in the
mighty wedge each man felt strong; when that was lost,
he was weak. Two cases of careless and insurbordi-
nate pursuit, at one time of the enemy in actual
flight, at the other feigning to flee, show a consi-
derable and fatal lack of discipline. On the other
hand, the invaders were all well armed, the light
foot with bows and crossbows, the heavier infantry
with swords, and the squadrons of horse wit
swords and lances. The army was divided int
three lines, and each made its attack or sought relief,
advanced, retreated, and rallied, as it was commanded.
When Harold fell, struck by a Norman arrow, the
strength of England fell with him. Englishmen did
not see this at first, and had to learn it by bitter
experience. Their first lesson was not long delayed.
Within the walls of London the seamen or mer-
chants of the city held counsel with the great men
of the kingdom, as they had done at other times
about the election of a king. Eadwine and Morkere
sought the votes of the citizens in favour of one or
other of themselves. It was in vain, and Eadgar the
ætheling, the son of Eadward, young in years and
in understanding, was chosen to the vacant throne.
The Londoners made ready to fight for their king.
Then the two earls, disappointed of their hope,

THE CONQUEST.
81
(6
deserted the national cause. They went back to
their northern land, thinking that the Conqueror
would be satisfied with the south, and would leave
them in peace. During the short reign of Harold
there had been signs of rebellion in the north. Then
he went down thither, and made England one again.
At Stamfordbridge the forces of the south defended.
the northern part of the kingdom. At Senlac, in
spite of the absence of the northern earls, an army
not unworthy of England gathered round the Dragon
of Wessex. But now that Harold was dead, private
jealousy ruined all hopes, and, in the words of the
Chronicler, as it ever should be the forwarder, so
was it ever from day to day backwarder and worse,
as at the end it all went." The desertion of the
northern earls led to the submission, at Berkhamp-
stead, of Archbishop Ealdred, of the ætheling
Eadgar, of the northern earls themselves, and of
all the best men of London. "They bowed them-
selves for need" is the sorrowing comment of the
Chronicle. Not strong enough to uphold a king
of the old race, as the servants of Ahaziah refused
to fight for one of their master's sons, and de-
clared themselves the servants of Jehu, so the
great men of England called on William to be
their king. He was hallowed king by Ealdred,
who "pledged him on the Gospels." "Standing
before the altar, in the face of the clergy and
people, William swore that he would defend
the holy churches of God and their rulers, that
justly and with kingly care he would rule all who
were subject to him, that he would set up and keep
G
82
NORMAN BRITAIN.
good law, and would utterly forbid rapine and unjust
judgments." Elected, accepted, sworn, crowned,
and anointed, William was now lawful king. It now
only remained for him to enforce his acknowledged
rights.
When, in 1067, William left England to enrich his
duchy with the spoils of the conquered land, his
authority was fairly established over the south and
east of England. A large part of Mercia, Northum-
bria, and the shires in the extreme west lay as yet
outside his dominion. Until 1071 the work of con-
quest went on with varying success. Among the chief
epochs in its progress¹ came first the conquest of the
west, which followed the return of the king from
Normandy. The leading event in this campaign was
the subjugation of the city of Exeter, where the
citizens presumed to offer the Conqueror the pay-
ment made to former kings, with a bare acknowledg-
ment of his authority, and, upheld by the men of all
the western land, to shut their gates against him. In
the spring of 1068 the west was subdued. Before
long a general movement in the north of England,
headed by Eadwine and Morkere, by Gospatric,
whom William had made earl of Northumberland,
and other great men, forced the king to march as far
as York. Eadwine and Morkere deserted the cause,
and again made peace with William. Eadgar the
ætheling with Gospatric and many others took
shelter in Scotland. On his march William received
the submission of the shires of middle England, and
³ Flor. Wig., i., 229.
✦ Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv., c. 18.
THE CONQUEST.
83
secured them by building castles in their principal
towns. Another revolt of the north, aided by the
Danish fleet in 1069, again called William to York,
and even further; while other movements on the
Welsh border and in Somerset were put down by his
lieutenants. The desolation of the land and a bribe to
the Danish leader were the means of establishing his
power in the north by the early part of 1070. In
that year Hereward raised a revolt in the Isle of Ely,
and he and his companions defended themselves so
vigorously that William had to put forth all his ener-
gies to subdue them. At last, in 1071, Earl Morkere
and most of the garrison of the island yielded them-
selves up to the king, and the work of conquest was
at an end.
Brave as the resistance of the English was, it
was ineffectual because it lacked any concerted
action. For instance, in 1067, three distinct
movements took place. William left England in
charge of his brother Bishop Odo and William
Fitz-Osbern. In the absence of their master they
ruled unjustly. "They wrought castles widely through-
out the land and poor folk they oppressed," is the
comment of the chronicler on their administration.
In Kent, the earldom of Odo, the men of Dover
sought help from their old enemy, Eustace of Bou-
logne. In Herefordshire, where Fitz-Osbern was earl,
and where Richard's castle threatened the land,
Eadric, called the Wild, harried the country, in alli-
ance with the Welsh. A local feud disturbed the north.
Copsige, once the lieutenant of Tostig, was made earl
of Northumberland by William in place of Morkere.
G 2
84
NORMAN BRITAIN.
The government of that part of Northumbria, now
called Northumberland, had been given by Morkere
to Oswulf, a descendant of the old earls. The appoint-
ment of Copsige, the head of the party of Tostig,
was evidently intended by William to be the means
of crushing Morkere's party, and so bringing the
north into subjection.5 Copsige warmly took up the
king's policy and turned Oswulf out of his govern-
ment. Oswulf wandered like an outlaw in the
forests in sore need. He was joined by a band
of men in like case. With these companions he
came suddenly on the earl as he was feasting at New-
burn. In the uproar of the attack, Copsige escaped
to the church hard by the hall. Then Oswulf and his
men set the church on fire, and as the earl, driven by
the flames, came to the door, Oswulf cut off his head.
These movements had no connexion with each other,
and so bore no abiding fruit. In the same way, the
next year, the resistance of Exeter and the western
shires, the rising in the north, and an attack made
by the sons of Harold on Bristol and the coast of
Somerset, seem to have come one after another, and
were put down without much difficuly.
The death of Harold left Englishmen without a
leader. No one stood forth to give unity to the
struggles of the people as he would have done. How
terribly men felt their need of a leader is shown by
the invitation of the men of Dover to Eustace of
Boulogne. Help was sought from foreign kings,
and sought in vain. Malcolm of Scotland, indeed,
• Simeon Dunelm, 204.
THE CONQUEST.
85
received the English exiles, Eadgar and his sister,
Gospatric, and others. Swend of Denmark promised
help, and at last, after long waiting, the Danish fleet
came in 1069. All the north was in a blaze of
rebellion. As the fleet sailed up the Humber,
Archbishop Ealdred prayed that he might not see
the woes which were coming on his church
and city, and so died. Very joyfully the English
joined their allies. York was set on fire. In
despair, the Norman soldiers made a sally. At
the gate stood Waltheof, the son of Siward, the
mighty Northumbrian earl, tall and strong, with
huge chest and sinewy arms, and
6
as each
Norman sought to flee, he smote off his head.
The hated castles with which William had bridled
the city were destroyed. Then, after all, the revolt
ended in failure, and the Danish fleet turned away
to plunder the coasts of England. Strong and brave
as the English were, they needed some one on whom
to lean, and the leaders sent by Swend were broken
reeds. In consequence of this absence of unity of
action, William was able to use the people of one
part to put down the revolt of another part of Eng
land. When one shire or city was brought to acknow-
ledge his authority, it had to send its men when the
fyrd, or national militia, was called out, to follow the
king to battle. Thus Englishmen were compelled to
fight against the cause of England. Another means
which William took to subdue the land was by
building castles. Orderic remarks how very few such
• Will. Malms., iii., 253.
86
NORMAN BRITAIN.
buildings existed in England before the Conquest,
and says that this was a cause why the English
could offer no effectual resistance to the Normans.
When William left Bishop Odo and William Fitz-
Osbern in charge in 1067, he bade them build castles
about the land. As each town submitted to him its
obedience was secured by one of these fortresses.
Raised on a mound, often on the site of some earlier
work by which Welshmen or Englishmen had defended
their homes, the square and massive Norman tower
seemed to threaten the town beneath with the violence
of the conquerors. The townsmen hated it because
their peaceful homes were ruthlessly destroyed to
make room for it, because it was the ever-present sign
of foreign domination, and because it held men who
were ready to oppress them. Besides royal castles, a
large number were also built by different lords. A
time came when the men who dwelt within their
hated walls made them the scenes of every devilish
cruelty.
The Conquest was rendered specially terrible by
the destruction of property and the devastation of
land which accompanied it. A vain resistance, or
the foundation of a castle, or the vengeance of the
Conqueror, or the tyranny of earl or reeve, brought
desolation into many towns. In Oxford, for instance,
out of 741 houses, 478 were so ruined in 1086 as
to be no longer taxable. By destroying the country
at his landing by fire and sword, William forced on
the battle of Senlac. The rich lands of Somerset
suffered heavily in 1069, when Geoffrey, the bishop of
Coutances led a force largely composed of English-
THE CONQUEST.
87
men, as was so often the case, to relieve the castle of
Montacute. Domesday records how the bishop's
army as it passed left ruin behind it, sometimes in a
narrow line, sometimes in detached spots, sometimes
in a broad belt of wasted land.7 Far more terrible
was the harrying of the north in 1070, when William
deliberately laid waste the whole land between York
and Durham. Provoked by the repeated struggles
against his authority, and sternly determined to put
an end to them, in a time of peace (for the revolt
was crushed), and in the winter weather William set
out with his army to desolate the country. Never was
work done more thoroughly. In the roads and in the
silent streets of once flourishing towns the corpses of
men and little children were left rotting on the ground,
for there was no man to bury them. Wild beasts
made their lairs where once had stood the homes of
men. The land was left untilled, and, in the strait-
ness of the famine, men ate the flesh of dogs and
horses, and even of their own kind. Fully half a cen-
tury later William of Malmesbury wrote how piteous
it was to see the land still lying waste and so changed
from what it had been, that no man could know it
for the same. Of those who escaped with life, some
fled from the stricken land, and others sold them-
selves into slavery that they might eat a morsel of
bread.8
In spite of their lack of union, and though they
found none to lead them; in spite of the awful
7 Vestiges of the Norman Conquest in Somerset, by Rev.
J. Bennett, Somerset Archæological Journal, xxv.
Sym. Dunelm, 199; Orderic, 514; Will. Malms., iii., 249.
88
NORMAN BRITAIN.
thoroughness with which William did his work, using
the very forces of the nation against it, confirming
his conquests everywhere by raising castles, and turn-
ing the land where he would into a desolate wilder-
ness, the resistance of the English was long and
stubborn. Apart from those qualities which we be-
lieve ourselves to have inherited from the men who
dared to brave the wrath of the Conqueror, this
resistance was made possible by the very condition of
the land. The forests, mountains, and upland moors
of Northumbria gave shelter to bands of outlaws
who were ready for any deed of daring, and the
great men of the north who were received by Mal-
colm of Scotland were able to join these bands at the
right moment, and, after a revolt, to retreat again in
safety. While the character of the country favoured
irregular warfare, it hindered the movements of an
army. In the winter march of 1070 from the Tees
to York, through the wild district of the Hambledon
hills, William and his army encountered much fatigue
and danger. Still worse was his march undertaken a
few weeks later through the broken country between
York and Chester, when the difficulties were so great
that the men of Anjou, Britanny, and Maine who
were with him were loud in their demands that they
might leave the army. When the vast moors of
Somerset, at that time perhaps not far off 170,000
acres in extent, lay undrained, and the forest of
Selwood lay at its back, the men of the shire felt
that they had some protection from attack. In the
western borderland, Eadric the Wild and his Welsh
allies could issue forth from wooded and mountainous
THE CONQUEST.
89
places which none could penetrate, to ravage Here-
fordshire and burn Shrewsbury. In the east, William
had to pursue the Danish crews into the almost in-
accessible marshes of Lindesey; and when the peace
of desolation had settled down upon the north, the
Fenland rose in revolt. The island of Ely was the
centre of resistance. There Hereward, whose real
fame is dimmed by the romances which gather round
it, dared to keep the passage of the Ouse against
William and his army. At last, Earl Morkere and
all the rest surrendered,-all, indeed, save Hereward
and the few who followed him, and they took to the
marshes, and he led them out boldly. The island
was the last spot in England which withstood the
Conqueror. And when we read how, in after times,
Eadric went with William to Scotland, and Hereward
led Englishmen to ravage Maine at the bidding of
the Norman king, we may be sure that neither moun-
tain nor fen could any longer enable the patriot to
resist the foreigner, and that the conquest of England
was complete.
9
9 Ang.-Sax. Chronicle, sub an. 1072.
90
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
WHEN William sought to raise the courage of the
Norman nobles for the invasion of England, he bade
them mark how he promised to distribute the wealth
of the English king, as though it were already his
own.¹ By such promises he drew together the crowd
of adventurers who followed him. When their work
was done, these men looked for their reward. While
the mere mercenaries were paid and dismissed, the
men of his own duchy, and the host of those who
joined the expedition as volunteers from different
parts of Gaul, remained to receive their share of the
conquered land. Feudal tenure was universal through-
out the Frankish empire, and was naturally retained
by the conquerors in their new home. By this tenure
all land was held of some lord, on condition of
service or rent. It involved homage or the act
by which the tenant became the man or vassal of
the lord of whom he held, and the oath of fealty by
which he swore to be faithful to him. Some approach
to this tenure was made, as we have seen, in England
before the Conquest. The Normans brought the
relationship between lord and tenant to a system,
and made that system universal. There was, however,
1 Will. Pict., 124.
•
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
91
a wide difference between the feudalism which the
Normans set up in England and the system which
prevailed on the Continent. On the Continent
feudalism implied the weakness of the crown. The
obligation of the tenant ended with the lord im-
mediately above him, and when the apex of the
system was reached, the king was lord of those
who held immediately of him, of his tenants-in-chief,
often at least as powerful as he was, but he was
not lord of those who held of them. William had
seen the evils of this system. He took good care
that feudalism should not affect the constitution of
his kingdom, that it should in no way weaken his own
power. He guarded against this by various means.
As regards the right to land, he made his grant the root
of all title; he assumed the place of the lawful suc-
cessor of King Eadward, and he made the new grantees
step into the exact position held by their English prede-
cessors. He distributed the estates of the most power-
ful landowners throughout the country. And he brought
all men who held land into immediate relationship
to himself. By other means also, which belong to his
system of administration, he kept feudalism from
becoming a disintegrating force in the constitution.
In his dealings with the land of England, William
did not proceed with violence. Claiming the
throne as his by right, when that right had been
established by wager of battle, he acted as a king
who had been kept out of his own by rebellion. All
crown lands naturally became his, and the change
of folcland into king's land, which had been going
on for a long time, was thus finally confirmed. He
92
NORMAN BRITAIN.
had also, in virtue of his claim to the throne, a claim
on all the land of the country which had refused to
receive him as king. As we have seen, the Conquest
was a work of time. No sudden and general confis-
cation was therefore possible, nor did it enter into
William's plan. His first measure was to seize the
lands of certain special offenders, of Harold, of the
house of Godwine, and of those who fought at Senlac.
Generally, however, at the beginning of his reign, the
English were allowed to redeem their lands, and
received them back on their submission to the Con-
queror. In the course of the conquest, fresh land
fell into his power. With this he dealt as it seemed
good to him. And as men who had received regrants
joined in opposing him, their land became forfeited.
So the process of confiscation went on, and William
had ample means of satisfying his followers. In all
cases, save those of ecclesiastical property, whether
land was held by Englishmen or Frenchmen, the
only valid title to it was derived from the direct grant
of the king.
The settlement of land effected by the Conqueror
is recorded in Domesday. This famous record is
the result of the survey ordered by the king in 1085,
after "very deep speech with his witan." The primary
object of this survey was to gain a correct basis for
taxation. As an assessment-book, Domesday was not
the first of its kind. A survey of some sort was made
for the purpose of taxation in the reign of Ethelred,
and so late as 1084, when, in prospect of a Danish
invasion, a tax was levied of six shillings on the hide
of land, geld-rolls were drawn up for its assessment.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
93
Besides serving this purpose, the survey enabled
William to know what force he could bring into the
field, and, in spite of the wide change of ownership,
it informed him of the right by which each man held
his land, and of the service which was due from him.
Domesday has come down to us in different forms
and pieces. The principal book, called "Liber de
Wintonia," or the "Exchequer Domesday," consists
of two volumes. In one of these is set out a short
notice of the land and its owners in thirty-one shires,
both in the time of King Eadward and at the date of
the survey. The other volume contains a fuller report
of three shires-Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk-not in-
cluded in the first volume. The omission of North-
umberland and Durham is a silent witness of the
devastation of the north. Cumberland is, of course,
left out, as it did not form part of William's kingdom.
Lancashire is not described by name, though the
Furness district is included in the survey, and other
parts of it are found under Yorkshire and Cheshire.
Another book, kept by the chapter of Exeter, and
called the "Exon Domesday," contains a fuller report
of Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall,
which are also described more briefly in the Exchequer
book. A third record, the "Ely Inquest," deals fully
with the lands of the abbey.
For the purpose of the survey, the kingdom was
divided into districts, probably nine in all, containing
neighbouring shires, and a body of commissioners was
sent down into each district. By the terms of their com-
mission they were to inquire who held each estate in
the time of King Eadward and at the present time;
94
NORMAN BRITAIN.
the extent and character of the land; what men dwelt
upon it; whether any increase or loss had come to the
estate; its value at the two points of time; what each
freeman kept, or had kept, on it, how much it ren-
dered in the time of King Eadward, when King
William granted it, and at the present time, and
whether the amount could be improved. The names
of one set of commissioners have been recorded.
They were four in number, and were all men of high
position. Each set of commissioners came down to its
district, bringing their own clerks with them. In each
hundred, or wapentake, to which they came a special
meeting of the hundred was held. At this court
they gained their information concerning the district
from the sworn witness of the sheriff, of all the
French barons, of the whole hundred court, of the
priest, the reeve, and six villeins of each township.
Their clerks wrote down the result on separate rolls
or leaflets. No inquest before this had been so
searching, for the Normans loved exactness and legal
accuracy. Such an inquiry was very grievous to Eng-
lishmen. "It is shame to tell," writes the chronicler,
"what he thought it no shame for him to do. Ox,
nor cow, nor swine, was left that was not set down
upon his writ." In some places, either this indigna-
tion, or else disputes about property, led to bloodshed.2
Many questions about title were raised. These the
commissioners did not attempt to settle. They simply
entered them in a distinct register as Terræ occupatæ,
or Clamores, or under some like heading.
2 Flor. Wig., ii., 19.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
95
When a set of commissioners had gone through
all their district they sent up their rolls to the
king's court at Winchester. None of these rolls
have been preserved, though it is probable that
the Ely Domesday is a twelfth-century transcript
from them. All the rolls must have been taken into
the king's scriptorium. The clerks there had a busy
time. The codex had to be finished, so the king com-
manded, by Easter Day, April 5, 1086, and it was
not mere copying that had to be done. For instance,
in all cases, except the eastern counties, which, we
may suppose, were first taken in hand and begun on
a larger scale than could be maintained, the entries
about cattle were to be left out. What must have
caused the greatest trouble was, that a wholly new
arrangement had to be followed. The different shires
had to be described in the codex, not, as they were
surveyed, by hundreds, but according to tenure,
according to their division into fiefs and baronies ;3
so that the clerks had to extract all the entries about
the property of each man in every hundred and
arrange them together. The work was probably over-
looked by some bishop, for we know that Remigius,
bishop of Lincoln, was the head of the commis-
sioners of the midland counties. Besides the general
superintendent of the work, who was, perhaps,
Geoffrey of Coutances, one of the king's justiciaries,
the master of the scriptorium would always be pre-
sent to urge on the work and supply the scribes with
pens, knives, and such like. The Exon Domesday
3
3
Eyton, Notes on Domesday, p. 16.
96
NORMAN BRITAIN.
seems to have been compiled from the commissioners'
rolls independently of the Exchequer book. It was
a separate record of the survey, and was probably
made for local purposes. Some fragments of the
inquest of 1084 have been bound up with it. The work
in the scriptorium was done by the appointed time.
Men called the book Domesday, for to the English the
inquest seemed searching and terrible as that of the
Last Judgment, while the name seemed appropriate to
the Norman lawyer from the finality of its decisions.
Domesday presents an absolutely trustworthy record.
of the distribution of land, and to some extent of the
condition of the people, and even of the political
ideas of the Conqueror. In the division of land two
systems were used by the commissioners, measure-
ment by hides and by carucates. The hide was the
old English division used in assessment for the
danegeld. It does not represent a constant quantity
of land, and is a measure of value rather than of
extent. The carucate was a term brought in by the
Normans. Where it is used along with the hide, it
denotes a hide which did not pay geld. It was
variable in extent. Its essential component was the
single ploughland (caruca) which might be ploughed
with one team of oxen in a year. From a passage
in Fleta 5 it seems that where a system of three crops
prevailed the ploughland consisted of 180 acres, of
which 60 were for summer crop, 60 for winter and
60 for fallow, and in land cultivated under the
double system it consisted of 160 acres of which 80
• Eyton, Domesday Studies, Somerset, p. 5.
5 Fleta, ii., c. 72.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
97
were in tillage and 80 in fallow. Other constituents
such as woodland and meadow were also included
in the carucate. Where the carucate is used without
the hide it must be considered as equivalent to it.
Domesday bears witness to a general spoliation of the
larger proprietors. Some lost all their lands; others
retained only a portion of them. This confiscation
varied in severity according to the amount of resist-
ance offered to William. In Kent not one English-
man appears as a tenant-in-chief, and in Surrey and
Sussex it is nearly the same.
Among the land-
owners of Somerset eighteen English thegns appear.
Of these, however, only one was a man of consider-
able wealth. In Wiltshire the number of English
landowners was remarkably large. In Lincolnshire
greater estates remained in the hands of English
landowners than in any other part of the country.
Wide as the confiscation was in the case of smaller
holders, it was by no means equal to that which fell
upon the richer class. In all cases the tenure of
land was made feudal. A few landholders are styled
alodiaries in Domesday. Even these held of others,
because, though they had not received their lands
from a lord, they were within a lord's jurisdiction.
Some of William's chief men received very large
grants, for the whole number of lay tenants-in-chief
of the crown was under 700 and several of these held
each only one estate. William, however, when he made
many grants to a single man distributed them through
different shires, so that the possessions of the richest
landowner should not make him a match for his
king. The estates, for instance, of Robert of Mortain
H
98
NORMAN BRITAIN.
lay in nineteen shires besides those which he held in
Wales, and those of Bishop Odo in seventeen shires.
When a Norman received an estate of any con-
siderable size he divided it into two parts. Of these
he kept one in his immediate possession as his
demesne, and granted the other out to be held by free
tenure of himself. The whole estate was called his
Manor. In one part stood the hall of the lord, his
arable and pasture lands cultivated by the villeins
who dwelt on the demesne and his mill at which they
weie bound to grind their corn. At a little distance
were the dwellings of the villeins. These villeins
were the ceorls of the times before the Conquest.
Each lived in his own dwelling and cultivated a sepa-
rate piece of land, while he had to take his share in
tilling for the lord. There were several distinctions
between men of this class which it is difficult now to
understand. Though their homes were as yet their
own, dependence on their lord and stricter obligations
to him had for some time been growing up and were
strengthened by the superimposition of a foreign lord
of the manor. Round the manor-house were clustered
the huts of men described as Bordarii, men who were
perhaps before the Conquest landless ceorls, and
who now lived in dwellings assigned to them by the
steward. On different parts of the manor were the
holdings of the free tenants, and a wide waste on
which the freehold tenants or socagers and the vil-
leins had their own rights of common. As the court
of the township continued to exist after it fell into the
hands of an English lord, so it also existed under a
foreign lord of the manor as the court baron, and
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
99
where the English lord had had jurisdiction of sac and
soc there his foreign successor held his court leet. No
part of this manorial arrangement was, perhaps, wholly
new except in name. The lands of the Englishman.
became the manor of the foreigner. That was all
the difference, and yet the difference was not small ;
for if it did not imply new institutions it did imply
that a new spirit had entered into the old.
Great as was the change wrought in land tenure
during the reign of the Conqueror, it was wrought
silently and without legal enactment. The French
tenant-in-chief took the place of the king's
thegn. His obligations remained the same. As
William in his own eyes was the rightful successor
of King Eadward so every landowner succeeded to
the position of his antecessor who held the estate in
the time of King Eadward. The reign of Harold is
not recognized in Domesday, and the landowner by
the grant of William is treated as though he were
the heir of the owner in Eadward's days just as the
king chose to look upon himself as Eadward's lawful
heir, a way of regarding his position which had
much to do with the preservation of the continuity
of our history. Though the countless conditions of
English tenure were reduced to the one system of
feudalism, there is no mention of military tenure or
knights' service in Domesday. The old obligations
in respect of military service remained the same
as before the Conquest. Dwelling on his separate
holding and with distinct rights, the villein seems
at first to have been little, if at all, worse off than
when he was called a ceorl. At the time of Domesday
H 2
100
NORMAN BRITAIN.
he was far removed from a state of slavery. By his
sworn witness in his ancient court, given along with
others, the survey itself was made. But the Conquest,
bringing with it a Norman lord and the doctrines of
feudalism, put him in a position which was certain
to grow worse. His land was now considered to be
distinctly held of a lord, and from that lord's power
he could not remove it. So his land soon came to
be regarded as held at the will of the lord and he
himself as a mere irremovable appendage to his lord's
estate. And as the varieties of English landholding
were exposed to the strict reasoning of the Norman
lawyers, the different classes of villeins were con-
founded together, and the condition of the whole
was reduced to servitude. From this state they were
at length relieved by the customary court of the
manor which afforded evidence of their holdings.
Their degradation, however, belongs to a later age.
The ceorl, who once fully owned his land, and
who in the later days of the English kingship had
become to some extent dependent on a lord, was
regarded in the Conqueror's time as a husbandman
attached to the soil, but, nevertheless, with political
and personal rights and duties. As regards the
payments made from land at the time of the survey,
Domesday shows an increased rental yielded by the
king's land as compared with the time of King
Eadward. And this is specially true of the royal
boroughs, for though their customs were left un-
changed, they were more heavily taxed than under
the native kings, even in cases where many houses
were in ruins, and there were, therefore, fewer to bear
THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE LAND.
ΙΟΙ
the burthen. The change also from payment in
kind to a fixed money rent which was now beginning
to be brought about was probably at first against the
interest of the payers. In spite of all this, it has been
calculated that the troubles of the Conquest reduced
the value of the kingdom to about three-fourths of the
amount yielded in the time of King Eadward.
A law ascribed to William enacted that every
freeman should take an oath that he would be faithful
to the king against all other men. This law was the
expression of a memorable fact. In a great assembly
held on Salisbury plain in 1086, William gathered
together all the holders of land, and all, whose men
soever they were, did him homage and swore fealty
to him. So it was that, the same year that saw the
completion of the record which bears witness to
the universal establishment of the feudal system of
tenure in the place of the manifold conditions of
English landholding, saw also the act which secured
England against the disruptive tendencies of feudal
government. Teutonic disorganization was thus dis-
ciplined by a king who was fully under Romance
influences.
102
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
FROM the close union between church and state in
the early English polity came evil as well as good.
The unity of the church had given unity to the state,
had taught the Northumbrians, Mercians, and West
Saxons to look on themselves as one nation, so that it
has been truly said that the Church of England existed
before England herself. And now in the time of the
nation's trial the church supplied no small part of
that power of national life which endured, and finally
triumphed over, foreign oppression. Up to this time
the life and growth of our church had been, to a
great extent, free and independent. Our churches
were built after a special modification of the universal
Romanesque style, and their services and sermons
were in our native tongue. Kings and bishops and
holy men of our own land received the honours of
saints and martyrs. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and
preferment were within the range of our national
system. Legatine interference was rare. At the
same time, the national character of the church had
a tendency to weaken its moral influence. Its union
with the state, to some extent at least, brought it
down to the same level, and society lost the exalting
influence which it would have received from a church
1 Stubbs, Cons. Hist, i., c. 8., sec. 90.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
103
standing apart from it and above it. For the most
part, the bishops of the age immediately preceding
the Conquest were men of no special sanctity or
learning. Pre-eminence in either of these was more
often found in the cloister than in the episcopate.
Here, however, as in the rest of western Christendom,
the Benedictine rule had become relaxed. The great
ecclesiastical revival of the eleventh century took its
rise from the reformation of monasticism which was
wrought at Cluny. By this movement the church
was saved from sinking to the level of the world
around her. Her special danger arose from the
degradation of clerical persons and offices: it was
met by enforcing clerical celibacy and by strictly for-
bidding simony. Hildebrand, as the minister of popes,
and as pope himself, tried to make secular rulers the
instruments to carry out this spiritual reformation,
and so, by exalting and purifying the church, to
exalt and purify society. He failed to make them his.
allies in this work, and he therefore strove to make
himself their master. England lay outside the in-
fluence of the ecclesiastical movement of the eleventh
century. Her church life needed reinvigoration.
The close connexion between church and state in
legislation and jurisdiction had caused conciliar action
to cease, and had made the law about sacred matters
undefined and chaotic. Her church system needed
reorganization. The Norman Conquest, by bringing
England under the Roman influence, which was
quickening Western Christendom, supplied her
church, no less than her state, with vigour and
organization.
104
NORMAN BRITAIN.
In his dealings with the rulers of the church,
William was under a double influence. He owed
much to Rome for espousing his cause against Harold,
and the papacy had its special grounds of offence
against several English bishops. He found, too, that
English churchmen were on the national side, and
that the Conquest would not be complete until he
had made church as well as state bend to his will.
The visit of three legates to England, in 1070, was
his opportunity for at once gratifying the pope and
serving his own cause. Both ends were answered
by the deposition of Stigand, the uncanonical arch-
bishop of Canterbury, while the death of Ealdred
enabled William to place a Norman in the northern
province. Lanfranc, the Italian lawyer, the teacher
of Avranches, the monk of Bec, the abbot of
Caen, was chosen by William to rule the church.
King and archbishop worked together in full accord.
Both alike were men of pre-eminent ability; both
alike possessed the art of choosing the best means
to bring about their ends. Gradually, by depo-
sition or by death, the English bishops gave place
to foreigners. Wulfstan, the sainted bishop of Wor-
cester, unlearned as he was, alone kept his see,
and lived to do good service in the cause of order
both in church and state. Gradually, also, the rule
over English abbeys was given to foreigners. The
bishops appointed by William were for the most
part fitted for their office. They were men of high
character and learning. In his appointments to
abbeys he did not always choose so well.
nasteries were the home of English national feeling.
The mo-
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
105
In them some of the noblest born of Englishmen
found refuge. In them the chronicles of the fallen
people were written and preserved. In them many of
the richer English had deposited their wealth. This
wealth, however, was not saved by the sacredness of
the places where it was laid up, for the king had it all
seized and confiscated it. William, in order to keep
the monks in subjection, and Lanfranc, from a wish
to bring them to a stricter life, joined in appointing
abbots who ruled their convents with severity. And
although the appointments of William were free
from the almost universal taint of simony, he put
men over the abbeys who were willing to find
him soldiers. Thus the abbot of Abingdon spent
the funds of his house in hiring mercenaries to
guard the king's new castle at Windsor.2 Thurstan,
abbot of Glastonbury, put his soldiers to a worse
use. He despised the Gregorian music which his
monks sang, and bade them learn the music of
William of Fécamp. They refused to make the
change, and one day, while they were in their chapter-
house, the abbot set his French archers at them. The
monks ran into the church, and there the archers shot
at them, killing some and wounding many more as
they tried to find shelter in the presbytery and even
round the altar. William was never indulgent to
lawlessness. He sent Thurstan back to Normandy in
disgrace, and punished the monks for their disobe-
dience. The Glastonbury outrage was, of course, an
extreme case, but Orderic mentions it as a type of a
class. 3
2 Orderic., iv., p. 523.
3 Abingdon Chron., ii., 3.
106
NORMAN BRITAIN.
2
William purposed to carry out his policy towards
the church by means of his archbishop, Lanfranc.
It was therefore necessary to give him full power.
One effect of the Danish occupation of the north had
been to raise the see of York to an independent
position. As William, in his civil policy, made Wessex
the seat of his government, so in ecclesiastical matters
he adopted the plan of Archbishop Theodore. Can-
terbury was made the head of the English church,
and, after a struggle, the archbishop of York was
compelled to profess obedience to his brother primate
as his metropolitan. In dealing with the marriage of
the clergy, one of the questions which was agitating
the Latin church, Lanfranc acted with characteristic
caution. As regards the question itself, we must be
careful not to judge it save in relation to the needs
and circumstances of the time. Putting aside all
consideration of the virtue of asceticism, it is evident
that the special need of the day was a church whose
priests should present a higher ideal of life than
that which was around them, and who should not be
entangled in the affairs of the world; while, at the
same time, the lack of education among women
made marriage a far lower connexion than it is now.4
The celibacy of the clergy was one of the most
important features of the spiritual revival of the time.
Lanfranc, perhaps from his Lombard birth, was not
inclined to be violent in this matter. The marriage
of the parochial clergy was condemned, but they
were not bidden to put away their wives. Canons
♦ Gardiner, Introduction to English Hist., p. 48.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
107
were bidden to do so, for they had bound themselves
to live by a certain rule; and, for the future, mar-
riage was forbidden to all alike. In the same spirit
Lanfranc gradually brought his monks at Canterbury
to live more in accord with their profession. The
Normans brought with them a strong admiration for
the monastic system. New monasteries were built
in England. Cluniac priories were founded at Lewes
by William of Warren, and at Wenlock by Roger
of Montgomery. The houses of this order were all
under some foreign foundation, and their revenues
were sent abroad to the mother church. Exemption
from episcopal visitation was granted by William to
the abbey which he raised on the place of Battle.
Many other houses obtained the same privilege.
These exemptions weakened the orderly discipline of
the church. For this reason Lanfranc, though strongly
attached to monasticism, did not favour these grants.
The monastic feeling of the archbishop is shown by the
establishment of canons regular in a hospital which he
built at Canterbury. This was the first introduction of
this order into England. From the same feeling some
bishops substituted monks for the secular canons of
their chapters. On the other hand, there were some
headed by Walkelin, bishop of Winchester, who wished
to fill the chapters with secular clergy. This movement
was defeated by Lanfranc, and the Norman Conquest
ended the long strife between the two parties by defi-
nitely giving the victory to the upholders of monasti-
cism. This result was in accord with the ideas of
Latin Christendom, and was a mark of the triumph
of Romance influence. In York, Archbishop Thomas,
108
NORMAN BRITAIN.
on the failure of the modified Lotharingian system,
assigned to each canon his separate endowment or
prebend, a system of which the remains still survive.
Another effect of Romance influence may be traced
in the removal of bishops' sees from small cities to
large ones. The English bishop was the spiritual
head of a tribe dwelling in a certain district. In
lands where the Roman power had connected
Christianity with the seat of government, the bishop
was the bishop of a city. Foreign prelates, therefore,
moved their sees from such places as Selsey and
Lichfield to the more important cities of Chichester
and Chester. 5
The newly-appointed bishops and abbots lived for
the most part as English churchmen, and were jealous
of the rights and property of the foundations over
which they presided. Large sums were spent in
pulling down their old churches, and rebuilding them
on the more magnificent scale, and in the Norman
style, which Edward had introduced in his church at
Westminster. Yet, in spite of the care with which
many of these foreign churchmen guarded the in-
terests of their churches, their rule must have been
distasteful to Englishmen, for even where they did
not rule with violence, they were as those whose own
the flocks are not. They lacked sympathy with those
under them. Lanfranc doubted whether he ought to
accept the archbishopric, because "he knew not the
speech of the barbarous tribes" over whom he was
called to rule. He despised the memories of the kings
5 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv., c. 19.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
109
and martyrs which were sacred to the men of our own
race, and would have denied the honours of a martyr
to his predecessor Ælfheah. From this error he was
saved by a visit from Anselm, the abbot of Bec,
himself destined to follow Ælfheah in his see and in
his saintship. Changes in ritual must have caused
wide-spread offence, of which the scene at Glaston-
bury was the most violent example, and the unjust
deposition of English prelates and abbots was a bad
introduction to the reforms of those who took their
places. The most important liturgical event of this
period was the compilation, by Osmund, bishop of
Salisbury, of the famous service books called after
his see, Ad usum Sarum. These books were soon
adopted throughout the greater part of the kingdom,
and introduced more uniformity in worship than had
before existed. Sermons were still preached in
English. It is probable that the acceptance by the
English church of the doctrine of transubstantiation
is to be referred to the primacy of Lanfranc. In
homilies and canons which were universally accepted
by our church, the abbot Ælfric had declared the
sacramental bread to be "not bodily the same body
in which Christ suffered, nor the holy wine the
healing blood," save "in ghostly meaning." Yet
neither in this matter nor in the scantiness of the
exercise of the papal power is England to be held a
Protestant land. Far off from Rome, our church
stood naturally somewhat apart from her, but men
did not dream of protesting against the one voice
which spoke with authority. The doctrine of tran-
substantiation propounded (though without the use of
I10
NORMAN BRITAIN.
the term itself) by Pascharius Radbert, about 845,
did not meet with immediate acceptance throughout
Christendom. Indeed, it can scarcely be said to
have been generally received as a necessary article
of faith until the middle of the eleventh century.
Then Berengar, a famous teacher of Tours, following
somewhat dully the daring speculations of Erigena,
rejected the extreme materialism of Radbert. He
had crowds of disciples in Gaul, and was able to
boast of the "infinite" number of his adherents.
Lanfranc, not perhaps without some jealousy of a
rival teacher, upheld the doctrine at Rome and
Vercelli. And at the second Lateran Council (1059),
Berengar was forced to recant his opinions. About
1080 Lanfranc embodied his arguments against
Berengar in a book entitled "On the Body and
Blood of the Lord." His success was a triumph both
for himself and for the cause which he made his
own. As archbishop, he employed Osbern of Can-
terbury to write a Life of Ælfheah, as an acknow-
ledgment of the wrong which he had done that
martyr. Osbern also wrote other Lives, and it is
obvious that he wrote them with the special intention
of upholding the doctrine of his patron. From the
way in which William of Malmesbury declares and
supports his belief in this doctrine, we may perhaps
gather that its general acceptance in England was a
new thing.7
6
Our national custom of exercising spiritual juris-
6 Osbern, Mir. S. Dunstani, in Memorials of St. Dunstan,
R.S., p. 136.
7 Gesta Regum, iii., 286.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
III
diction in the courts of the shire and the hundred
was wholly opposed to the spirit of the work of
Gregory VII. As William had "substituted for the
native bishops, unused to national law and cus-
tomary procedure, foreign bishops learned in the
Hildebrandine jurisprudence and the Roman pro-
cedure," so he ordered that bishops and arch-
deacons should no longer hold pleas in the sheriffs'
courts, but that all spiritual cases should be judged
in the bishops' court according to the canons and
episcopal laws, and promised the help of the lay
power to enforce ecclesiastical censures. The effects
of this separation were manifold. It established
spiritual courts in England, and prepared the way
for the introduction of the system of canonical juris-
prudence. Instead of the single archdeacon who was
"the bishop's eye" over his whole flock, each diocese.
was divided between different archdeacons exercising
their functions within territorial limits. Everywhere
were courts outside the common law, in which cases
were judged by a law of which the pope was the head
and fountain. The papal court became the natural
place of supreme appellate jurisdiction in matters
ecclesiastical. Everywhere clerical lawyers strove to
narrow the province of the common law, and to widen
the sphere of their own courts. Payments were
exacted instead of penance, and heavy fees were
levied and enforced. The whole clerical order stood
apart from the law of the land, and learned to regard
the pope rather than the crown as its sovereign.
s Public Stat. Lecture by Prof. Stubbs, 1882.
112
NORMAN BRITAIN.
While William lived his firm rule prevented these
effects; and it seems that some time elapsed before
the separation was fully effected. If there had always
been a king and an archbishop such as William and
Lanfranc were, each strong and wary, and both of
one mind as to their general policy, these effects
might never have arisen. William forgot that in
fostering the ecclesiastical power and in developing
a separate judicial system he was raising up a force
which might in after days become antagonistic to the
crown.
Although William and Lanfranc made many changes
in the church which were pleasing to the pope, they
were far from allowing an indefinite increase of the
papal power in England. The pope with whom they
had to deal was not one to forbear pressing his claims,
and William was bound to him by gratitude. Gregory
sent to him to request that Peter's pence might be
paid more regularly. He also demanded that the
king should do fealty to him. He may have deemed
that this was due to him in return for the help which
the Holy See had rendered William in his expedi-
tion. The king promised the one and refused the
other. Now, as at other times, he stood on the
legal rights and obligations of his English prede-
cessors. The money they had paid, and therefore he
would pay it; the fealty he would do neither then
nor at all, for he had never promised it, nor did
he find that those who had gone before him had
done this to those who had gone before Gregory."
9
Epp. Lanfr., ed. Giles, 10.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CHURCH.
113
With this answer the pope had to be contented, for
he could 'not afford to quarrel with William. Yet,
more than once, he wrote angrily to Lanfranc, be-
cause he did not obey his summons to Rome. He
warned him not to let the king keep him away, and, in
a letter to his legate, he declared that no king had so
tried the patience of the Holy See by keeping bishops
away from its synods.10 William, indeed, put strict
bounds to the exercise of the papal power in England.
He laid down that no pope should be recognized as
apostolic without his approval; that the archbishop
should not allow any matter to be debated in a synod
without his leave; and that none of his barons or
servants should be impleaded in a spiritual court or
excommunicated without his command. By these
rules he secured, while he lived, a restraining power
over the church, and "made all things, divine as
well as human, wait upon his will." 11
Taken as a whole, the policy of William and
Lanfranc gave the church rulers of high character,
bishops and abbots who were scholars and lawyers.
The changes which they made entailed much injustice
and hardship; yet the church herself did not suffer.
As she became separate from the nation she became
more ecclesiastical in spirit. Synodal action was
again resumed, and the new policy was carried out
in a series of church councils. Her discipline was
enforced in her own courts, and by spiritual laws.
No longer standing apart from the rest of Christendom,
she was drawn closer to Rome, and, equally with the
10 Regist. Greg., Jaffé, 366, 380.
11 Eadmer, Hist. Nov. ed Migne, i., 332.
I
114
NORMAN BRITAIN.
state, was brought under southern influence. The
English church thus became a member of the eccle-
siastical body of the West. She gained a more vigorous
life, and a fuller organization in her polity, her services,
and her ministers. At the same time William allowed
nothing to be outside or beyond his power. While
western Europe was convulsed with the question of
investitures, he made bishops and invested them with
the insignia of their office, as Eadward had done.
before him. Every change was made by his will,
and was part of his settled policy. While the church
seemed to find fresh development on every side, he
controlled all as he would. Yet the changes which
he and his archbishop wrought could not be worked
out in a lifetime, and much was left at their deaths
still in a state of change. Masterful as William was,
and clear as was his judgment, the system which he
reared depended far too much on his personal control.
It well nigh wholly perished when he and Lanfranc
were no longer alive to control its working.12
12 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. 9, sec. 102.
•
NORMAN BRITAIN.
115
CHAPTER IX.
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
DURING the reigns of the first two Norman kings the
constitution was in a state of fusion. Whatever the
Conquest introduced into England was necessarily
tinged with feudalism. Yet even the Normans pro-
bably had not been used to universal feudalism; for the
revolt of the peasants, in 997, shows the vitality of
their own ideas of government among the conquered
people. Strong as feudalism was in the higher
grades of society in Normandy, it does not seem to
have been fully developed in the lower.¹ A like result
followed the conquest of England. Here Frankish
feudalism was added to the national system. William
made this addition as a superstructure, and left the
lower machinery of administration and jurisdiction
almost wholly English. He stands before us in a
double character, as national king and as feudal
sovereign. Either character enabled him to be free
of the restraints which the other by itself would have
entailed.2 Determined to be no mere feudal sovereign,
he used the national force to uphold his crown,
national taxation to fill his coffers, and national courts
to do equal justice. At the same time he carried on
1 Palgrave, English Commonwealth, i., 549.
Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. ii., sec. 118.
I 2
116
NORMAN BRITAIN.
his government by means of a court and a council
which were largely feudal in character. The com-
pletion of the Domesday survey and the oath at
Salisbury are declarations of his policy. England
was saved from an abiding despotism chiefly by the
need which the early Norman kings had of her people
in their struggle with the baronage, and by the dis-
putes about the succession.
succession. For while William
naturally leaned to hereditary right, he wished to pass
over his eldest son. This design, together with the
means taken by Henry to secure the crown for his
children, kept up the elective character of the king-
ship. The goodwill of the people was conciliated,
and their institutions were preserved as the bulwark
of the crown against feudal aggression. Naturally
quick to adapt themselves to the institutions which
they found, the Normans readily took part in the
English system of administration, which was destined
before long to interpenetrate, and finally to overcome,
first the feudal and then the despotic elements with
which the Norman Conquest overlaid it.
The ministers of the crown were a small body of
men who held offices in the household. The com-
bination of the English court offices with those which
the Normans copied from the French kings, and the
union of the characters of court domestics and state
officials make this subject somewhat intricate. Chief
among these officers was the justiciary, who answers to
the Norman seneschal, though the seneschal's office
was also preserved in the steward. The justiciary was
the king's representative. His office during the reign of
the Conqueror was temporary, and was conferred for
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
117
the special occasion. Under William Rufus it became
permanent, and his unscrupulous minister, Ranulf
Flambard, seems to have fixed its duties and magni-
fied its importance.3 Next to him was the chancellor,
the head of the king's secretaries or clerks. The
system of royal writs, introduced by Cnut, gave this
officer, who first appears under Eadward the Con-
fessor, his chief employment. He was always an
ecclesiastic, and often a bishop. The other great
posts were held by the treasurer and chamberlain,
who were financial officers; by the steward, the con-
stable, who represented the old English staller, and by
the marshal. The court offices were gradually sepa-
rated from the offices of the administration, and, under
the influence of feudal ideas, became hereditary, while
payment was made for the grant of a ministerial
office. The court and administration of the Norman
kings were thus largely formed after the French model
with which they were familiar.
Although no change was formally made in the
character of the witenagemot, tenure rather than any
other qualification gave the right of attendance. Its
members were summoned as landholders rather
than as Magnates or Sapientes. The archbishop,
who was constitutionally the chief adviser of the
crown, and the other bishops, sat in the old
assembly in virtue of their office. William, by
making them barons, added tenure to their primitive
qualification. As regards the earls, a change may
be discerned in the policy of the Conqueror. At first
3 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. ii., sec. 120.
118
NORMAN BRITAIN.
he continued the system of granting large territorial
earldoms. These he made on the borders of his king-
dom. As in English times, these earldoms probably
carried with them considerable official power. He soon
left off this dangerous practice, and both he and his
sons were very sparing in their creation of earls.
Some of those who, like Alan of Britanny, are called
by this title were really foreign counts, and came
to the witenagemot in virtue of their large English
estates, and not as holders of English earldoms.
The earl still received the third penny of all profits
of jurisdiction in his county. With this exception,
however, the policy of the Norman kings stripped
the earls of their official character. They ceased to
have local jurisdiction or authority. Their dignity
was of a personal nature, and they must be regarded
rather as the foremost of the barons, and as their
peers, than as a distinct order in the state. William
was not so careful to restrict the power of the sheriffs,
and their office in some cases became hereditary.
Where an earldom was added to an hereditary
sheriffdom the local authority of the earl was in
virtue of his office as sheriff. An exception to the
general policy of William as to earldoms was made
in those governments which, in the next century, were
called palatine. These were founded in Cheshire, and
perhaps in Shropshire, against the Welsh, and in the
bishopric of Durham both to oppose the Scots, and to
restrain the turbulence of the northern people, who
slew Walcher, the first earl-bishop, for his ill govern-
✦ Third Report of the Lords on the Dignity of the
Peerage, pp. 120-170.
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
119
ment.
An earl palatine had royal jurisdiction within
his earldom. So it was said of Hugh, earl of Chester,
that he held his earldom in right of his sword, as
the king held all England in right of his crown. All
tenants-in-chief held of him; he had his own courts,
took the whole proceeds of jurisdiction, and appointed
his own sheriff. The statement that Bishop Odo had
palatine jurisdiction in Kent may be explained by the
functions which he exercised as justiciary.5
The baron answers to some extent to the king's
thegn. This title, which was a Norman importation,
was sometimes used to signify the whole body of the
tenants-in-chief of the crown and sometimes only
such as were said to hold "by barony." Although
it came to connote a tenure of a certain value, this
was not the case at first, and a baron sat in the assembly
rather by reason of the nature than of the extent or
value of his holding. Below the barons in the
assembly came the whole body of the smaller tenants-
in-chief, who were called knights. For knighthood has
a double meaning. In one sense it is descriptive of
a class of landholders, which answers to the English
thegnhood, for after a while, when military service was
introduced, the knight was a man whose land was
of a certain value and who owed certain military
service for it. In another sense knighthood de-
scribed an order of chivalry with an initiation
which was partly military and partly religious in
character. Some ceremony of admission into the
brotherhood of warriors was observed by the English
5 John of Salisbury, ed. Giles, i., Ep. 280.
I 20
NORMAN BRITAIN.
and by other Teutonic peoples. Ælfred, for in-
stance, is said to have armed his grandson Æthelstan,
an act which is recognized by William of Malmes-
bury as equivalent to knighting him. And in the
picturesque story of the youth of the Lombard
Alboin he is bidden to remember that, king's son as
he was, he might not sit at meat with his father until
he had received his arms from the king of another
nation.c The Romance ceremony, however, in
which the religious element was conspicuous, was
strange to England until, in 1086, the Conqueror
"dubbed his son Henry to rider" at Westminster.
Although all tenants of the king, together with
the great officers of state, owed attendance at the
witenagemot as the court of their lord, it is not to
be supposed that the great mass of them came to the
meeting, for "suit" equally with "service" was a
burthen rather than a privilege. Thus without
7
6 Will. of Malm., ii., 133; Pauli Diac Hist., i., 23, 24.
7 The great gemot at Salisbury in 1086 was an exception to
the general character of the witenagemot of Norman times.
With this meeting Dr. Stubbs (Cons. Hist., i. 358) couples
the council held at the same place in 1116 as examples of " "a
general muster of landowners of the kingdom." I must say,
with submission, that the cases appear to me to be wholly
different. The assembly of 1086 was of all whose land soever
they held.
The king's tenants came with those who held of
them,—“cum suis militibus," while, as regards the meeting held
for the purpose of swearing fealty to the ætheling William,
the attendance of the landholders generally rests on the witness
of William of Malmesbury, who says (G. R., v., 419) that
the oath was taken by all freemen of every lord both of Eng-
land and Normandy. If this statement needs refutation as
regards Normandy, see Ang.-Sax. Chron., 1115. As regards
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
121
formal change the national assembly assumed a feudal
character. In legislation and other matters its functions
were theoretically the same as before the Conquest,
though the change in its character tended to make
their exercise formal. Thrice each year, at Easter, at
Pentecost, and at Christmas, did the Norman king
"wear his king helm," and then were gathered to him,
"archbishops and bishops, abbots and earls, thegns
and knights." The king exercised his jurisdiction in
his permanent court, composed of the great officers
and other justices, and also from time to time in the
witenagemot, or general assembly of his counsellors
and tenants, in which the members of the permanent
court sat with the rest. In some cases of appeal, and
in some of peculiar importance, the justiciary, as the
king's vice-gerent, held a special court of barons. The
royal jurisdiction was also exercised in the shire courts
by commissioners sent down to try cases where great
interests were at stake. The composition and, in
most respects, the procedure of these courts remained
unchanged. The smaller courts, however, of the
hundred and the township had to no small extent lost
their popular character, owing to the growth of private
C
England the words of Florence, "Conventio optimatum et
baronum," &c., ii., 69; and of Eadmer, "Conventus epis-
coporum abbatum et principum," &c., Hist. Nov. 117 (com-
pare also Gervase, sub an. 1122), seem explicit. The statement
of William of Malmesbury is a rhetorical flourish, and, though
I may be imperfectly informed, the muster of 1116 does not
appear to me to have been different in character, though
probably it was different as regards number, from other meetings
of the witan.
8 (4
Ang. Sax. Chron.," 1087.
122
NORMAN BRITAIN.
jurisdictions which rapidly increased in number after
the Conquest. The criminal jurisdiction and police
arrangements of the hundred were exercised in the
court leet of the manor, and the meeting of the
township became the manorial court baron.
(6
The famous suit brought by Lanfranc against Odo,
bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, to recover the
lands and rights of his church, is an instance of the
way in which the royal jurisdiction was on special occa-
sions exercised in the local courts. In this case the
king bade that the whole shire, Frenchmen, and such
English especially as were skilled in the old laws and
customs, should be called. The gemot was held on
Penenden Heath by Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances,
who acted as justiciary. Among those who came
thither was Bishop Ethelric, who had been deprived
of his see of Chichester. He was a very aged man,
and very learned in the laws of the land. At the
king's bidding he was brought in a wagon to explain.
and expound the laws." And because many questions
had to be determined, the shire gemot lasted for three
days. In the end the rights of the church of Canter-
bury were vindicated by Frenchmen and Englishmen,
acting together in the old English court, though
under the presidency of a Norman justiciary, and in
the old English fashion, by which the men of the shire
were at once witnesses and judges of the right.
Another instance, which illustrates even more fully
the judicial procedure of this period, is afforded
by the suit of Gundulf, bishop of Rochester,
against Picot the sheriff, to recover an estate a
Fracenham, which the sheriff had treated as king's
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
123
land, and which Gundulf averred to belong to his
church. The case came before the king. William
ordered that the right should be decided by the shire-
moot, and sent down his brother Odo to preside as
justiciary. The men of the shire declared that the
land was the king's, for they were afraid of the sheriff
Picot. The justiciary deemed that they spoke falsely,
and bade them choose twelve men, who should
make their return on oath according to the Norman
method of procedure called inquest. They, too,
for fear of Picot, swore that it was king's land,
and the case seemed at an end. A certain
monk, however, named Grim, who knew the land
well, came to Odo, and told him that the thegns
had sworn falsely. Odo made one of them, who
seems to have been their foreman, confess his
deceit. He then had a new trial, calling the case
this time to London. He ordered the twelve thegns
to attend, and another set of twelve also. A special
court of barons was summoned by the justiciary.
With these assessors he tried the case again, and
on the evidence of the second twelve the land was
adjudged to the bishop. Then the first twelve thegns
were tried, apparently in the shire-moot, for complicity
in the perjury. The case against them was strong, and
the justiciary ordered them to prove their innocence
by the ordeal of iron. In this they failed, and the
men of the shire condemned them to pay a heavy
fine. Every stage of this case is full of instruction.
As a whole, it illustrates how the two jurisdictions
met and worked together in the early Norman days,
9
9 Regist. Roffen., ed. Thorpe, p. 27-32.
124
NORMAN BRITAIN.
though without any defined system. It shows how
William, unjust as he was in many great matters,
caused the law to be administered justly, and how he
did this by using the English courts of procedure.
It is a forcible comment on the enactment which he
is said to have made, that "men should have and
hold the law of King Eadward, with such additions as
he himself made for the good of the English." The
case was first tried in an English court. When there
was evidence of a miscarriage of justice, the venue
was changed, and it was heard before the king's great
tenants or barons. The inquest by oath of the twelve
men was a Norman innovation, which was destined
to become of great importance. In the criminal
case the Norman justiciary ordered the accused to
clear themselves by the English method, and when
their guilt was established, they were condemned
by the men of their own shire. Had they been
Frenchmen," they would have claimed the wager of
battle, but being Englishmen, they were not forced
to adopt this foreign custom, but were judged after
their own law. The case also shows how possible it
was that even a national court should decide un-
justly in those days of foreign domination. When
Rufus sat on his father's throne, this possibility
became a constant evil. It is said of his justiciary,
Ranulf Flambard, the minister of his injustice, that
he "drave all the gemots throughout all England,"
that is, that he used the national local courts as
instruments of extortion.
،،
To Flambard is also doubtless to be ascribed the
increase in the royal revenue from those burthen-
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
125
some incidents of feudalism, which were first brought
to a system in the days of his master. 10 The sources
of the Conqueror's revenue were much the same as
those of earlier kings, although the amount which they
yielded was far greater than before. But the feudal
tenure of land brought with it a new source of income
arising from reliefs paid by the heir on entering on
his inheritance, the profits on the wardships of minors,
of the marriages of heiresses, aids, and such like.
Under William II. these dues were made grievously
burthensome. This was especially the case with
reliefs. Payments of this nature were made to apply
to ecclesiastical estates, and the sums demanded from
a new incumbent savoured of simony. Speaking of
these exactions, the chronicler says of William Rufus,
"he would be the heir of all men, ordered and
lewd,”—cleric and layman. Flambard is also said, on
the authority of Orderic,¹¹ to have measured out the
land afresh, so as to increase its rateable value. Dif-
ferent explanations have been given of this statement.
It seems probable that the hide being, as we have
seen, a measure of rateable value, and some land
being divided into hides for the purpose of assess-
ment in an indulgent or beneficial manner, while
some was left unassessed, Flambard may have
designed to equalize the hidation for the benefit of
the crown. The forest courts, in which the law
depended wholly on the will of the king, must have
been a considerable source of profit to the crown;
for their jurisdiction extended over large and con-
10 Freeman, William Rufus, i. 335.
11 Ord. Vit., viii., 678.
126
NORMAN BRITAIN.
stantly increasing districts, which were consecrated to
the cruel sport of the Norman kings.
In the military force of the kingdom, the same
mixture of foreign and native elements may be
observed as in the rest of the administration. The
division of the land into knight's fees, and the system.
of knight-service, were perhaps, to no small extent, the
results of Flambard's work. For while Domesday
as we have already seen, contains no mention of any
new service, military tenure had certainly come in by
the beginning of the reign of Henry I. It grew, under
the hands of the Normans, out of the military obliga-
tion of the thegn. Besides, the special duty of the
thegns, and of the barons and knights who succeeded
them, the Norman king had, like his predecessors,
the whole body of the fyrd, the military strength
of the shires at his disposal. William did not limit
the obligation of this force to the defence of the land,
for he made every free man swear that he would serve
him against his foes within England and without.12
And good service did the Norman kings receive from
this native force at home and abroad. From time to
time also they hired mercenaries. Signs, however,
may be discerned in such arrangements, as in the
special duty of the monastery of Abingdon, to which
reference has been made, and in an agreement made
by Lanfranc with his tenants, that they should per-
form the service due from the estates of his see, that
the system of knight-service began early in Norman
times to develop from the obligation of thegnhood.
12 Select Charters, p. 80.
EARLY NORMAN ADMINISTRATION.
127
Thus, in every branch of the administration, the Con-
quest added the Frank element of feudalism to the
national English system. In the reigns of William I.
and his successor, the two met everywhere without
any ordered connexion. The work of Henry I. sup-
plied this connexion, and gave definitiveness to the
various machinery of administration.
128
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER X.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
It has seldom happened, even in times when the
power of the monarchy has been fenced round by
constitutional restraints, that the personal character
of the sovereign of England has been of small im-
portance. A history of the people which takes little
account of its sovereigns, puts in the background not
the least important actors in the drama of national
life. And when, as under the Norman dynasty, the
power of the crown is really unlimited, it is especially
necessary to mark what manner of men they were
who wore it. The characters of William the Con-
queror and of his two sons who succeeded him were
of the first importance to the people over whom they
ruled. Under each of these kings the condition of
the English people varied in accordance with his
character. In all these reigns they were heavily
taxed. Speaking generally, however, it may be said
that the taxation in the days of the Conqueror was,
as in earlier times, levied to meet special occasions
and in the old national manner, that under William
Rufus it was levied to meet the demands of the king's
prodigality, and the sum extorted was increased in an
arbitrary fashion and by new expedients, while under
Henry the taxation was legal, constant, and none the
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
129
less oppressive from its legality. So in the matter of
justice, while the Conqueror lived the Englishman
knew that he "must follow the king's will if he would
live, or have land or goods or even his peace," but at
the same time he found that, except where William's
own interests were concerned, his will was to do
right and justice. With his son Rufus the case was
different, for his will was to do evil, and to allow
others to do likewise; while under Henry the law
was enforced at the cost, it is true, of much suffering
and under the sanction of terrible penalties, but at the
same time to the incalculable gain of the nation. Nor
did the characters of these kings affect their own
times alone; each to some extent left his own per-
sonal impress on our history. The conservative ten-
dency of the Conquest, to which we owe the perma-
nence of our institutions and the continuity of our
history, was the direct fruit of the personal character
of the Conqueror. The greediness of Rufus, and the
lack of law which he encouraged, strengthened those
feudal ideas which for six hundred years powerfully
affected the social and economic condition of
England, and which have not yet entirely vanished.
To the character of Henry, and to his taste for
legal organization, are to be attributed the union
of the local with the central jurisdiction, the birth
of our system of judicature, and the outlines of
the more elaborate designs of his grandson. Nor is
it merely as the characters of these kings affected
their subjects, or left to some extent their mark on
later days, that they should be noted. Because they
were kings, we know more about them than about
K
130
NORMAN BRITAIN.
other men of their time, and allowing for differences
of rank and circumstances, we may learn from their
characters what kind of men they were of whom, after
the Conquest, the dominant class in England was
composed.
The circumstances of his youth made William the
Conqueror self-reliant and unhesitating. He was
wont to act on his own judgment, and to act with
decision. Save perhaps Lanfranc and for a little
while William Fitz-Osbern, the son of his murdered
guardian, there was no one with whom he took
counsel. His dealings with Rome prove how little
he regarded outward pressure. Just so much de-
ference as was due he would willingly pay to the
Holy See, and he showed his steady adherence to the
line of policy which he had marked out for himself
by deciding the amount of that deference by that
paid by his predecessors on the English throne. In
a wholly different case, when his troops were mu-
tinous as they set out on that terrible march from
York to Chester in 1070, he showed the same self-
reliant, unhesitating spirit. He did not condescend
to entreat them or to make them fresh promises. He
bade those divisions of his army that were faithful to
follow him, and cared not about the rest. It was this
steadfastness of heart that made him so great a king.
Immense difficulties stood in the way of the estab-
lishment of a firm monarchy of a national type. By
far the larger part of the army with which he con-
quered England was composed of volunteers. Even
the Normans were not bound to follow him, and
men of other lands came rather to fight for their own
.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
131
gains than to set him up as king. His mercenaries
alone were in the strictest sense his soldiers. All the
rest came, each expecting great things from his grati-
tude or from their own good fortune. And, just as he
united all the various elements of the invading host
into one army beneath his leadership, so, when he
had gained the crown, he brought conquerors and
conquered alike into one nation beneath his rule.
Once only, in 1075, did any of those men, who had,
as they thought, so strong a claim to be considered
rather the companions than the subjects of their king,
venture to rise against his stern sway, saying, in the
words which Orderic puts into their mouths, that
"he did not enough hold them in honour by whose
help he had been raised so high." The establish-
ment of a strong central government and the main-
tenance of national customs could never have been
brought about, save by one who was
very wise
and strong." In all things his word was law, so
that "no one durst do anything against his will."
As a proof of this, the chronicler,¹ in the life-like
description which he gives of him, mentions hist
conduct to his brother Odo of Bayeux. No one
held a higher place than he, either in England or
Normandy, for in both lands alike he acted as the
representative of William. Towards the end of
his brother's reign he began to act independently
of him. He hoped to succeed Gregory VII. in the
papacy, and used the vast wealth which he had
accumulated in England in bribes to the Roman
Anglo-Saxon Chron., 1087.
((
K 2
132
NORMAN BRITAIN.
citizens. He planned an expedition to Italy. Soldiers
came to him in great numbers, and he gained over
Hugh, the earl of Chester. William heard of his
intended expedition. He had no mind to be drawn
into any such matter. Hastening over from Nor-
mandy, William found the bishop in the Isle of Wight
ready to embark. In those days of Hildebrand, it
was no small thing to stretch forth a hand against
a bishop, one of the ministers of the Lord. Never-
theless the Conqueror had him seized, and when Odo
pleaded the sacredness of his office, either the king
or Lanfranc declared that it was not the bishop of
Bayeux but the earl of Kent who was seized, and so
he was put in prison, and there stayed until William
was near to death.
In spite of his despotic power, the Conqueror was
not without restraints. He had a distinct idea of what
he owed to God and man, and tried to do his duty
towards both, save when such effort would have inter-
fered with his interests or with the pleasures which he
loved. Constant in his attendance at Divine service,
a founder of religious houses, a reformer of church
discipline, "mild to good men who loved God,"
William did not set at nought the fear of God. He
was not like his successor-a mocker or a blasphemer
—but a man who now and then yielded himself up
to good influences. Among the Norman churchmen
who were invited to rule the Church of England, was
a certain monk, named Wimund, a man of learning,
and famous in the controversy with Berengar. To
him William offered some high ecclesiastical office.
Wimund answered the king before all his court. He
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
133
2
refused the offer. How could he rule over men
whose speech and manners he knew not, or become
a sharer in spoils which were taken by violence? The
king heard without offence his own condemnation. He
sent the monk away unharmed, and sought to do him
good in after days. Two stories which represent
Ealdred, archbishop of York, as laying a curse upon
the Conqueror, according to one account for the evil
deeds of the sheriff, William Malet, or, as the other
tale says, for his own extortion, and which relate the
repentance of the king, if they are not exactly true
in fact, at least show that men recognized the power
of religion over him. Unlike his nobles generally,
William never gave way to licentiousness. The only
trouble of his married life arose from the help which
Matilda sent to her son Robert, when he was in rebel-
lion against his father. The quarrels of his sons and
the ill-conduct of Robert seem to show that he gave little
heed to the training of his children. His work as king,
indeed, must have left him little time for such matters.
In the early part of his reign, it is evident that the
Conqueror tried to rule his people well.3 We are
told that he made a vigorous effort to learn English
that he might be able to understand for himself the
complaints of his subjects. He had, however, come
to an age when it is difficult to acquire a new
language, and the crowd of his other occupations
put an end to the attempt. In the fragments of
his legislation which have been preserved, the same
spirit is conspicuous. English and Normans were
2 Orderic, iv., 524.
3 Freeman, Norman Conquest, i., 322-326.
134
NORMAN BRITAIN.
to live together in peace, and the law of King Eadward
was to be maintained. One decree provides in an
especial way for the protection of his Norman followers.
If any one of them was found slain, and his murderer
could not be discovered, a fine was laid upon the
hundred. When the two races became united, this
fine or murdrum was levied in all cases of secret man-
slaying, except when the condition of the dead man
was proved to be one of villenage, by a process called
a presentment of Englishry.4 The law of William
was a natural attempt to protect the lives of his foreign
subjects who were dwelling in the midst of a hostile
population. The ringing of the curfew-bell was simply
a regulation combining religious duty with police
arrangements, which was observed in Normandy
before the Conquest, and was brought over by the
Normans to their new homes. A witness to the
exalted spirit of William's legislation is afforded by
the law which forbade the trade in slaves under
penalty of the forfeiture of all the goods of the
offender. This practice, which was the peculiar
disgrace of the English, was put down by the com-
mand of William and by the preaching of Bishop
Wulfstan, who attacked it in Bristol, the port whence
the slaves were shipped from Ireland. Delighting in
the discharge of his kingly duties, William was never
seen in better mood than at his great yearly courts.
Ambassadors of foreign countries wondered at the
splendour of the English king, and many went away
rejoicing over his liberal gifts.5
4 Dial, de Scacc., Select Charters, p. 193.
• Will. Malm., Gesta Regum, iii., 279.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
135
Although William I. was no vulgar tyrant, he often
cast aside those restraints which at other times he
observed. In the fierceness of his wrath, in the pur-
suit of his interests, and in the indulgence of his
selfishness, he did not let his duty towards God or
man stand in his way. The ravaging of the north,
its ruined churches and its desolate dwellings, bore
witness to the ruthlessness of his anger and his policy.
With a strong respect for human life, which was shown
by his forbidding the punishment of death, he had
no care for human suffering. The arbitrary power
with which he invested himself had an evil effect on
his character. As time went on, he grew sterner and
more selfish. In the rebellion of 1075, Waltheof, the
son of Siward, the hero of the fight at York, was impli-
cated, perhaps without fault of his. Whatever share
he had in the conspiracy, he had atoned for it by
his confession and repentance. Nevertheless he alone
was put to death. By this execution William broke
his own law, and was guilty of committing a judicial
murder for political reasons. The English earl was
held by his countrymen as a saint and a martyr, and
his death has been regarded by the chronicler and by
the historian of the reign of William 6 as a turning-
point in the king's history. From that time he had
many troubles. Abroad, his arms were no longer
victorious; at home, his foes were they of his own
household. His rule grew heavier, and the sorrows
of his people greater. His eldest son, Robert, de-
manded that Normandy should be given up to him.
Ord. Vit., 544; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv., 607,
136
NORMAN BRITAIN.
This was contrary to the policy of William, who would
not make any division of his territories while he lived.
Angry at his refusal, Robert sought help from the
French, and defeated and wounded his father at
Gerberoi.
In these later years of his reign, William laid waste
the wide tract of land which he turned into the New
Forest, to make himself a hunting-ground near his
royal city of Winchester. The love of hunting was a
dominant passion in him and in his sons, and they
took no heed of the sufferings which they brought on
others to gratify it. His greediness for this amuse-
ment made William forgetful of every better feeling.
No sense of religion kept him from destroying the
churches, no thought of his duty as a king from deso-
lating the homes of men for thirty miles and more.
He made strict laws to protect his sport, decreeing,
"that whoso slew hart or hind, man should blind
him, that none should touch the harts, and so with the
boars. So mightily did he love the high deer as
though he were their father. So, too, he set for the
hares that they must go free. His rich men bewailed
it, and the poor murmured at it, but he was so stark
he recked not of them all." The scene of his cruelty
was fatal to his house. There his son Richard, his
nephew Robert, and his son William Rufus, each
met his death.7 In these later years, too, his lust after
gain seems to have grown greater. Just where others
only were concerned, he had little care for justice
where his own interests were at stake, and his reeves
7 Will. Malm., iii., 455.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
137
in shire and town were ready instruments of oppres-
sion. Yet, in spite of all the wrongs and sorrows of
these years, the native chronicler dwells on
"the good
peace" which the stern king made throughout the
land. This was just what England needed after the lax
administration of the later days of her native monarchy.
Though heavy taxes grieved the people, and isolated
acts of oppression pressed heavily on one and another,
still men rejoiced that the lives of travellers, the
honour of women, and the goods of merchants were
safe beneath the strong rule of the Conqueror. Stern
as he was, William was not without the humour-
often, indeed, itself grim and terrible-which was
characteristic of his northern ancestors. None
might jest at his expense. At Alençon men
found what it was to insult his kingly dignity and
brave the fierceness of his mien. A coarse jest, in
which Philip of France compared his rival's heavy
person with that of a travailing woman, was answered
with bitter humour. In that voice which made those
who heard it tremble, William swore his own great
oath that "by the resurrection and splendour of
God" he would light an hundred thousand candles in
France when he went to his churching mass. Towards
the end of August, while the crops were yet in the
fields, the clusters on the vine and the apples on the
trees, William began to carry out his threat by wasting
the pleasant land. At last he came to Mantes. He
fired the town and burned churches and houses alike.
The king cheered on his men, for the smoke of a
burning town was sweet to the heir of Rolf. As he
cried to them, his horse stumbled, and William re-
138
NORMAN BRITAIN.
ceived an injury from which he died. While he lay
upon his death-bed, he spoke of those who should
succeed him. Normandy must needs go to Robert.
It was his by right of inheritance and by promise.
England he would not leave to any, for it had not
come to him by birth, only he would that his son
William might have it. He spoke words of pardon
and repentance before he died. When the news was
told in England how "sharp death" had taken him
who was "so worshipful and strong," "so stark and
cruel," one who knew him thus expressed the senti-
ment of the people, "Walaway! that any man should
have so high a mood, and lift himself up and count
himself above all men."
No form of election seems to have preceded the
coronation of William Rufus. His accession to the
throne was the work of Archbishop Lanfranc, acting
on the instructions of the Conqueror.8 Conscious of
the character of Rufus, who had been his pupil,
Lanfranc made him, in addition to the ordinary
coronation oath, give a special promise that he would
govern well, and would in all things be ruled by him.
For as he had knighted him, and had brought him
up, Lanfranc had a claim on his reverence, besides that
which the archbishop derived from his office and from
having been the chief minister of his father. Pro-
mises had little sanctity in the eyes of Rufus unless
they concerned some matter of military honour.
"Who is there that can do all he promises?" was his
wrathful answer to the archbishop when he reminded
Freeman, William Rufus, i., 10–22.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
139
the king of his own words. In 1089, the death of
Lanfranc freed him from a restraint which he regarded
with impatience. From this date his true character
showed itself.9 Unlike his father, William Rufus
put no check on his evil nature. Of no other can it
be more truly said that he feared not God, neither
regarded man. The hideous depravity of his life
reveals the depth to which man can sink when, owning
no law, he gives himself up to work all uncleanness
with greediness. The special form of his immorality
was perhaps an effect of the connexion of the
Normans with the people of the south and east of
Europe which arose from the conquest of Sicily.
Thence too, it may be, came that habit of speaking
evil of God and His saints, in which he constantly
indulged. When he recovered, for instance, from an
illness in which with the fear of death before him he
promised to live a better life, he swore that "God
should never find him a good man in return for the
ill He had done him." 10 And when certain men
accused of deer-stealing were acquitted by the ordeal,
he loudly impugned the justice of God's judgment.
For such offences men were, in his reign, con-
demned to death, for he set aside the law of his
father which forbade capital punishment. Although
he was not guilty of delighting in the bodily suf
ferings of others, he was utterly careless of the
welfare of his subjects. He rejoiced in hurting
men's feelings and in shocking their prejudices. He
9 This subject is treated in an exhaustive and interesting study
by Mr. Freeman, in his "William Rufus," i., 142–174.
10 Eadmer, Hist. Nov., i., 370.
140
NORMAN BRITAIN.
(C
took a bribe from the Jews of Rouen to make
some of their people who had become Christians
turn back to their old religion. In a spirit of
mockery he made the bishops in England hold a
set disputation with the Jews, and declared that if
they were worsted he would become a Jew himself.¹¹
William Rufus was a dutiful son to his father while
he lived, and ever held his memory in honour. His
filial admiration led him to try to imitate his father's
dignity, and his boastful insolence was a travesty of
his father's majesty. The mighty oath of the Con-
queror gave place to the adjuration, "By the holy
face of Lucca,” or the yet more senseless form By
this and by that." 12 He loved to boast of his power
and to talk of his kingly dignity; but there was, in
truth, nothing kingly in him. An assumed scowl and
a blustering tone were the means by which he sought
to make men feel the fear inspired by the fierceness
of his father's mien and his terrific voice. At the
same time, Rufus loved to jest with his companions,
and to make his own wickednesses the subject of
their laughter. Men bandied words with him as they
would not have dared to do with his father. They
even played tricks upon him. Thus one day it
chanced, as he was putting on some new boots, that
he asked his chamberlain how much they cost, and
when he said, "Three shillings," Rufus abused him, for
he held them to be too cheap for a king's use. The
man went and fetched a cheaper pair, telling him that
they cost more. Ay," said he, "these are fit for a
66
11 Will. Malm., iv., 317.
Eadmer, Hist. Nov., ii., p. 413.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
141
court.
king's majesty." Not so, we may be sure, did his
servants treat his father. The story is told by William
of Malmesbury to illustrate the king's wastefulness.
New fashions of effeminate luxury prevailed in his
Men went about with long hair and flowing
robes, and long, pointed shoes. Extravagance and
folly were encouraged by the example and by the
prodigal gifts of the king. His empty treasury was
supplied by the devices of his low-born minister
Ranulf Flambard, who oppressed all alike, caring for
no man's hatred if only he might please his master.
These extortions were the more galling because they
were committed under the guise of law, for every
court was made by the Justiciary the means of
pressing the claims of the crown.
Chief among the causes of the extravagance of Rufus
was his love of all that pertained to arms. From his
youth he excelled in all knightly exercises. A man-
at-arms was to him something different from the rest of
mankind. The word of such a one was more worthy
of belief than that of others, and to such a one he
held that a man should keep his word.
To speak
((
as a good soldier " was to give another the highest
assurance of truth. Some relation there was between
such ideas and the arbitrary and imperfect code of
chivalry. Yet, while chivalry exalted certain virtues to
the neglect of others, and regarded a certain part of
mankind as alone worthy of consideration, the system
was founded on the idea that this regard was paid to
the members of an order on the ground that they
were pledged to exercise the virtues which were thus
honoured. Rufus, on the other hand, exalted no
142
NORMAN BRITAIN.
virtue, and honoured men, not because they spoke
the truth, but because they belonged to a profession
which he loved. For this reason he held them to
be entitled to privileges which he would not extend
to others, and was careful to attach them to his
service. When Rufus rewarded and enlisted a
soldier who unhorsed him at St. Michael's Mount,
or when he refused to believe that the knights at
Ballon could break their word, he seems to exhibit
the spirit of Francesco Sforza when, in 1424, he
spared the lives of the captains whom his father
bade him put to death, rather than to resemble
Bayard, who, imperfect as were his ideas of right,
poured scorn with his dying breath on the greatest
captain of his age because he was "false to his
country, to his king, and to his oath.' Nor do
the ideas of Rufus seem to me to have much in
common with those of his ancestor, Richard the
Good; for the king made his privileged class of
soldiers, while an accident of birth was the sole re-
commendation for promotion at the court of the
duke.13
Rufus would have made no bad captain of
mercenaries, and these troops flocked to him in great
numbers. He paid them highly, and if sometimes his
treasury was empty, still their service was not un-
requited, for he let them do as they liked. The
licence extended to these men caused much suffer-
ing to his people. In other cases he was stern enough.
Death was a common penalty, until he found it more
"}
13 The whole question of the chivalry of Rufus is discussed by
Mr. Freeman (W. Rufus, i., 169-174; ii., 508). I venture
to differ to some extent from his conclusions.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
143
profitable to make men give him money than to hang
them.
No dependence could be placed on the word of
Rufus. Three times he promised that he would
govern well, and three times those who believed
him were deceived. The first of these promises he
made to Lanfranc. Again, in 1088, when the Nor-
mans rebelled against him, and he was driven to seek
the support of the English, "he promised them the
best laws that ever were before in this land; and
every unjust geld he forbade, and granted them their
woods and hunting, but it stood no while." The third
time he made such a promise was in 1093, when he
was sick, and this, too, he broke when he recovered
from his sickness. Great as the help was that he gained
from the English fyrd, on one notable occasion he
shamefully betrayed the loyalty of the people. In his
war with Robert, in 1094, he sent over from Normandy
to Flambard and bade him levy 20,000 Englishmen
to come over to him. The English then, as ever,
obeyed the call of their king. The host came to-
gether at Hastings, each man with ten shillings given
him by his shire for his expenses on the campaign.
Then Flambard came and took this money away and
dismissed the men. So the king gained £10,000
by this transaction, and used the money in buying off
the French king from his brother's side. Impetuous
at the beginning of all his undertakings, Rufus lacked
the steadfastness to carry them out to a distinct issue.
Unstable as water, he never made a great war or a
firm peace. In his attempt, in 1098, to bring Maine
again under the Norman power, he took Le Mans and
144
NORMAN BRITAIN.
then left the country unsubdued.
Before he finished
his work there, he began a war in the French Vexin,
and that also after a while ceased without any definite
ending. 14 The vague and spasmodic character of
his foreign relations make them of no real import-
ance. At last the life of foul depravity and the
reign of great undertakings and small achievements
came to an end; the tongue that boasted great things
was silenced; the time of military licence and adminis-
trative iniquity was cut short; the Red King was
slain in the place made desolate by his father's cruel
selfishness, and was carted away like one of those
high deer which the Conqueror loved so well.
Yet, in spite of all, it was better for England that
William should reign than his brother, Duke Robert.
It is true that Robert was not to be hated. He
was good-natured and kindly, a wise commander,
and a gallant soldier. Far more truly than Rufus
does he represent the spirit of chivalry which was
spreading over Europe, in his renown as a Crusader,
in his occasional acts of generosity, in his incapacity
for any other occupation than that of war, and in his
utter carelessness as to all other duties than such as
became a knight. It was just this carelessness which
would have made his reign fatal to England, and
would have delivered her over to anarchy. Rufus,
and Henry after him, kept the Norman barons in sub-
jection to the crown. While Robert held the duchy
the barons of Normandy had no master. Each did as
seemed good to him, while the duke wasted his sub-
14 Freeman, William Rufus, ii. 210–256.
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
145
stance in riotous living. Because they wished to
make England such as Normandy was, they upheld
the claim of Robert, first against William and then
against Henry. And if it was better that William
should reign than Robert, much better still was it
for England when Henry succeeded to the throne.
The election of Henry was not determined without
debate. As the only one of the Conqueror's sons
born in England, and the son of a king, his claim
was such as was peculiarly in accordance with
English ideas, and his subsequent marriage with
Eadgyth, or Matilda, as she was called after her
marriage, "of the right kingly kin of England,"
made the people look on him as their own.
It was
at once evident that a better state of things had
begun. For the first time the coronation of a new
sovereign was accompanied by a charter of liberties.
The law of King Eadward was restored; all evil cus-
toms were to be taken away, and a pledge of this re-
moval was given in the imprisonment of Bishop Ranulf.
The court was purged of the abominable vices of Rufus.
Although Henry himself was a licentious man, and
had many illegitimate children by different mistresses,
his accession was, nevertheless, held to have brought
with it a great moral reformation. He was learned,
and though his learning had been acquired without
continuous study, he retained his literary tastes and
accomplishments in spite of the wars and business
of his after life. Diligent in the discharge of his
kingly functions, he was far more of a ruler than a
knight. His speech was dignified and quiet, a notable
contrast to the stammering and loud tones of Rufus.
L
146
NORMAN BRITAIN.
When much moved, and, as it seems, not upon slight
occasions, he swore, "By the death of our Lord,"-
a form which, though not so tremendous as the oath
of his father, was far removed from his brother's
senseless expressions. He was bountiful in his gifts to
ecclesiastical bodies; he treated religion with respect,
and seems to have been open to its influences. While
he jested freely, it was at fitting times. He was
steadfast in his undertakings, a faithful friend, and
an unforgiving foe. He knew English thoroughly,
and this knowledge must have helped him in gaining
the support of the people, and in uniting the nation
together in alliance with himself against the barons
who were their common enemies. His work in
organizing the administration must be reserved for
another chapter.
Without the hasty nature of Rufus, Henry seems
to have been more deliberately cruel. One hideous
story of his allowing the eyes of two of his grand-
children to be torn out-a form of brutality not un-
common among the Normans-shows a nature which
was the more repulsive from its calmness. The
punishments he inflicted were terribly severe, though
in his later days he allowed men to escape mutilation
by the payment of heavy fines. His very severity
brought good to the country. Military licence was
at an end. Thieves were hanged wholesale-at one
time forty together. Strict regulations were made as
to the payment of a fixed price by the king's officers
for all that they might require. Coiners were muti-
lated, means were taken for detecting debased coin,
and a standard measure was established.
"Good
THE CONQUEROR AND HIS SONS.
147
peace" again reigned in the land; and it was this
boon which made the chronicler declare, "Good
man he was, and mickle awe was of him. None
durst misdo to other in his reign." Nevertheless, it
was a time of great distress. The king greatly loved
hunting. He made new forests, and carried out the
laws of his father against dogs and men with un-
merciful strictness. From this reign of law and
organization may be dated the establishment of the
forest laws as a system. Yet the selfish regulation
which kept all the rights of the chase throughout the
whole land for the king's sole use, and the regular
administration of forest law perhaps brought less
evil than if the lord of each manor had preserved
game for himself; for the chronicler says, "Peace
he made for men and deer,” as though in both cases
alike he had done well.15 Indeed, in whatever way it
came, the dominance of the crown over the baronage
brought good to the people. Heavy taxes levied
alike when the seasons were bad and good pressed
upon the nation. Bitter are the complaints and
sorrows recorded of that time. Pestilence and flood
and famine wasted the land, and whatever woe each
year brought with it, still it was sure to bring its
heavy tax. Yet, in spite of all, men did not fail to
see that the strong government of Henry gave them
the blessings of law and order.
15 Freeman, Norman Conquest, v., 164..
L 2
148
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
WHILE the despotism of the Norman kings brought
much suffering on England, it saved her from anarchy.
During the later years of the native monarchy the
state was weakened by disunion. Every circumstance,
for instance, of the Northumbrian revolt in 1065
shows that the crown and the witan alike had become
utterly weak. A mere confirmation of the acts of the
rebels was all that was possible for the central power.
National life had almost perished. Its forms remained
to be made the instruments of the ambition of a
few over-powerful subjects. Yet it was much that
these forms were still respected, and that the rule of
law, though weakened, was still acknowledged. Mis-
chievous as these disruptive tendencies were, the
Conquest threatened England with the worse evil of
anarchy. The Normans were in a far less advanced
state of political education than the English. Private
war was common among them, and acts of lawless
barbarity went unpunished. The duchy was distracted,
not by the ambitious schemes of a few great men,
but by the violence and greed of every 'petty noble.
As far as his own authority was concerned, William
compelled submission. In undertaking the conquest
of England, it seemed as though he was about to
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
149
undo the work which had cost him so much, for he was
undertaking a task in which he had to depend on the
good will of the barons. They set out to conquer
rather for themselves than for him. It must have
seemed unlikely that William would be able to rule
over them with a strong hand when compassed with
enemies, and when every castle and every baron would
have a separate importance. An armed occupation
by many small garrisons promised infinite opportuni-
ties for self-aggrandizement. Had the anarchy of the
time of Stephen followed close on the battle of Senlac,
it would have been fatal to the future of our country.
England was preserved from this by the policy and
firmness of the first three Norman kings. When the
time of anarchy came, the framework of the adminis-
tration and the traditions of order were too well
established to be swept away by the storm of un-law,
and in a short time Henry of Anjou was able to take
up the working out of the constitution at the point at
which his grandfather left it.
The barons found that their duke, in assuming the
crown of England, had become king of a fully-
organized state. The national force was at his dis-
posal, and the machinery of government was com-
plete. The policy of the Conqueror made the title
to all land depend on his grant, and bound every
landowner to himself by a tie of allegiance. In
conquering England, the Norman nobles placed the
yoke of order upon their own necks. They did not
yield to it without a struggle. The victory of the
crown was not complete until the power of the greater
nobles was crushed by forfeiture, banishment, and
150
NORMAN BRITAIN.
imprisonment, and new men had been raised up to
take their place. The victory was won by the loyalty
of the English to their new kings. In each crisis of
the struggle the crown was upheld by the conquered
people. Stern as the rule of the king might be, the
English knew that it was better for them than the
licence of countless petty lords. The alliance between
the people and the crown, the need which the kings
had of the support of the nation, and the ready help
which they received from it, were the means of laying
afresh the foundations of our national liberties. The
struggle assumed slightly different aspects at different
times. At no stage of it did the barons contend for
any principle. It was throughout its whole course a
mere endeavour to gain greater licence at the cost
of the crown and of orderly government.
The struggle began in 1074 with the conspiracy of
Ralph of Wader, earl of Norfolk, and Roger, earl of
Hereford, son of William FitzOsbern. Orderic re-
presents these earls as speaking bitterly of the king-
ship of William.1 They dwelt on the disgrace of his
birth and on the way in which he had struck down
noble counts, and, indeed, the lawful heirs of the
kingdom. They complained that he paid too little
court to the men who had won him his new dignity,
and that their share in the conquered land was small
and mean. Given over, as they said the English
were to tillage and to feasts and drinking bouts rather
than to arms, they yet longed to avenge the slaughter
of their kin. They invited Earl Waltheof to join
1 Ord. Vit., 534.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
151
them. The land should be divided between them;
one of them should be king and the other two should
be dukes. Although the words are those of the his-
torian rather than of the conspirators, they tell us the
feelings of the class to which the earls belonged. The
kingship of the Conqueror was hateful to them, for it
was the means of restraining their excesses. They
felt that he was, indeed, so stern that none could
withstand him. They longed for greater licence and
for larger spoils. As long as the kingdom was united
under the crown they knew that these were beyond
their reach. As regards the English they were mis-
taken. Waltheof was perhaps for the moment dazzled
by their proposals. If so, he soon saw his error and
did his best to atone for it, though he alone was put
to death for the conspiracy. The English, as a body,
knew that the tyranny of such men as Ralph and
Roger would be worse than the rule of William. The
fyrd, or militia, of Worcestershire, led partly by the
holy Bishop Wulfstan, defeated the earl of Hereford,
and the English must have rejoiced in overthrowing
the son of their old oppressor. A large force of
both French and English marched against Earl
Ralph. Although he was an Englishman by his
father's side, he identified himself with the Bretons,
his mother's people. His revolt was, to some extent,
a rising of the Bretons in England against the Nor-
mans, and a manifestation of the hatred of the two
races for each other. Earl Ralph fled to Britanny.
His bride, Emma, the sister of his fellow-con-
2 Spurcitia Britonum, Lanfr., Epp. 38.
152
NORMAN BRITAIN.
spirator, Roger, at whose bridal-feast the revolt was
planned, held Norwich for three months against the
royal army.
She afterwards joined her husband.
Both lived to take part in the Crusade, and died on
their pilgrimage. Roger was kept in prison all the
rest of his life, and the English estates of both the
earls were forfeited.
A fresh attempt against the Crown was made in
1078, when Robert demanded to be put in possession
of the duchy of Normandy. He was upheld by some
of the younger members of the baronial houses.
Among them were Robert of Mowbray, a proud man,
of a gloomy and silent temper, the nephew and heir
of William's justiciary, Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances,
William of Breteuil, the brother of Roger of Here-
ford, and, above all, Robert of Belesme, the son of
Roger of Montgomery. No small part of the history
of the Norman nobility is concerned with this Robert
and his house. The castle of Montgomery, which
has given its name to the town which Roger built,
and to the land which he conquered,³ stood on a hill
on the little river Vie. In the early days of William,
one of this family slew Osbern, the guardian of the
young duke. Roger, the nephew of the murderer,
became William's faithful friend and counsellor. Like
many other Norman nobles, he was descended from
the family of Gunnor, the wife of Richard the Fear-
less. He married Mabel, daughter of that William
Talvas, lord of Belesme, Seez, and Alençon, who cursed
the infant son of Herleva. The house of Belesme
3 Freeman, Norman Conquest, ii., 196.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
153
4
was conspicuous for its wickedness, and William
Talvas was more wicked than all. He had his first
wife slain because she was too pious for him. When
he married again, he mutilated and put out the eyes
of one of his wedding-guests who belonged to the
house of Geroy, his enemies. His daughter, Mabel,
inherited his evil nature. She was, we are told,5 a
little talkative woman, full of life, clever, quick to do
evil, and exceedingly cruel and daring. She brought
to the house of Montgomery vast estates lying
on the borders between Normandy and Maine.
Roger became as great in England as he was in
Normandy and France. At Senlac he led the French
who formed the right wing of the army, and he was
promptly rewarded by the grant of Chichester and
Arundel. Somewhat later he received the earldom
of Shrewsbury and the county of Shropshire, which
he held with much the same power as the earl of
Chester had in his earldom. His son Robert now
upheld the king's son in his rebellion. The war
of Gerberoi had little direct influence on England,
though it may be noted that from that time the
barons began to look for aid from France against
their king and duke. The fathers of the rebel lords
made their sons' peace with William. Soon after this
the Countess Mabel was slain unawares by the lord
of Jaugy, whom she had despoiled of his inheritance.
Her estates descended to her son Robert. His father,
Roger, remained in England, and, with the other
great border lords, made constant war against the
Will., Gem., vii., 10.
Will., Gem, vii. 16.
154
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Welsh. Roger married again, and the influence of his
second wife seems to have been good, for, like many
other Norman nobles, he became a liberal patron of
holy men. On Robert descended the wickedness
of his mother and her house. He is said to have
torn out the eyes of a little child, his godson, because
the father of the boy offended him.
The posses-
sions of his mother made him very powerful, and he
ruled in his border land almost as a sovereign. The
Conqueror restrained such lords as Robert by putting
garrisons into their castles. When his son Robert
succeeded him as duke, the lord of Belesme and
others expelled these soldiers.
Although the influence of Lanfranc secured England
for Rufus as his father wished, while his elder brother
took Normandy as the hereditary possession of his
house, it was not long before the barons took up the
claim of Robert to the throne. It was inconvenient,
they said, to hold lands under two lords, and of the
two they preferred Robert, because they would be
able to do as they pleased if he were king. The
movement was headed by Bishop Odo. It was
joined by nearly all the great men of the kingdom,
by the bishop of Coutances and his nephew Robert
of Mowbray, who had succeeded him as earl of
Northumberland, by Robert of Mortain, by Roger of
Montgomery, and by Hugh of Grantmesnil. Even
William, bishop of Durham, the trusted minister of
Rufus, was unfaithful to him. The throne was upheld
by the loyalty of the English. William won over the
earl of Shrewsbury, and the rebels of the Welsh
border were turned back from Worcester by a defence
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
155
in which the English bishop Wulfstan again took a
leading part. Bishop Geoffrey and his nephew were
checked in the west by the men of Ilchester. Kent,
where Odo the earl-bishop had his strong castles, was
the scene of the decisive struggle. Rufus called the
English to his help. We have already seen what he
promised them, and how ill he kept his word. At
his call thirty thousand Englishmen "betook them to
the help of their king and lord." The castles of
Tonbridge and Pevensey were taken. Rochester made
a stout resistance, for Odo, Robert of Belesme and
his two brothers with many other Norman nobles
were within its walls. Rufus made a second appeal
to his people, French and English. Every man who
came not to his help was to be declared Nithing—the
vilest name in English speech. Men flocked to the
host in large bands from shire and town. At last the
castle yielded. As the gates were opened the royal
trumpets sounded in joyous triumph, and the oppres-
sors of the land came forth with shame of face.
When the English saw Odo their hatred burst forth
in cries of "Halters! Bring halters to hang up the
traitor bishop and his friends!" and they called on the
king not to spare them. Rufus let them go; for he
could scarcely punish members of so many great
houses. His throne was saved by English loyalty,
and, though his promises "stood no while," it was
much that the Crown should have felt its need of the
people, and should have acknowledged the people's
rights. The nobles were humbled. Another great
6 Page 143.
156
NORMAN BRITAIN.
earldom came to an end. As the earldoms of Norfolk
and Hereford were not renewed after 1075, so now
the earldom of Kent was taken from Odo and
no other earl was appointed. The condition of
Normandy under Robert shows that the triumph of
Rufus was good for England. Robert of Belesme
went back to Normandy. There the duke seized
him, put him in prison and took his castles. His
father persuaded the duke to release him, he regained
his power and became the centre of all the distur-
bances in the duchy. The south east was torn by
the feuds of two famous ladies, the one the wife of
Ralph of Toesny, lord of Conches, son of the adven-
turer in Spain, the other the wife of William of
Evreux. In the centre of the land Robert of Belesme
pressed hard on Hugh of Grantmesnil and his other
neighbours. And when no private war was on foot,
the parties of Rufus, of the duke, and of their brother
Henry fought with each other. The wealth which
the great nobles won by their wars made them strong
to do evil and greedy after fresh spoil, so that it was
said that the riches which Normandy had seized
turned to her destruction and became a torment
instead of a delight.7 Fresh riches, and with them
fresh power to do mischief, came to Robert of Belesme
by the death of his father in 1094. As the custom
was, the English earldom of Roger went to his second
son Hugh and his Norman territories to Robert the
eldest.
Although the barons remained quiet for some time
7 Ord. Vit., 691.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
157
after the insurrection of 1088, the rule of Rufus was
highly distasteful to them. The men to whom he
showed most favour did not belong to their order,
they were the mercenaries whom he hired with the
money wrung from his people. Heavy as the forest
law was under his father, he made it yet heavier.
Death instead of blinding was made the punishment
of its breach. And, though it cannot be supposed that
one of the barons would have been put to death for
such a cause, yet the law was made grievous to them.
It is evident from the charter of Henry that the reliefs
demanded by Rufus from heirs when they entered
on their lands were not assessed on any fixed scale.
He simply made his tenants pay as much as he could
get from them. He set aside their wills; he made
the marriage of their heiresses and widows matters of
bargain, and he did as he pleased with the estates of
their heirs while they were under age. If one of his
tenants broke the law, he fixed the fine at any amount
he chose, and, when a man was only accused of a
crime, he demanded unreasonable bail. The law
was made the means of oppressing all men, barons
and villeins alike; and, however justly administered,
all law was hateful to the nobles if it restrained them
from violence. An attempt to enforce a just penalty
was the occasion of the outbreak of another rebellion.
Robert of Mowbray, the earl of Northumberland,
plundered some Norwegian merchants. He refused
to obey the summons to the king's court, and shut
himself in his castle of Bamburgh. This outbreak
was connected with a wide-spread conspiracy to
dethrone Rufus and to set aside his brother, in
158
NORMAN BRITAIN.
favour of Stephen of Aumale, a grandson of duke
Robert and Herleva. The insurrection was crushed
by the taking of Bamburgh. Matilda the wife of
Earl Robert defended the castle, and surrendered it
only on the king's threat that if she held out longer
he would put out the eyes of her husband whom he
had taken by a stratagem. Rufus was now able to
take heavy vengeance on the rebels. Robert of
Mowbray was kept in prison all the rest of his life
and his great earldom was forfeited. Hugh of Mont-
gomery, the new earl of Shrewsbury, was heavily fined.
William of Eu was appealed of treason, was van-
quished in the combat, and suffered mutilation; his
cousin and steward William of Alderi was hanged.
Quickly as this insurrection was put down, the
triumph of the Crown was in some ways more impor-
tant than that gained in 1088. The extinction of an
earldom was a greater gain when it was held by a
layman than when the possessor was a churchman
who could have had no heirs of his body. And the
decision with which Rufus punished the rebels of
1095 was the beginning of a series of blows which
finally destroyed the power of the baronage of the
Conquest.
The house of Montgomery had yet to grow stronger
before its fall. Hugh, the earl of Shrewsbury, and
the other Hugh, the earl of Chester, carried on a fierce
and unceasing border-war against the Welsh. A new
enemy suddenly threatened them. Magnus Barefoot,
king of Norway, turned sea-rover. Once more, in
1098, a viking's fleet appeared in our seas. Magnus
overthrew the jarls of the Orkneys and of the western
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
159
isles. He made Man his headquarters, and thence
sailed towards Anglesey. The two earls drew up
their forces to prevent the Northmen from landing.
As Hugh of Shrewsbury rode along the shore the
Norwegian king marked him from his ship. He
drew his bow and shot. The arrow pierced the eye
of the earl. He fell into the sea and so perished.
The death of Hugh made Robert earl of Shrewsbury.
He could not, however, enter on his earldom until
he had paid the king £3,000 as a relief, the sum
in which his brother had been fined less than two
years before.
No greater lord was there among
the Normans than Robert of Belesme. He had
vast estates, some inherited and some seized from
others in Normandy and Maine. He gained the
county of Ponthieu by marriage. He succeeded to
all that his father and brother had received in
England and won in Wales. And before long the king
granted him large estates in Yorkshire also. Robert,
like his mother, was clever as well as wicked. He
completed the fortification of the line of the Severn
by building a strong castle at Bridgenorth. Very
terrible must have been the lot of the tenants of the
cruel earl, for he grew greedier as he grew richer and
seized even on the lands which those who were before
him had granted to the church of God. And very
terrible must have been the lot of his foes the Welsh,
for greedy as he was, he would refuse to allow his
prisoners to be ransomed that he might have the joy
of seeing them die in the slow agonies of cold and
hunger.
8
-
Freeman, Will. Rufus, ii., 151–164.
тбо
NORMAN BRITAIN.
In striking contrast to the turbulence of the house
of Montgomery, the family of Roger of Beaumont
was distinguished for wisdom. The two families were
related to each other, for Thurold of Pont Audemer,
the grandfather of Roger, married the sister of
Gunnor, whose daughter was the mother of Roger
of Montgomery. In the early days of William, Roger
of Beaumont did good service to the cause of order,
for he defeated and slew Ralph of Toesny, who was
ravaging the lands of his father. The town of Roger,
called after him Beaumont-le-Roger, stands on the
Rille, and some ruins of his castle yet remain. Roger
gained by marriage the county of Meulan, in the
French Vexin, and thus became a French as well as
a Norman noble. He was ever a true and faithful
counsellor to the duke. When William invaded
England he was left to help Matilda in the government
of the duchy. He refused to take any share in the
spoils of England, saying that he loved the inheritance
of his fathers, and coveted not distant lands which
were not his by right. He died in the monastery
of Preaux, of which his father was the founder, and
of which he was himself a bountiful patron. His
two sons, Robert and Henry, were the foremost men
in England. Both stood high in the favour of their
kings. They married noble ladies and lived in honour.
Robert, who did good service at Senlac, received
large estates in Warwickshire. He was an ambitious,
shrewd, and subtle man. Wise and eloquent in de-
bate, his advice was received, we are told, as an
oracle of God.9 In the councils of Rufus he appears
9 Will. Malms., G. R., v., 407.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
161.
as the head and spokesman of the baronage of the
kingdom. Though he had as yet no English earldom,
he took his place in the council as an earl, for as
count of Meulan he had a corresponding dignity.
Holding lands in England, France, and Normandy,
he was the constant advocate of peace. When, in
1097, during the short war between Rufus and Philip
of France, he was forced to choose between
his two lords, he took the side of the English king,
and the position of Meulan made his goodwill
of considerable importance. 10 His brother Henry, a
man of less ambitious spirit, was made earl of
Warwick.
On the death of William Rufus, the accession of
Henry was secured by the influence of the earl of
Warwick, and he and his brother, the count of
Meulan, became the chief counsellors of the new king.
The right of Henry was joyfully acknowledged by
the English people. His charter promised them good
government, and by the advice of the count of Meulan
he courted their favour. The count did not give this.
counsel from any love to the people. No less than
the more violent men of his order, he disliked and
despised the English. He knew, however, that his
master would soon need their support. The nobles
by no means shared the feelings with which the people
received the king, for they knew that he was wise and
strong, and that they had cause to fear him. It may
be that his refusal to give up any part of his forest
rights helped to irritate them. The claim of Robert.
was again made the occasion of a struggle against the
10 Freeman, Will. Rufus, ii., 182.
M
162
NORMAN BRITAIN.
firm rule of the Crown. His invasion of England in
IIOI was bloodless, and a peace was made which
recognized the right of Henry to his kingdom and of
Robert to his duchy. Many of the nobles, however,
were either openly or in secret concerned in rebellion
against the king. Their breach of allegiance was
repaid by a settled policy of repression. Chief among
the rebels was Robert of Belesme. On his refusal
to answer the charges brought against him, the king
made war upon him. His castles of Arundel and
Tickhill soon fell, but it was no easy matter to reduce
the fortifications of the Severn. The earl made
alliance with Welsh and Irish princes, and his cap-
tains stoutly defended Bridgenorth, which was the
key to his position. Many great lords in the king's
army urged Henry to make terms with the rebel, for
they knew that his cause was their own. The mass
of the army, however, which was of course largely com-
posed of English, knew likewise that their cause and
the king's were the same, and called on him to press
the siege. At last Bridgenorth fell, and the earl was
forced to surrender at Shrewsbury. He was banished,
and his English lands were forfeited. And thus another
great earldom came to an end. The English were
glad at his departing. We read, in a version it may
be of some popular song, how they cried, "Rejoice,
King Henry, and give thanks to the Lord God; for
thou wast first a free king on the day that thou didst
conquer Robert of Belesme and dravest him from
the borders of thy kingdom."
"11
Robert went to his
11 Ord. Vit., 808.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
163
Norman lands, and there stirred up strife between
the king and the duke. At last, in 1112, Henry
caught him and shut him up in prison so closely that
no man knew the day of his death.
The overthrow of Robert of Belesme, in 1102,
secured the humiliation of the baronage. Henry
followed up the blow by pronouncing sentence of
forfeiture and banishment on Robert of Mortain.
He went on with the work which Rufus had begun.
Without taking any sweeping measures, he gradually
ruined the great nobles. After the fall of the earl of
Shrewsbury, they gave up the struggle in England, and
tried to weaken the king by conspiracies against him on
the Continent. They were not, however, out of his reach
even there, for in 1106 Henry conquered Normandy,
and thus became the lord of their lands on both sides
of the sea. In the wars in which Fulk of Anjou and
Philip of France upheld the cause of William, the son
of Robert, the nobles often took part against Henry.
He turned this to the advantage of England, for
he punished rebellion in Normandy by the forfeiture
of the English estates of the rebels. In this way
"the battle of English liberty was fought out in Nor-
mandy."12 Meanwhile, strong in the support of the
clergy and the people, Henry raised up a new nobility
round his throne. In the work of administration he
employed men who belonged to a lower rank, and
ennobled and enriched them in return for their ser-
vices. In the eyes of the men of the older houses
it was as though he had raised up men from the dust
12 Stubbs, Cons. Hist., i., c. 10, 309.
M 2
164
NORMAN BRITAIN.
and set them above earls. By these men, such as
the Clintons and the Bassets, Henry completed the
discomfiture of the great barons of the Conquest.
Although the crusades had little direct influence on
England, the first of these expeditions did something
towards the humiliation of the nobles. While
Normandy was in the hands of Rufus, as a pledge for
the money which he granted Robert for his undertaking,
a party grew up in the duchy which favoured the hopes
of the English king, for his strong rule was no small bles-
sing. Robert came back from the crusade less able, and
if possible less willing, than ever to give Normandy the
government which it needed. Impoverished and dis-
sipated, he had no power to resist Henry. Normandy
was conquered, and its conquest brought with it the
victory of the Crown over the nobles of England. The
crusade also took away some restless spirits, and
probably weakened some powerful families. Although
these effects are not very marked, one instance of
them may be noted. Ivo of Grantmesnil, who suc-
ceeded to the sheriffdom of Leicestershire, and the
wide English estates of his father Hugh, came back
from the East with dishonour, for he was one of those
who deserted the cause of the Cross at the siege of
Antioch. On his return he dared to make war on his
neigbours in England-a crime which Orderic notes as
contrary to the custom of the kingdom, though it was
common enough in Normandy.18 Henry condemned
him to pay a large fine. Despised for his ill-conduct
abroad and in difficulties at home, he pledged his lands
13 Ord. Vit., 805.
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
165
to Robert of Meulan and again went to the crusade.
Ivo died abroad, and the crafty Robert cheated his
heir. He got possession of Leicester, and was made
earl of the shire and town. He left three sons.
The two elder, Robert and Waleran, were brought
up by Henry as though they were his own sons.
They inherited their father's talents, and were early
famous in debate. While Henry lived, Robert, earl
of Leicester, served him faithfully. During the anarchy
of Stephen's days he seems to have fought rather for
himself than either for the empress or the king. His
brother, Waleran, count of Meulan, took part in a
rebellion against Henry in 1128, and was imprisoned.
He became one of the chief advisers of Stephen and
was betrothed to his daughter. The male line of the
earls of Leicester died out in 1204. The marriage of
Amicia, the sister of the fourth earl, brought the title to
the house of Montfort. Her grandson was Simon, earl
of Leicester, who died in the cause of England's
liberties. The baronage of England had become
English before that time. As the reunion of Nor-
mandy to the crown of England was an era in the
humiliation of the old nobility, so the loss of Nor-
mandy decided the national character of the baronage.
The Great Charter is a declaration that the nobles
and the people of England alike were English. It is
a sign that the conquered land had led her conquerors
captive, and that the baronage had become English
in heart as well as in name.
In one respect the foreign baronage was at once
marked by an English characteristic. The barons in
England never attained the position of a privileged
166
NORMAN BRITAIN.
caste. The early English polity knew no such nobility.
Dignity, whether derived from descent, or office, or
wealth, was purely personal. So, too, after the Con-
quest, nobility simply pertained to him who from
tenure, and afterwards from other causes, was an here-
ditary counsellor of the Crown. Weakened by their
struggle with the monarchy, and shorn of much of their
wealth, the Norman barons could not have founded
a noble caste. It was well if the successor to the
dignity could hold his father's place. At any rate, the
political organization of England was too strong to
allow any such innovation, and the introduction of
a foreign and Romance baronage failed to change
our constitution in this matter. In another respect
a change was made which has, in its turn, yielded to
the older system. The Conquest based all dignity,
and indeed all political status, on the tenure of
land. The feudal custom of primogeniture, and the
restraints on alienation, established an hereditary
nobility founded on the relationship of its members
to the Crown as its tenants-in-chief. By holding of
the crown the tenant became a member of the royal
court and council, and since the son necessarily suc-
ceeded to the father's holding and to his relationship
to the Crown, he also succeeded to his political
position and became an hereditary counsellor of the
Crown. The dissolution of the union between tenure
and political status lies outside the limits of this book.
At least as early as the reign of Henry II. a distinction
was made between the greater tenants of the Crown
who received a special summons to the council, and
the lesser tenants, who were summoned generally. All
THE NORMAN NOBLES.
167
the military and judicial reforms of Henry II. and
much of his administrative system combined to
emphasize this distinction, which was wholly foreign
to purely feudal doctrine. This distinction was com-
pletely established when the lesser tenants were
joined in one estate with the rest of the freeholders,
and became part of the Commons; while the greater
tenants-in-chief formed a separate body with distinct
personal rights of peerage. The action of the crown
in the matter of summons, the gradual changes in
the economic condition of society which have brought
other forms of wealth into competition with land,
the addition to the peerage of new ranks uncon-
nected with tenure, the use of patents of creation,
and other causes, have tended to change the basis
of the qualification of the hereditary counsellors of
the Crown. This change was declared to be com-
plete when, in 1669, barony by tenure was found
66
not in being, and so not fit to be received." The
present House of Lords is a witness of the victory
over feudal ideas gained by the older English system,
in which the merchantman might so thrive as to
become of thegn-right worthy.
168
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XII.
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
THE changes effected by the Conquest produced two
opposing tendencies in the church. The feudal tenure
of land, combined with the law which gave the bishops
a baronial status, endangered her liberty. On the
other hand, the division of the courts tended to make
churchmen look to Rome as their ultimate court of
appeal, and to aim at independence of the law of the
land. With both these tendencies was connected a
struggle for special privilege carried on by different
ecclesiastical bodies. Almost wholly foreign to our
older church system, these tendencies were the results
of Romance influence. Their development and their
decline occupy no small part of the history of our
ecclesiastical polity. While the Conqueror lived, his
double system of administration worked harmoniously.
The first sign of contention between the tendencies
towards feudalization and towards clerical privilege
occur in the trial of William of Saint Calais, bishop of
Durham, for his share in the rebellion of 1088. The
bishop denied the jurisdiction of the king's court,
though he and his brother bishops were judges of that
court equally with the lay barons. "If I may not judge
you and your order," said Hugh of Beaumont, "you
and your order shall never judge me." He demanded
FCCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
169
to be reinstated in his bishopric. Lanfranc defined
the exact position of the case. "We judge not touch-
ing your bishopric, but as touching your fief." The
bishop appealed to Rome. As one of the king's
great tenants-in-chief, he was amenable to the juris-
diction of the king's court. On the other hand, the
recognition of canonical jurisdiction involved the
recognition of the supremacy of the pope in eccle-
siastical matters. And the bishop refused to allow
any distinction between his spiritual office and his
baronial status. When Lanfranc was dead, Rufus
and Ranulf Flambard showed what the consequences
of ecclesiastical feudalization were under an unscru-
pulous monarch. The king dealt with the church as
he dealt with his lay tenants. The organization
through which men held communion with God was
desecrated and degraded by every trick of feudal
administration. Church property gave no opportunity
for wardship, marriage, or forfeiture. To make up for
this, Rufus kept bishoprics and abbotships vacant,
and entered on their lands during vacancy. He
openly sold ecclesiastical offices to the highest bidder,
and on a new appointment he demanded a heavy
payment, which answered to the relief of a lay fee.
After the death of Lanfranc the see of Canterbury lay
vacant for five years. This was an outrage which
touched laymen as well as churchmen. The arch-
bishop of Canterbury held a position which had no
fellow in western Christendom. He was the spiritual
father of the whole kingdom and the chief constitu-
1 Monasticon, i., 244–250.
170
NORMAN BRITAIN.
tional adviser of the Crown. By leaving the office
vacant, Rufus committed an offence against all classes.2
At last, during his short-lived repentance, while he
was sick in 1093, he yielded to the remonstrances of
barons and bishops alike, and appointed Anselm to
the archbishopric.
Anselm belonged to a noble house of Aosta. Like
Lanfranc, he came to Normandy and abode awhile at
Avranches. Full of the love of knowledge, he became
one of Lanfranc's scholars at Bec. Even greater
than his love of knowledge was his desire after God.
He became a monk of Bec, and succeeded Herlwin
as abbot. As a philosopher he was far in advance of
his time. His Platonism led him to attempt the
solution of divine mysteries and to examine the
grounds of faith by the means of reason. Equally
daring in inquiry and subtle in argument, he stands.
alone among the thinkers of older times. Gentle and
loving, he was, at the same time, fearless, firm of pur-
pose, and a hater of unrighteousness and wrong. No
fitter champion could have arisen to withstand the
attempt of Rufus to degrade the church. In refusing
to buy the king's favour by increasing his contribu-
tion for the Norman war, Anselm rejected a demand
for a payment which would have worn a simoniacal
character, and would have been of the nature of a
relief. Rufus used his power to thwart every effort
he made for the good of the church. He asked
leave to hold a synod. "I will do as I like," the
king said, "and not as you like." He urged the king
2 Dean Church, "St. Anselm," p. 173.
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
171
to make appointments to the vacant abbeys. "You act
as you like about your farms, and shall I not act as I
like about my abbeys?" was the answer.³ The chief dis-
pute arose about the recognition of Urban II. as pope.
The election of Urban was disputed by Clement, the
imperial candidate. Anselm had, however, recognized
Urban before he had accepted the archbishopric. The
king would make no choice between the two rivals,
and insisted on his father's law that no pope should
be recognized in England without his command. In
the mouth of the Conqueror this law meant that
there should be no foreign policy in his kingdom
separate from his own. With Rufus it served to
assert his authority and to encourage him to set up
his caprice as the rule to be obeyed in matters of
conscience. At the council of Rockingham, in 1095,
Anselm, though deserted by his brethren, was upheld
by the lay barons, and gained a victory over the king.
The last attack made on him by Rufus was on a
purely secular matter. Knowing that in the king's
court all depended on the king's word, Anselm
applied for leave to go to Rome. Although such an
appeal to the pope was contrary to all national rights,
it was nevertheless the only means by which the
church could be sheltered from the caprice of a
tyrant, and it was the natural consequence of the
legisation of the Conqueror that churchmen should
look on Rome as the fountain of the law to which they
were amenable. Anselm left England, and William
seized on the estates of his see.
› Eadmer, Hist. Nov., i. 377-378.
172
NORMAN BRITAIN.
With the accession of Henry the reign of feudal
violence ended. The opening words of his coro-
nation charter declared the freedom of the church.
The King would "not sell it, nor let it to farm, nor
take aught from the demesne of bishopric or abbey
during a vacancy." Of his right, however, to grant
investiture to bishops and abbots by the gift of the
ring and staff and to receive homage from them,
Henry would abate nothing. These were part of
the rights of his crown and of the customs of his
kingdom. They had been observed before the Con-
quest, and had been continued after it. Anselm
himself had received this investiture from Rufus, and
had done homage to him. At the same time though
the ring and staff conveyed the temporalities of a
benefice, their reception from lay hands marked the
spirit of feudalism which had invaded the Latin
church, for they were signs not of temporal posses-
sion but of a spiritual office. The temporalities of
the see and the office of the bishop were confused
together. Against the evils consequent on subjection
to a feudal monarchy, the Latin church took up arms
in her struggles against investitures. Of these evils
Anselm had had bitter experience, and during his
stay at Rome he learned that the ceremony on which
this subjection was based was deemed to be unlawful.
Nevertheless, if prelates held wide lands, it was cer-
tainly needful that they should be bound to be faithful
to the king.
Anselm found in Henry an antagonist who con-
tended for principle no less than he did himself. By
the compromise which was enacted in a great council
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
173
at London, in 1107, the right of investiture was de-
clared to belong to the spiritual power alone, while
the king retained the homage of the bishop-elect.
Although the victory of Anselm may seem barren
because it gained nothing tangible, it really was the
successful assertion of the freedom and dignity of the
church against the doctrines which clung round the
feudal monarchy. Anselm contended for the liberty
of the church. In so doing he was forced to assert
the privilege of his order by resorting to the help of
the pope. For, until nations became conscious of
unity, privilege was the only road to liberty. The
doctrine of clerical privileges-of immunity from
civil jurisdiction, of the right of appeal, and the like,
grew rapidly, especially as the co-operation of the
secular with the spiritual power was often hindered
by jealousy. The tendency to a separate ecclesias-
tical jurisdiction with the pope as its head, was
soon strengthened by organization. Vacarius, by
introducing the civil law into England in 1149, sup-
plied the clergy with the Roman system of procedure,
and the introduction soon afterwards of the Con-
cordance of the Canon Law gave them a legal code.
As Anselm contended for liberty, Archbishop Thomas
contended for the privileges of his order. Checked
as these privileges were by the policy of Henry II.,
their strength was really first destroyed when the
nation became conscious of its unity, and found the
expression of that consciousness in the Great Charter
opposed by Rome. At every epoch when national
feeling has been quickened, under the leadership
of Edward I., by the long wars with France, and,
174
NORMAN BRITAIN.
finally, in the new energy of the sixteenth century,
ecclesiastical privilege and foreign interference have
been restrained. At length, the ecclesiastical ïnde-
pendence, which had suffered from the Romance
innovations of the Conquest was finally reasserted,
when the English nation, seeing in the king the expres
sion of its own united life, declared Henry VIII. the
Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England.
The freedom of the English church, confirmed by
Henry I., implied the canonical election of bishops.
The rights of the chapters in this matter were never
clearly defined before the Conquest. The strong rule
of the first Norman kings tended to make the appoint-
ment to bishoprics depend solely on the Crown.
Henry restored the right of election to the chapters.
He made the clergy, however, come up to his court,
and elect their bishop there. By this rule he retained
for the Crown the virtual control of their choice.
This system was a return to something like the old
English practice of nominating bishops in the witena-
gemot. From the time of John elections have been
made in the chapter-house, and the royal wishes have
been expressed by letter. The gift of the pall to the
archbishops gave the popes, from very early times,
considerable influence over the elections to metro-
politan sees. As the greater freedom of capitular
elections gave rise to disputes, and these disputes
were referred to Rome, the popes obtained a power
of interference in the elections to other sees also. By
a statute of 1531, all reference to the pope was ex-
4 25 Henry VIII., c. 20.
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
175
pressly forbidden, and the present mode of appoint-
ment was established. The sovereign in a document
called the congé d'élire grants the chapter leave to
elect, and at the same time, by another document—
the letter missive,-dictates the person to be chosen.
The church, in the sixteenth century, was thus
liberated from papal interference in elections at
the cost of her subjection to the Crown. Since
the establishment of a system of government
by a responsible ministry, episcopal elections have
again become national acts, as they were before the
Conquest, and are now indeed far more truly popular
acts than they were then.
Although both Rufus and Henry had disputes
with Anselm, the English church, like the English
people at large, upheld the Crown. The dealings
of Rufus rendered the bishops subservient to him.
At Rockingham, led by the bishop of Durham,
by that time reconciled to Rufus, all the bishops,
with the honourable exception of Gundulf, bishop
of Rochester, were strongly on the king's side.
Throughout the whole proceedings, they appear as
"his bishops," and his men, and at his command
they renounced their obedience to Anselm. Very
different was the position taken by the lay barons.
Robert of Meulan, that wise counsellor, was their
spokesman. "He is our archbishop," he said; "and
the ruler of Christianity in this land. We are Chris-
tians, and so long as we live here we cannot refuse
his rule." There was, however, a nobler side to this
alliance between the Church and the Crown. In full
accord with the people, the Church upheld the royal
176
NORMAN BRITAIN.
authority against the attacks of the feudal barons.
Besides the action of Lanfranc, which was, to a great
extent, ministerial, we have seen how Wulfstan
appeared in arms against the rebels in 1075, and
again in 1088. Anselm himself guarded Kent in
1095. And in 1101 the safety of the Crown was
secured by the fidelity of the archbishop, of his
suffragans, and of the whole English people. This
alliance continued, for we may leave out the time of
anarchy, until John arrayed the clergy along with the
rest of his realm in opposition to himself.
The control maintained by the Conqueror over
ecclesiastical councils was abused by Rufus, who
capriciously forbade them. Henry followed his
father's policy, and during his reign the Church,
subject to the royal assent, again exercised
her legislative functions. Even during the king's
dispute with Anselm, he allowed the archbishop to
hold a council at Westminster, for justice was dear to
them both. The decrees of this synod show the
necessity of the struggle which Anselm made to pre-
serve the spiritual character of the Church. Feudal
abuses had done much to secularize her.
It was
necessary, for instance, to decree that the office of
archdeacon should not be let to farm, and should be
held only by men who had taken deacon's orders, so
thoroughly had the office of a spiritual judge assumed
the aspect of a lay benefice or fief. The same ten-
dency affected the lives of the clergy. The aim of
the Hildebrandine revival was to effect a separation
5 Will. Malm., v., 395.
• Eadmer, Hist. Nov., iii., 438.
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
177
between the priesthood and the world. It was not
merely to increase the power of Rome by giving her
an army wholly devoted to the church's cause that
this separation was attempted. Spiritually-minded.
men adopted the same aim, for the only hope for the
purity of the priesthood itself and for its influence on
the world lay in its separation from the degradation of
society, and from the debasing influences around it.
By the council of Westminster clergy were bidden to
have a tonsure that might be seen, and were forbidden
to attend drinking-feasts. The chief means, however,
of effecting the separation between the priesthood and
the world was by enforcing the celibacy of the clergy.
In England the marriage of the clergy was a general
custom. Roman influence was, however, powerful with
Anselm; and a decree of the council of Westminster
forbade the marriage of all who had entered the order
of sub-deacon. In spite of this and other such de-
crees, the marriage of the priesthood was never wholly
discontinued in England. The question must, as I
have already said,' be judged wholly by the light of
former days. In addition to other reasons which made
the celibacy of the clergy appear necessary, we find
from a decree of this council that the sons of priests
sometimes claimed to succeed to their fathers' livings,
and so the cure of souls was treated as though it
were an hereditary possession. Gradually, and, as it
seems, from the time of Henry I., it became the
custom for the archbishop to hold his synod while
the king held his great council; and to this custom
7 See page 106.
N
178
NORMAN BRITAIN.
may be traced the concurrent sessions of the convo-
cation of the clergy and of the national council. The
clergy naturally valued their separate assemblies, and
when Edward I. summoned them to take their place
in Parliament as one of the estates of the realm, they
preferred to vote their supplies in convocation. And
so it has come about that the estate of the clergy
has no political power apart from the Commons, save
that a certain number of bishops have seats in the
House of Lords. These bishops, however, do not
sit as representatives of the clergy. Nor do they
any longer hold the baronies which the Conqueror
gave them, but sit in virtue of the wisdom which is
held to be attached to their office as the bishops
of certain sees, just as before the Conquest they sat
among the witan.
The influence of the systematic arrangements of
feudalism may probably be traced in the separation
made between the property of the bishop and of the
canons. The chapter became a separate corporation
with its own estates. And not only so, but each
canon also had his own prebend and thus became
a corporation sole. The removal of the bishops'
sees forwarded the growth of this separation. At
first there was no distinction among the canons or
prebendaries; for both titles signify the same office.
A man is a canon in respect of the rule to which
he and the rest of his fellows are pledged, and a
prebendary in respect of the endowment or prebend
which he holds. As, however, it was not needful that
all the canons should reside, a part only were called
into residence. Those who resided received a share
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
179
of the capitular estates besides the revenues of
their prebends, while the rest had only their separate
incomes. Before long certain offices, such as the
chancellorship and the treasurership, were founded and
endowed in each chapter,-though, at the same time,
each had its special constitution, while the chapter
of every secular church received a head of its own
independent of the bishop by the separate endowment
of the office of dean. It was of course intended that
such canons as were called into residence as well as
the dignitaries of the chapter should really reside.
Part, however, of the evil which feudalism worked in.
the Church was that her offices were regarded as
benefices or fiefs. So long as the service was ren-
dered, a canon or rector had a right to hold his
canonry or rectory. Plurality and non-residence fol-
lowed from this doctrine. The services of our cathedral
churches were performed by vicars, while the canons
lived elsewhere, and often fulfilled other ecclesias-
tical functions. Even legal residence has been inter-
preted as being three months resident in and nine
months away from the place of a man's office. Nor
were these evil ways confined to capitular bodies.
Among them they have lingered longest, but even
among them a reform has begun. Canons have
now lost their separate prebends, and this loss,
together with the surrender of capitular estates to
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, has undone some
of the work of the Norman prelates, and has opened
the door to further changes. Even now the evil
effects of the partial feudalization of our national
church may be discerned, wherever a cathedral
N 2
180
NORMAN BRITAIN.
".
church is not served by a sufficient body of resident
canons, as was the custom in the days before the
Conquest.
8
The monastic zeal of the Normans insured each
new religious order a warm reception. The Cluniacs
were followed in the reign of Henry I. by the
Cistercians, an order which owed its greatness to the
third abbot of Citeaux, an Englishman named Stephen
Harding. The first Cistercian house was at Waverley,
in Surrey. As a fresh effort after greater strictness of
life, this order became very popular in England. A
common way of endowing both capitular and mo-
nastic corporations was by the gift of the advowson of
livings. The new monastic patrons kept the tithes for
themselves, and caused the services of the church to
be performed by deputies or vicars. A large amount
of tithe was thus diverted from its proper uses, and
was, indeed, sent out of England to the monasteries
to which our English houses were affiliated. Grants
of land or tithes were also often made directly to
foreign monasteries. And in such cases the grantees
used to establish a little colony of brethren on the
spot to look after their interests. These establish-
ments were called Alien priories. As the means of
sending English wealth to our enemies, they were
regarded with great dislike, and were finally sup-
pressed in the reign of Henry V. On the general
suppression of the monasteries the tithes which they
held were granted to laymen, and the strange system
arose by which parochial tithes are frequently paid
8 See page 107.
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
181
to individual lay rectors. A spirit of opposition
was for awhile kept alive in the monasteries by
the stern rule of foreign abbots. Before long, how-
ever, the abbots and their convents recognized that
their interests were the same. A struggle with
the bishops to maintain exemption from episcopal
visitation enlisted them in a common cause. And
as the bishops were in alliance with the Crown, and
the Crown was engaged in a constant resistance to
papal interference, the monasteries turned to Rome
for help. And thus, as the policy of our kings became
decidedly national, the monastic bodies remained in
opposition, though they changed their ground and
sought their strength from foreign sources. In
monastic cathedrals, an institution almost peculiar
to England, the chapters were necessarily in close
relation to their bishops, and had neither the inde-
pendent status of secular chapters nor the exemp-
tions of other monasteries. In order to attain a like
independence they strove to secure as their bishops
monks who would be naturally inclined to forward
their wishes at the expense of their own sees. Some
sharp struggles arose between these monastic chapters
and such bishops as were determined to control them.9
While the monks sought the help of Rome, the
king and the bishops were at one in opposing
papal interference. Henry followed the policy of his
father in forbidding any legate to land in England
without the authority of the Crown, while Anselm
9 This question, together with the most famous of the contro-
versies which arose from it, is discussed by Dr. Stubbs in his
Introduction to Epp. Cantuar., R. S.
182
NORMAN BRITAIN.
claimed that the legatine office belonged to his see,
and resented any infringement of its rights in this
matter. Not long after Anselm's death it was
acknowledged that the legatine authority over all
Britain belonged of right to the see of Canterbury.
In this way the Crown was brought to allow a system
by which papal jurisdiction was established in
England. At the same time the right of the
kingdom to be exempt from the visits of special
legates a latere was acknowledged, and the influence
of the archbishop as legatus natus was not of a
character to injure materially the rights of the Crown.
This combination of the legatine with the metro-
politan authority worked some ill to the Church in
matters of jurisdiction, for it confused the power
which the archbishop had in virtue of his see with
the powers with which he was invested as the repre-
sentative of the pope. The rights of Canterbury over
Wales and Scotland, and the leading characteristics.
of the Church in both countries will be spoken of in
the next chapter.
The tendency of the Church to secularization was
as much the result of the wealth with which the piety
of her members endowed her as of the feudal
influences around her. Bishops and convents were
large landowners, and the management of their
estates entangled them in the affairs of the world.
With greater leisure and a better education than their
lay neighbours, churchmen employed their wealth to
more advantage than other landowners. While other
lords were often absent from their lands on warlike
expeditions, the ecclesiastical landlord was always at
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
183
**
home. While forfeiture or failure of male heirs
caused the loss or division of lay estates, the lands
of a bishopric or abbey ever grew greater. The
registers of religious houses prove the care and
exactness with which they managed their property.
A chartulary of Glastonbury of the middle of the
twelfth century, for instance, presents a picture of
a vast estate where a good return is insured by an
elaborate system of organization. Every department
had its own officers, and every workman his proper
work. Chase and fishpond, cornland, orchard, and
meadow each yielded its full return to the abbey.
Some state there was in such lordly households, but
there was no waste and nothing lost for lack of know-
ledge. The wealth which they derived from agri-
culture led some abbeys to engage in trade. Abbots
held markets in their towns; and where their houses
stood, like the abbey of Abingdon, on a navigable
river, ships brought up or carried away their mer-
chandise. Rights of fairs and markets were some-
times hotly disputed between an abbey and the
town which sprang up at its gates. Churchmen were
the lawyers and physicians of the day, and fresh
gains flowed into the church either directly or indi-
rectly from their professional skill. When Herfast,
bishop of Thetford, came to Baldwin, the abbot of
St. Eadmund's, to be healed of a hurt to his eyes, he
paid his fee beforehand in acknowledging the inde
pendence of the abbey.10 And when Matilda, the
queen of Henry I., was at Abingdon, whither she
10 Heremann, Miracula S. Eadm., ed. Liebermann.
C
184
NORMAN BRITAIN.
went before the birth of her son, to be under the
care of the famous surgeon the Abbot Faricius, she
handsomely rewarded her attendant for his services.
As their riches increased the monks entered on financial
business, and even farmed the taxes of towns. This
practice was forbidden by the council of Westminster,
and in the reign of Edward III. it was declared
unlawful for an ecclesiastic to engage in trade.11
Against this wealth and the worldly spirit it
engendered a protest was for awhile made by the
new Cistercian order, until it also fell into the same
snare. Maǹual labour formed no small part of the
Cistercian life. The sites of their abbeys were care-
fully chosen. While the Benedictine houses for
the most part stood in the midst of the dwellings of
men, the Cistercian abbey was of set purpose raised
in silent places. There the industry and wisdom of
the new settlers made the desert to blossom as the
garden of the Lord. Plain as their churches for the
most part are, the natural beauties of their lonely
sites, where wood and water meet, lend a peculiar
charm to Tintern, to Old Cleeve, and to the great
northern houses of Rievaux, Fountains, and Kirkstall,
where the industry of the monk repaired the ravages
of the warrior. The riches of the Cistercians soon
rivalled those of the Benedictines. For the first half
of the twelfth century, however, the new order was
regarded as a model of spirituality.
While the Church had, it is true, too much of
the ways and of the spirit of the world, she ful-
•
:
1 Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, R. S., Introduction, and
pp. 45, 50-52,
ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.
185
filled, however imperfectly, a lofty mission. Apart
from her distinctly spiritual work, she exercised an
elevating influence on society. From her alone.
came such relief of the poor, such care of the sick,
such sympathy with the oppressed, as softened
the roughness of the age. She expounded and
enforced the obligations of morality. At her bid-
ding violent men restrained their lust and cruelty
and greed. However much such men might desire
to rebel against the rule of her ministers, they
knew that the time would come when her prayers
would be of more value to them than any present
pleasure, and they turned and repented. The very
impression which such hardened rebels as Rufus and
Robert of Belesme made upon society shows that
such hardness was a strange thing. For the most part
there was no baron, however mighty, but at the
Church's bidding he would give up his sin and submit
to the most humiliating penance. By her teaching,
her discipline, and even by her very existence and
prosperity, the Church taught men that there was a
force greater than brute strength and a higher law
than the dictates of caprice or passion.
186
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XIII.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
UNDER the two first Norman kings the Teutonic and
Romance systems of administration existed together
without any clearly-defined points of union. The
character of the kingship, the obligations of tenure,
and the relations between the royal and local courts
were undetermined. The reign of Henry I. is marked
by the rise of a national system. It was a period of
combination and arrangement. Although the pro-
gress of this work was interrupted by the anarchy
of Stephen's time, the work itself did not perish.
Adopting the administrative reforms of his grand-
father, Henry II. gave them a more complete
organization, and made them the means of keeping
the constitution free from feudal elements. The
character of the reign of Henry I. corresponds to the
national tendencies of the legal and administrative
changes effected under his rule. Born in England,
the son of a king of England, and speaking the
English tongue, he appears throughout his reign
as a national king. No less selfish and hard-hearted
than his father and brother, he brought his people
the boon of orderly administration, and in doing so
fenced in the baronial power by the permanent
restraints of a legal system. The English custom of
election was in his case, to some extent, a reality.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
187
Supported at first by only a small party among the
barons, he recognized the right of his people to good
government by putting out a charter of liberties at
his coronation. The church was freed from oppres-
sion, feudal exactions were to be limited by justice
and law, knights who held their land by military ser
vice were not to be burthened with other demands,
and no man was to be required to find unreasonable
bail. The needs of the people generally were not
forgotten. Good peace and the law of King Eadward
as amended by the Conqueror were promised.
Nothing, however, shows more distinctly the national.
position which Henry assumed than the clauses com-
manding that, as he pledged himself to do by his
tenants in the matters of reliefs and marriage, so they
were to deal with their men. Such an interference
between his barons and their tenants struck at the
very essence of feudalism.
1
The political aspect of the marriage of Henry with
Eadgyth was not forgotten by the English chronicler.
Nor did it escape the barons, for those who were of
Robert's party sneered at the king and his English
queen, calling them by the English names Godric
and Godgifu. The claims of his brother Robert and
his struggle with Robert of Belesme threw Henry on
the support of the English, and, as we have seen,
they did not fail to recognize the community of
interest between the king and themselves. No less
clearly did the efforts of Henry to secure the suc-
cession of his children exhibit the national basis of
Anglo-Saxon Chron., 1100; Will. Malms., v., 394.
188
NORMAN BRITAIN.
the kingship. Besides taking all possible means to
make the future position of his son William certain
in Normandy, he caused all the chief men of his
kingdom to swear fealty to him, in 1116, at a great
meeting of the witan at Salisbury. The ætheling was
drowned, and the second marriage of the king proved
unfruitful. Henry, therefore, set himself to secure
the succession of his daughter Matilda, the widow of
the Emperor, Henry V. In a great council at London
in 1126 all the chief men swore to receive Matilda as
their "Lady.” Among them, the second after David,
king of Scotland, to take the oath, was Stephen of
Boulogne. The next year Matilda married Geoffrey,
count of Anjou. The oath of succession was renewed
at Northampton in 1131, and after the birth of Henry
of Anjou the witan swore to accept him as the next
king. Whether Roger, bishop of Salisbury, spoke the
truth or not when he said that the oath taken at London
was on the condition that the king should not marry
his daughter to any foreign lord without the advice of
the witan, the very fact that he often said so shows
that on such occasions the acceptance by the witan
was a real election. The English idea of the king-
ship was preserved by these measures, for while
Henry sought to establish hereditary succession, he
sought to secure it by the vote of the national
assembly. While, however, Henry relied on the
support of the nation, his reign had in some respects
an anti-national character. He was much in his Con-
tinental dominions, and any one from beyond sea
2
2 Will. Malms., Hist. Nov., i., 3.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
189
had a better chance of promotion than a man born
in England. At the same time, though the character
of his reign was by no means English in the narrower
sense of the word, the tendency of his work was
to bring the native and foreign elements in the
administration into some sort of union, and so to
lay the foundations on which the fabric of the English
law and constitution was raised again.
The clause in the coronation charter of Henry I.
referring to military tenure points to the growth of a
new idea. From the natural tendency of feudalism
to construe every duty connected with land as a con-
dition of tenure, the obligation of thegnhood, or the
duty which lay on the possessor of every five hides
to provide a fully-armed man, came to be looked
on as a military service rendered for the land. This
service was at first rendered from the whole estate.
As, however, estates fell to the Crown and were
re-granted, or as such arrangements were found con-
venient, only certain parts of them were charged with
the military service due from the whole. The parts
so charged became knights' fees, or parts of knights'
fees, and the remainder was granted out as socage
land. No constant amount of land was represented
by the knight's fee, which appears to have been of
the value of £20 a year. By this distinct obligation
attached to certain fees, the growing tendency towards
military feudalism was checked as regards a large
portion of the whole land. And, while a definite
military service was settled on certain parts, the
influence of the English thegn-duty on the develop-
ment of that service, as well as the firm policy of
190
NORMAN BRITAIN.
our kings, caused it to be looked on as due to the
Crown and not to the immediate lord. For though
the tenant by knight-service followed his lord in
the army of the king, he did not render a separate
service to the Crown; he merely helped to make up
the whole amount of service which was due from his
lord. The process of division into knights' fees was
slow. It was not complete when Henry II. deprived
this tenure of much of its natural character by taking
the money-payment, called scutage, in lieu of military
service. This measure, which enabled the Crown to
find its support in taxation rather than in the feudal
relation, was foreshadowed by certain compositions
and payments made in the reign of Henry I.3
William II. lessened the authority of the shire courts
by making them the means of extortion. As these
courts acted as a restraint on the growth of private
franchises, and were used by the sheriff for trans-
acting the fiscal business of the Crown, Henry was
careful to restore their dignity, and ordered that they
should be held and attended as in the time of King
Eadward. He combined, however, the action of
the Crown with the working of these lower courts,
and lessened their original authority by interfering
with them, both as regards procedure and by direct
visitation. In addition to the old English forms of
proof, the Normans introduced trial by combat and
by sworn inquest. During the reign of Henry I. the
ordeal was used less frequently than before. For
though the English and the Normans each kept
3 Pipe Roll, 31 Henry I.; Madox, Hist. Exch., c. 16.
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
191
(6
their own law in this matter, the combat was more
attractive than the ordeal, and was resorted to by
men of both races alike. In civil cases, however, the
usual method of procedure was by inquest, in which
the sheriff, in virtue of the king's writ, caused a body
of men, generally twelve in number, to find the facts
of the case on oath. The work of this body of jurors
was wholly different from that of the twelve senior
thegns, who, according to the law of Ethelred, swore
to accuse no innocent man nor conceal a guilty
man,” for these thegns attended the gemot to make
a general presentment, while the recognitors swore to
declare the truth in a particular case which was laid
before them. The trial by inquest is a great step in
the growth of trial by jury, while the presentment
of the thegns of Æthelred's law is to be connected
with the action of the grand jury. The growth of
this method of proof during the reign of Henry is
illustrated by the appearance of a distinct body of
men, called judices et juratores, who were bound,
every one, under penalty of a fine, to attend
the shire court for the purpose of making sworn
inquisitions. They were men of good position, for
the "
mean men were only bound to attend gene-
rally. The fines for non-attendance at the shire
court were heavy, and the judices and juratores
of Yorkshire paid no less than £100 to be
relieved of their duties. By the institution of this
office, the judicial rights of the whole body of the
suitors of the court were handed over to a select
>>
4 See page 123.
192
NORMAN BRITAIN.
number, composed of the richer class. The intro-
duction of the inquest probably opened the way
to the exercise of the royal authority by means of
writs, which after the Conquest rapidly displaced the
English custom of verbal process. All suits relating
to land could be heard and determined by the local
courts. As, however, the Norman king was lord of
the land, the doctrine became established that no one
was bound to answer concerning his freehold without
being summoned to do so by the king's writ. Before
the Great Charter (art. 34) writs were sometimes
obtained by which the right to a freehold was tried
in the first instance before the king's court. In
other cases the local courts heard these questions by
virtue of the royal writ, and if justice was not done
the case was removed by writ to the higher court.
This system of writs appears to have grown greatly
during the reign of Henry I. It became the founda-
tion of those forms of real action which lasted until
the present century. These writs invaded the inde-
pendent action of the popular courts. At the same
time they connected the English and the Norman
methods of jurisdiction, and gave unity to our legal
procedure.
During this period of legal activity the business
of the king's court was conducted by Roger, bishop
of Salisbury. Roger was a poor Norman priest,
whom Henry made his chaplain before he came to
the throne. He rose with the rise of his master,
who made him first chancellor and afterwards
justiciary. His great work was the organization of
the Court of Exchequer, which united the revenues
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
193
derived from national and from feudal sources by
bringing both into one common account. The
Exchequer took its name from the cloth, chequered
like a chessboard, which covered the table at which
the officers of the court sat to receive accounts.
All
the great officers of the household, together with such.
as the king appointed, and the justices of the king's
court, were Barons of the Exchequer.5 In this court
all the fiscal work of the administration was trans-
acted. There the sheriffs and other ministers or
debtors of the Crown rendered their accounts. The
first official records seem to have been made in its
rolls. Before the Conquest entries of transfers and
grants were made in the vacant leaves of service
books, and were received as evidence in the court in
which the transaction had taken place. The earliest
of the rolls of the Exchequer-called, from their
shape, Pipe Rolls-still preserved to us contains
an account of the Michaelmas session of 1130
(31 Hen. I.). This roll presents a complete picture
of the fiscal administration of the kingdom. The
sheriffs' account for the old payment, called the
ferm or rent of the shires, which was of the
nature of a composition for various rights of the
crown; for the Danegeld, which was also fixed at a
certain sum; and for the auxilium civitatis, a payment
of a like nature made by the towns. Fines, com-
positions, and the rents of crown lands were also
brought in at the same time, together with many
miscellaneous payments, such as five ounces of gold
5 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. xi. sec. 126.
O
194
NORMAN BRITAIN.
from the shoemakers of Oxford that they might
again have their guild, and many sums paid by the
Jews of London to be allowed to collect the money
owed to them. Along with these sources of income
are entered the payments which accrued to the king
as feudal lord. In Kent, for example, Turgisy of
Avranches pays 300 marks of silver and one mark
of gold for the land and wife of Hugh of Albertiville,
and to have wardship of his son until he should be
twenty years of age. With these payments should be
classed the sums brought in by the sale of offices,
which varied from £3,006. 13s. 4d., owed for the
custody of the Great Seal, to half a mark of gold,
paid by William, the son of Wido, the cook, for his
father's office in the king's kitchen.
More important than any other step in the com-
bination of the popular and royal systems was the
institution of judicial circuits. The fiscal business of
each shire was transacted in the shire court, and when
a new tax was to be declared and assessed, Henry
seems to have sent some of the justices of the
Exchequer to the various shires, both for that purpose
and in order to overlook the fiscal work of the
sheriffs. Special commissions for judicial purposes
were, as we have seen, issued by the Conqueror, and
it was therefore natural that when the Exchequer jus-
tices went on circuit they should undertake judicial
as well as fiscal work. In carrying out these changes,
Henry largely employed the services of those men of
secondary rank whom he raised up, as a kind of
official aristocracy, to counterbalance, and indeed to
take the place of, the nobles of the Conquest. The
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
195
institution of circuits caused the sheriffs to lose the
cognizance of those more important cases called pleas
of the crown, which were reserved for the itinerant
justices. From the same cause also the shire court lost
some of its original dignity, since it was only invested
with its highest importance at the visitation of the
justices. On these occasions it assumed the character
of a provincial session of the royal court rather than
of a popular assembly. The fuller organization of
the various means by which the central and the local
forces in the administration were combined, and the
higher work of applying their combined action to
the constitutional education of the people, belong
to Henry II. Yet the foundations of his work
were laid by his grandfather. Nothing indeed in the
reforms of Henry I. can be said to have been
absolutely new. What was new was, that out of the
various materials existing in the English and Norman
methods of administration he constructed the founda-
tion of a single national system.
During the reign of Henry I. an advance was made
towards the attainment of municipal privileges. An
English town at the date of the Conquest was a
collection of townships and lordships with their
several courts, and with only so much unity as was
implied by the possession of a common court,
answering to the court of the Hundred, and by an
aggregate assessment which was included by the
sheriff in the ferm of the shire.6 Little change seems
to have been effected by the Conquest in the character
On the constitution of towns before the Conquest, see
Stubbs, Const. Hist., i., c. xi.
0 2
196
NORMAN BRITAIN.
of our towns, save that they shared the general
effects of the introduction of feudal doctrines. In
accordance with these doctrines the English rights of
sac and soc were interpreted, in the case of towns as
well as of the country, as implying a manorial estate.
In some towns certain of the inhabitants, in the reign
of Henry I., made agreements by which they pur-
chased the ferm of their town by paying a fixed rent.
By this means they gained the right of assessing and
collecting their own ferm without the interference of
the sheriff. Henry granted a charter to the Londoners,
which, though of course conveying privileges far
beyond those of other towns, may be taken as setting
forth the position at which others aimed, and to which
some partially attained about the same period. Even
in this charter there is no hint of any corporate
existence. It frees the citizens from the interference
of the sheriffs, giving them the right of electing these
officers for themselves, and even granting them the ferm
of Middlesex; it also gave them various privileges as
regards jurisdiction and immunities from toll. Other
lords followed the example of the king in granting
charters to their towns, and often obtained leave from
the Crown to grant greater privileges than they could
otherwise have done. The townsmen who bought
the ferm held a position answering to the freeholders
or socage tenants of a manor. They held by burgage
tenure, and were the fully qualified members of the
common court of the town. In a trading town, their
character as traders overshadowed their position as
owners of land, and they appear as the merchants
of the guild. Holding the ferm of their town, these
ADMINISTRATIVE COMBINATION.
197
men were closely united in one body, and under the
Angevin dynasty form the communa, with the major
or mayor at their head. In the case of London,
the citizens seem to have aimed at this new phase of
municipal life as early as the reign of Stephen. There,
the old organization of the portreve, and of the great
guild with which he seems to have been connected,
gave place in the reign of Henry I. to the elected
sheriffs. The right of electing these officers was soon
afterwards lost, perhaps even in the same reign, for
in 1130 the Londoners paid 100 marks of silver for
it.7 Dr. Stubbs has suggested-and the suggestion
is full of interest-that the change implied in Henry's
charter may account for the strong support which the
great merchant city gave to Stephen. In the com-
muna and the mayor her old organization lived again,
under a different name and for different ends.
7 Pipe Roll, 31 Henry I. Cons. Hist., i., xi., 131.
198
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XIV.
ANARCHY.
As long as the doctrine prevailed that the king's
peace fell into abeyance on the death of each king, it
was necessary to supply the vacancy of the throne
as quickly as possible. On the death of Henry
much disorder ensued. Suddenly freed from the
strict administration of the law, robbers infested the
country; the game was almost exterminated, and trade
was brought to a stand. When Stephen, count of
Mortain and Boulogne, a grandson of the Conqueror
by his daughter Adela, offered himself to the citizens of
London as their king, they accepted him for the sake,
it is said, of a speedy restoration of order which was
necessary for their trade. Henry, bishop of Win-
chester, the brother of Stephen, persuaded Roger of
Salisbury to open to the count the vast treasure of the
late king. Strong efforts were made to induce the
archbishop of Canterbury to perform the coronation.
And when he and others hesitated to break the oath
made to Matilda, the friends of Stephen answered,
that the oath was taken under compulsion, that
Henry only wanted to secure peace with the count of
Anjou and not to make him his successor, and that,
as Hugh Bigot, the seneschal, ventured to affirm, he
had on his deathbed actually released the barons
ANARCHY.
199
from their oaths. The archbishop yielded. At his
coronation Stephen put forth a short charter repeating
in general terms the promise of good law made by
Henry I. The kingship of Stephen was ratified by
general assent. To the Normans the count of Anjou
was a foreigner, and between them and the Angevins
was the memory of a bitter struggle. All classes
believed that Stephen could lighten the heavy yoke of
his predecessor; and he did not hesitate to promise
what was asked of him in order to gain the good-will
of all. He is said to have agreed to abolish the
Danegeld. His other promises were embodied in a
charter given at Oxford. The freedom of the church
was declared, the property of vacant sees was to be
carefully administered, and the wills of clerks were
to be respected. The new forests made by Henry
were to be given up, and good law was to be
administered for all. None of these promises were
kept. Yet of all men Stephen seemed most fit to be
king. Brave in fight, gentle and affable, he was a
better man than most of the French or Norman
barons. As a king he failed. Easily persuaded, he was
weak and complying when he should have been firm,
and his weakness led him into treacherous dealing.
He lacked perseverance, and thought it no shame to
be foiled or to draw back in what he had under-
taken. His utter want of kingly dignity was shown
by his applying to Innocent II. for recognition, and
stating the papal confirmation in his Oxford charter
along with his election by the clergy and people of
England.
Although Stephen was universally acknowledged,
200
NORMAN BRITAIN.
many of the first men in the kingdom regarded his
kingship as on its trial. Robert of Gloucester, for
instance, the natural brother of the empress, swore
fealty to him on condition that he was well treated.
Stephen spared neither money nor entreaties to gain
the favour of these men. Some outbreaks of revolt
in 1136 showed how slight a hold the royal authority
had. The most serious of these was the insurrection
of Baldwin of Redvers, earl of Devon and castellan
of Exeter. His family connexions, as well as his
wealth, made Baldwin one of the most powerful of
the baronage of England. Going down from his
castle with his armed men he insulted and oppressed
the citizens of Exeter. They sent to the king for
help. For a long time Baldwin held his castle against
the royal army. Fighting on the king's side were
many barons who were secretly concerned in the
revolt. For this was by no means an isolated move-
ment: it was rather the premature outbreak of a
wide-spread disaffection.¹ These men compelled
Stephen to grant terms to the garrison, on the ground
that Baldwin's men had never taken an oath to the
king, and that in fighting against him they were
faithful to their lord. From this doctrine of Conti-
nental feudalism, which was utterly subversive of all
national government, England had been hitherto
saved by the firmness of our Norman kings. In
much the same spirit a little later, Miles of Beau-
champ declared that he would do the king such
service as he owed, but refused to give up to him the
¹ Gesta Stephani, 27.
ANARCHY.
201
castle of Bedford. Acknowledging the king merely
as their feudal lord, these barons would not recognize
him as the national sovereign. Stephen for the time
triumphed over the rebels, but the moral weakness
which he displayed in dealing with them encouraged
future revolts. In 1137, after a successful expedition
to Normandy, he made peace with Geoffrey; and
Lewis of France accepted the homage of his son
Eustace for the duchy. Thus during the first two
years of his reign Stephen was prosperous. During
these years, however, were sown the seeds of future
anarchy.
In 1138 many revolts were made along the Welsh
border and in the west, where Robert of Gloucester
was at the head of the insurgent barons. A Scottish
invasion added to the danger. At the beginning of
Stephen's reign, David of Scotland declared for his
niece Matilda. He was then bought off by the
cession of Carlisle and the grant of the earldom of
Huntingdon to his son. He now ravaged the north
and led a motley host of Scots, Galwegians, Cam-
brians, Normans, and English into Yorkshire. He
was met by a local resistance. The lords of the
north banded together. They were joined by the
forces of the shire, and at the bidding of Archbishop
Thurstan, who was represented in the army by his
suffragan of the Orkneys, the priest of every parish
marched with the men of his flock to the fight. The
army gathered round a Standard, like the carroccio
of the Italian cities, which has given its name to
the battle. On this tall mast was fixed the Host,
and from it streamed the banners of the Yorkshire
202
NORMAN BRITAIN.
churches of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley,
and St. Wilfrid of Ripon. The Scottish army was
defeated with great slaughter. Meanwhile, Stephen
was engaged in the west, besieging castle after castle,
on the whole not unsuccessfully. His authority was,
however, destroyed by the means which he took to
strengthen it. Instead of relying on his own people,
he hired Flemish and Breton mercenaries to uphold
his throne. Instead of keeping down the barons by
force, he sought to win them by concession. Those
who were of his party were allowed to build castles
and live in them like petty monarchs. He made new
earls, and gave them grants out of the treasury to
support their dignity. He gave until he had no more
to give, and then he debased the coinage and so
injured trade. His gifts filled the barons with mutual
jealousies and insured their unfaithfulness. When
they found that he had no more for them, they
revolted and used the strength which they had
acquired from his concessions against him, against
each other, and against the people. He completed
his own destruction by a quarrel with the Church.
For about four years he received the support of
the clergy. The continuance of this support was
apparently insured by the grant of the legatine
commission to Henry of Blois; for, as legate, Henry
had the real command of the clergy. Roger of
Salisbury was still justiciary, his son was chancellor,
one nephew, the bishop of Ely, was treasurer,
another was bishop of Lincoln. Amid the many
castles which began to cover the land, the fortresses
of these magnificent prelates were conspicuous for
ANARCHY.
203
beauty and strength. At Devizes—and men thought
there could not be a more splendid castle in
Europe than that which Roger built there,—at
Sherborne, and at Malmesbury, the castles of the
great minister excited the jealousy of the barons.
The brothers, Robert of Leicester and Waleran of
Meulan, persuaded Stephen that the bishops were
secretly in favour of the daughter of the master to
whom they owed their greatness. Like most weak
men, Stephen was given to sudden acts of violence.
While the bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln were at
his court at Oxford in 1139, he seized them and the
chancellor with them and compelled them by violence
to give up their castles. With characteristic lack of
dignity, he condescended to appear by counsel, and
defend his conduct before a synod held by the legate
and the archbishops at Winchester. His refusal to
reinstate the bishops alienated the whole body of the
clergy, with his brother at their head.
With the seizure of these great officers of state all
government ceased. The "solemn courts" were no
longer held at the festivals, and all administrative busi-
ness was suspended. Robbers infested the highways.
Every castle was filled with "devils and evil men.”
Within their walls fierce lords wrung the last piece of
money from the peasants by unspeakable tortures.
"They hanged them up by the feet and smoked
them with foul smoke." "Some they put in a chest
that was short, and narrow, and shallow, and put
sharp stones therein, and pressed a man therein so
that they brake all his limbs."
These and many
more torments, recorded in the despairing pages of the
204
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Chronicle, did the lords of each party inflict both
on the poor and on their prisoners. Towns were
burthened by a feudal exaction of which the very
name (censerie) was strange to English ears, and when
they could not pay they were robbed and burned.
The land lay untilled, and the people were wasted
with famine. Even the churches did not escape the
robber and the destroyer. Wicked men in their
pride and poor men in their misery alike said that
"Christ and his saints slept."2 In the west, the
citizens of Bristol, the second city in the kingdom
for strength and riches, made war on their own ac-
count as much as for Earl Robert, and, like the
lords of the castles, tortured their prisoners. The
coming of the empress for a short time invested the
general disorder with somewhat of the character of
a regular civil war. The citizens of Lincoln called
the king to help them against the earl of Chester,
who held the castle there. This Ranulf of Chester
was son-in-law of Robert of Gloucester. After having
received great favours from the king, he now turned
against him. The king besieged the garrison of the
earl. Robert of Gloucester and Ranulf, with all the
strength of their party, advanced to raise the siege,
and after a fierce battle defeated the king and took
him prisoner. Then the legate held a council of
bishops and abbots at Winchester, and there Matilda
was elected "Lady of England." She went to
London, and in a little while offended the citizens
by her pride, by her demands for money, and by her
Ang.-Sax. Chron., sub an. 1137.
2
ANARCHY.
205
scornful rejection of their requests that she would
release the king and would grant them "the laws of
King Eadward."3 She also offended the legate Henry.
When the king was exchanged for Robert of Glou-
cester, who also had been taken prisoner, affairs fell back
into their old state of confusion. The causes of the
king and the empress were again made second to the
private ends for which men fought. Each baron
adopted either cause, as it suited him best at the time,
and made his party an excuse for his acts of violence.
Geoffrey of Mandeville, for instance, was made earl
of Essex by Stephen, and was castellan of the Tower
of London, of Walden, and of Plessey. He also
held his earldom by the grant of Matilda, who made
him hereditary sheriff of London and Middlesex, and
gave him many other rich gifts. His fellow-lords saw
his power with jealousy, and excited the king against
him. Stephen, in 1143, seized him by craft when
he was at his court at St. Alban's, as he had already
seized the bishops, and as, a few years later, he seized
Ranulf of Chester. By threatening the earl with the
gallows, the king made him give up his castles, and
then let him go. Geoffrey raised a band of men,
allied himself with William of Say, and ravaged the
country, slaying, torturing, and pillaging wherever he
came. He took Cambridge by surprise. The citizens.
in these evil days had stored their valuables in the
churches. Geoffrey's men hewed down the doors
and fired the buildings. The wrecking and burning
of churches, indeed, seem to have formed part of the
³ Gervase, 1355.
206
NORMAN BRITAIN.
regular duty of one of his chief officers. The king
pursued him in vain, for he sheltered himself among
the marshes of the Ouse and the Nen. He came
unawares on Ramsey Abbey, turned out the monks,
and made the very church a stronghold for his band.
In alliance with Hugh Bigot, he cruelly oppressed
the land, until at last he was slain by the king's
troops. And as Geoffrey of Mandeville did at Ramsey,
so did Robert Marmiun at Coventry.
In the midst of the general disturbance, the Church
made her power felt. The return of Henry of Blois
to the party of his brother enabled the clergy to take
measures against the robbers of churches. Henry
lost the legation by the death of Innocent II.,
and the office was, after a while, conferred on
Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who thus
gained his proper place in the church. Theobald
was distinctly in favour of the right of the empress.
He was not a violent partisan, and cared more for
rights ecclesiastical than for secular politics. Up
to this time the bishops had yielded to the spirit
of anarchy, and many of them had even taken part in
actual warfare. Under Theobald, the attention of
the Church was directed to clerical matters. The
conduct of Stephen with regard to these matters
insured the final success of Henry of Anjou. He
was accused of having procured the election of his
nephew William to the see of York by exercising
an undue control over the chapter. The election of
William was opposed by the great Cistercian houses
Henry Hunt., sub an. 1144-" cujus officium fuerat
ecclesias frangere.'
""
ANARCHY.
207
of the north, and especially by Henry Murdach,
abbot of Fountains. The pope, Eugenius III., was
himself a Cistercian, and was, moreover, guided by
the famous Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, the head of
the order. Some of the kinsmen of William broke
into the abbey of Fountains and sacked it. William
was deprived by the pope, and the abbot, Henry,
was made archbishop. Stephen refused to recognize
him. The citizens of York also upheld the cause of
William, and took an active part in the quarrel. The
pope, and the whole Cistercian order, now at the
zenith of its power throughout all Latin Christendom,
were thus thrown into opposition to the king. On
the other hand, the quarrel drew Henry of Blois
nearer to his brother, and it is evident that the king
had a party among the clergy. Stephen's next step
was even more fatal to his own interests. He forbade
the English bishops to attend the council held at
Rheims in 1148. Theobald disobeyed the command,
and the king banished him. But Stephen was not
strong enough to carry out such a policy, and when
his lands were laid under an interdict, he gave way
about both the archbishops. Theobald was restored,
and Henry was enthroned at York. Although the
bishops under Theobald were averse to war with
Stephen, the king's conduct in these matters fully
determined them to secure the succession for Henry.
When therefore Stephen asked them to consent to
the coronation of Eustace, they refused to do so, and
produced a letter from the pope forbidding them to
allow it. This letter was procured by the foresight
of a clerk belonging to Theobald's household,
208
NORMAN BRITAIN.
named Thomas of London, destined to be known in
after-days as St. Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury.
The war in England was now gradually dying out.
Even the earls of Chester and Leicester ended a dis-
pute which they had carried on almost as independent
powers by a treaty made in the same spirit. One
article of this remarkable document provides, that if
the king should require Earl Robert to serve against
the earl of Chester, he was not to take more than
twenty men with him.5 It was, indeed, exhaustion
rather than any desire for orderly government which
caused the baronage to yield to the efforts made by
the bishops to bring about a pacification.
The refusal of the bishops to allow the coronation
of Eustace made the way plain for Henry of Anjou.
Sent by his father to England in 1142, he stayed for
four years at his uncle's strong castle of Bristol,
learning all that became his rank. Then he left his
books, and went for a while to the court of his uncle
David, from whom he received knighthood. He was
thus kept before the eyes of his mother's party as
their future king. During the anarchy in England,
Geoffrey gradually conquered Normandy and handed
it over to his son. The marriage of Eustace with the
daughter of Lewis VI. was followed by a French
attack upon the duchy. Henry, who succeeded his
father as count of Anjou in 1151, successfully de-
fended himself; and his marriage with Eleanor of
Aquitaine, the divorced wife of Lewis VII., made
him more than a match for his lord, the French king.
5 Dugdale, Baronage, p. 38.
ANARCHY.
209
He was called to England to head his party and
landed in 1153. Coming with a small force, he
relied on the native troops who rallied round him.
There was no battle, for the barons on each side
were afraid lest either the king or the duke should gain
a decided victory, for then the victor would have been
able to rule them at his will. Peace was made pos-
sible by the death of some of the more violent
partisans on each side, such as Robert of Gloucester,
Ranulf of Chester, and Simon of Northampton.
And when his son Eustace died, Stephen was con-
tent to yield to the efforts of the bishops. By the
treaty of Wallingford, he retained the throne for
his life. He promised to be guided by the advice of
the duke, and he and all the lords accepted Henry
as the next heir. All royal rights usurped by the
barons were to be resumed, all unlicensed castles
destroyed, the mercenaries disbanded, the clergy
freed from unjust taxation, the coinage reformed, and
peace and order established. Some attempt was at
once made to enforce these provisions. The death of
Stephen in 1154 gave the throne to Henry, the first of
our Angevin kings, and the restoration of order and the
organization of the state were vigorously carried out.
Unimportant as the mere details of anarchy are,
the reign of Stephen was not without its bearing on
our history. The anarchy itself marked out the
character of the work which Henry II. had to under-
take. Weakened by strife, the barons were unable
to withstand his strong rule. Little loyalty to the
throne remained, for men changed sides just as it suited
their own convenience. On the other hand, the old
P
210
NORMAN BRITAIN.
nobility had passed away, and with it had passed the
traditions of Norman disloyalty as well as of Norman
faithfulness. The earlier kings were engaged in a
personal struggle with a baronage of their own race,-—
it may almost be said with men of their own house-
hold. The struggle between the first Angevin king and
the new baronage was political rather than personal. 6
The stoppage of the administrative machinery led
Henry to re-model it after a more elaborate fashion.
He found the sessions of the courts interrupted, the use
of the national militia discontinued, and the financial
arrangements of the state broken down. The neces-
sity for restoration gave him the opportunity for re-
form. A leading characteristic of his reforming work
was the introduction of the people to a share in
administrative business. In assigning them the duties
of making certain presentments in matters of taxa-
tion and jurisdiction, he laid the foundation of the
work of Edward I., and indeed of every advance
made towards complete self-government by repre-
sentation. Henry employed the local and popular
organization which marked our political system before
the Conquest as the means of carrying out his
reforms. And this was made possible by the fact
that he found the union of the people of England
virtually complete. Welded together by the sufferings
of the anarchy, the two races lost the distinctions of
the Conquest. It was possible to employ the English
organization effectually because the Normans in
England had become Englishmen.
6 Stubbs, Introd. to Gesta Hen. ii., R.S., ii. XLIV.
ANARCHY.
2 II
During the whole period of the anarchy the new
and vigorous life of the towns may be discerned.
Leaving the pre-eminent position of the Londoners.
out of account, it is evident that Bristol, Exeter,
York, and Lincoln, in spite of the feudal violence
around them, preserved the independence of their
municipal life and action. The power of the clergy
also increased in the midst of the general weak-
ness, for the Church did not share in the disor-
ganization of the state. The accession of Stephen,
the election and the rejection of Matilda, the pacifi-
cation at Wallingford, and the peaceful accession of
Henry were in no small degree the work of the
clergy, led first by Henry of Blois and then by Arch-
bishop Theobald. Under both leaders a close con-
nexion was maintained between the action of the
English Church and the policy of Rome. The weak-
ness of the Crown and the violence and changefulness
of the times worked together to strengthen this con-
nexion. Appeals became constant during the legation
of Bishop Henry, and a large number were made at
the council of London, held by Archbishop Theobald
in 1151. At this time too the Church formed a fresh
tie with Rome. Anxious to improve the administration
of the ecclesiastical law, Theobald brought Vacarius
over from Rome to lecture on the civil law in
Oxford. Stephen, it may be, saw something of the
strength which this new teaching would give to the
ecclesiastical party; and against that party he knew
that he had offended. Nor was Henry of Blois likely
to look with favour on anything done by the arch-
bishop. Vacarius was banished. It was not so
P 2
212
NORMAN BRITAIN.
easy to undo his work, and before long Englishmen
went to learn the procedure of the imperial law at
Bologna and Pavia. The Decretum of Gratian
reached England shortly afterwards. The rejection
of the civil law which supplied the church with the
rules of procedure adopted by Latin Christendom,
and the coldness with which the jurisprudence itself
of Latin Christendom was received must be viewed
in connexion with the events of the next reign. Well
as it was for the Church that her system of law should
be regulated, these new studies did much to embark
her on the struggle for privilege, of which the first
signs had already appeared. The true beginning of
that struggle was now near at hand. The end of it
was far off.
7 See page 173.
NORMAN BRITAIN.
213
CHAPTER XV.
RELATIONS OF ENGLAND WITH FOREIGN LANDS.
BEFORE the Conquest, England took little part in
Continental affairs. Nor had she, until the Welsh
war of Harold, made any attempt for more than a
hundred years to extend her borders. The Norman
Conquest caused her to take her place in Europe.
It led to the subjugation of Wales. It brought the
Scottish kingdom and church to yield to English
influence. And after a while it led also to the con-
quest of Ireland. But first of all the Conquest
made the English name familiar in far-off lands in
a wholly different way, for many of our countrymen
fled from Norman oppression and enlisted in the
Warangian guard of the eastern Cæsar. In the war
between Alexios and the Normans they did good
service against their former conquerors; and at the
siege of Constantinople, in 1204, the Franks again
felt the weight of the English battle-axe.¹ By the
closer connexion which followed the Conquest, by
the system of appeals, and the establishment of the
legatine authority, England was brought into fuller
fellowship with Latin Christendom, and was affected
by the questions which agitated the Catholic church.
Gregory VII. was anxious to secure the presence of
¹ Orderic, 508; Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 628–630.
214
NORMAN BRITAIN.
her bishops at his synods. This was a new thing,
and when Anselm entered the Lateran council in
1099, the presence of an archbishop of Canterbury
on such an occasion was an event beyond the ex-
perience of any present. None could say where he
ought to sit, until the pope bade him take a seat of
honour, and greeted him as "the pope of another
world." 2 In the early crusades England took little
part. Nevertheless, Englishmen were foremost in a
crusade which, unlike the more famous of these wars,
was a Teutonic and not a French expedition. In
1147, a fleet of English, German, and Flemish ships
assembled at Dartmouth to deliver Lisbon from the
Moors. The English ships were fitted out by dif-
ferent towns and districts. London, Bristol, South-
ampton, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Kent, each sent its
own contingent to the fleet. Lisbon was taken after
a long siege, and was delivered over to Alfonso of
Portugal. The fleet on sailing away left an English-
man as bishop of the city which it had won back to
Christendom.
The Continental wars of our Norman kings belong
rather to French than to English history. Viewed as
a whole, they affected England in two ways. They
gave her a place in European politics and they
restored the self-respect of her people. By the con-
quest of England the Norman duke was able to use
English troops and English gold in his long-standing
quarrel with the French king. Normandy thus
brought England into the affairs of Europe as the
2
Jaffé, Mon. Greg., p. 381; Eadmer, Hist. Nov., p. 419;
Gervase, 1327.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
215
enemy of France. English troops helped the Con-
queror in 1073 to crush the independence of Maine,
as he had crushed the independence of their own
land. Rufus, in his foreign wars, chose rather to use
English gold to pay his mercenaries and to forward
his policy than to rely on English valour. Yet his
purchase of Normandy brought England for the first
time into direct antagonism with France. In the
ineffectual war of 1097 Frenchmen saw that the vain-
glorious king aspired to the conquest of their land.
They recognized England rather than Normandy as
their national foe, for the Abbot Suger, in writing of
the war, declares that it is not right that the French
should be subject to the English, but rather the
English to the French. Crushed as it had been by
conquest, the spirit of the people was revived by the
Norman wars of Henry I. When Robert invaded
England in 1101, the king in person drilled the English
levies and taught them how to elude the shock of a
charge of cavalry, and to meet the Normans without
fear. The lesson was laid to heart. At Tinchebrai,
in 1106, the king led the foot to battle against the
barons of Normandy. His victory won him the duchy.
And so it happened, as William of Malmesbury
does not fail to notice, that on the self-same day
(September 28) on which forty years before the
Norman host embarked to conquer England, Nor-
mandy itself was made subject to England. The
conquest of Normandy brought Henry face to face
with Lewis VI. He strengthened himself by the
3 Vita Ludovici Grossi, Recueil, xii. 12; Freeman, Norman
Conquest, v. 95-102.
216
NORMAN BRITAIN.
marriage of his daughter Matilda to the Emperor
Henry V. Many Normans accompanied Matilda to
Germany. As their race first obtained a footing in
England through the marriage of Emma, and as the
marriage of Sichelgauda of Salerno to Robert Wiscard
led to the conquest of Apulia, so now they hoped to
gain new greatness by this imperial marriage. It is
evident that the Germans already regarded with some
uneasiness the additional strength which the wealth
of England gave the restless Normans, for in the time
of Henry IV. the archbishop of Köln is said to have.
been accused of having invited the Conqueror and his
"barbarians" to attack the empire. Henry V. gave
the Normans no opportunity for pushing their fortune,
for he sent his uninvited visitors back again. The
emperor had his own causes of quarrel with the
French king, and in 1124, when Lewis upheld the
Norman barons against Henry, he acted in concert
with his father-in-law. The quarrel of the duke of
Normandy with the French king gave England a
place in the affairs of Europe, and the conquest of
Normandy gave her people a share in the glory of
their king. It was not, however, until the time of
Henry II. that England became a great Continental
power. And in the first two Angevin reigns the
headship of a wide-stretching Continental confederacy,
and the glories of a splendid crusade belonged rather
to our kings than to their kingdom; for England was
but one of the dominions of the Angevin house.
Still here alone the Angevin dukes were kings, and the
¹ Orderic, 8;8; Lambert, sub an. 1074.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
217
power and fame of Henry and of Richard shed some of
their lustre on the English name. We must, however,
go on to the reign of Edward I. if we would find the
glory of the English king as a crusader and his great-
ness as a European power reckoned to the credit of our
land. Yet England in the twelfth century exercised
in one European kingdom an influence of a special
character. The close connexion maintained between
England and Sicily, and the cordial welcome which
the Sicilian kings extended to all men of ability,
encouraged several English subjects to seek their
fortune in the other island kingdom of the Normans.
The most famous of these was Thomas Brown, who
became a minister of King Roger, and then came
back to England to have great authority in the
Exchequer of Henry II.
The conquest of Wales, unlike the conquest of
England, was effected by private enterprise, and
consequently brought with it all the evils of pro-
longed warfare, of lawlessness, cruelty, and greed,
from which England was saved by the power of her
conqueror. On the north the earl of Chester and
Robert of Rhuddlan, the chief of his lords, fought
and conquered for themselves in Gwynedd. So, too,
did the Earl of Shrewsbury in Powys from his castle
of Montgomery. While in the south the earl of Here-
ford for a while followed up the victories of Harold.
The advance of the Normans was aided by the feuds
of the native princes. Very terrible were the cruelties
which were committed in these border wars. Orderic,
writing in his monastery at St. Evroul, as he records
the glory of "the warlike marquess," or lord marcher,
218
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Robert of Rhuddlan, one of the benefactors of his
house, says, with honest indignation, that his deeds
were such as Christian men should not do against
their fellow-Christians.5 Once the Conqueror entered
Wales with an army. He met with no resistance,
and advanced as far as St. David's, freeing many
hundreds of captives from the Welsh as he passed,
and perhaps raising Cardiff castle to secure the con-
quest of the land. During the reign of Rufus, South
Wales was subdued by a process of military coloni-
zation. Rhys ap Tewdwr, who is called the last of
the Welsh kings, was slain at Brecknock, and Bernard of
Neufmarché subdued Brecheiniog (Brecknockshire).
Robert Fitz Hamon settled in Morganwg (Glamorgan)
and ruled the land from his castle at Cardiff. In the
next reign, Robert of Gloucester married the heiress
of Fitz Hamon and succeeded to his dominions.
Ceredigion (Cardiganshire) and Dyfed, or St. David's
land (Pembrokeshire) were lost by the Welsh as
much through intestine discord as by foreign arms,
and the conquest of the south-west was secured by
the castle of Pembroke, which was held by Gerald
of Windsor, under Arnulf of Montgomery. A sudden
rising of the Welsh in 1094 led Rufus to make three
campaigns against them. General as this rising was,
there was no union or concerted action in the
attempt; and though Rufus was unsuccessful in
warfare, he insured the subjugation of the country
by building castles. By this means garrisons were
stationed in different parts throughout the land, so
3 Orderic, 670.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
219
that each isolated movement of revolt was at once
met by a local force.
A fresh settlement, in 1107, under Gilbert Fitz
Richard of Clare, reduced Ceredigion to submission.
About the same time Henry planted a colony of
Flemings in Dyfed. The marriage of Matilda of
Flanders to the Conqueror brought many of her
countrymen over to England. The English regarded
these Flemings with considerable jealousy, and
Henry collected them together and settled them
in the parts about Tenby. Traces of an earlier
Teutonic colonization of this district remain in some
Scandinavian local names, such as Freystrop. And
this later settlement of men of a kindred race, who
seem to have largely supplanted the native inhabitants,
has still more powerfully affected local nomenclature.
The Teutonic descent of the people of South Pem-
brokeshire can be still traced both in their personal
aspect and in the prevalence of such names as Jenkins
and Watkins. The language of the new settlers was,
like our own, a Low Dutch dialect, and whatever dif-
ference may have at first existed between their speech
and the speech of their English fellow-settlers must
have speedily disappeared. Gerald de Barri (Giraldus
Cambrensis), writing in 1191, says that these Flemish
colonists were a hardy race, equally good with the
plough and with the sword. They were well versed
in trade, and especially skilled in woollen manufac-
facture. The language and local nomenclature of
Gower, of the district of Llantwit, and of other parts
of Glamorgan seem to point to the presence of other
Flemish colonies, but of these there is no written evi-
220
NORMAN BRITAIN.
dence. Under the protection of a castle, each
body of colonists-French, English, and Flemings,—
dwelt together in one community, either taking pos-
session of some Welsh settlement or else forming a
new town. Before long they obtained charters of in-
corporation. No Welshman had any share in their
municipal life; and for the most part the natives kept
to the mountainous country, where they were still able
to live in their old wild fashion. Henry made two ex-
peditions into Wales, and received the submission of
the people. On his death they made another rising.
The outbreak began in Gower and spread rapidly.
They slew Richard of Clare and harried the Norman
possessions in Cardigan. In spite of the expeditions
which Stephen sent against them, they held their
ground in a long and desultory war. Torn by
intestine feuds, as well as by a constant struggle
between the natives and the foreign settlers, the land
had a full share in the anarchy of the time.
The subjugation of the Welsh church followed the
conquest of the land. The lines of native bishops
ended, and Normans or Frenchmen were appointed to
the Welsh sees. No community of interest existed be-
tween these foreign bishops and their clergy. Beyond
the reach of Rome, the Welsh church probably re-
tained many of its primitive practices. There was no
ecclesiastical organization or discipline. The clergy
lived as married men, and were poor and ignorant.
Careless in the performance of divine service, they
were eager to relieve their poverty by extorting fees
• Itin. Kambriæ, i., 10; Freeman, Norman Conquest,
v., 854.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
221
for their ministrations. Instead of exercising any
softening or elevating influence on their flocks, they
were as uncivilized as the society around them. No
effort after a better state of things was made by the
foreign bishops, who looked on their Welsh dioceses.
merely as steps towards promotion. They only cared
to get all they could by fair means or foul both from
the clergy and the people, and often lived away from
their sees. A vain effort was made in the time of
Henry II. to gain ecclesiastical independence for
Wales by making St. David's a metropolitan see.
The king, however, saw that ecclesiastical and civil
independence were closely allied. He refused his
consent, and the Welsh church remained subject to
Canterbury. Norman devotion was displayed in
Wales, as elsewhere, in the foundation of religious
houses; yet even devotion was gratified by a share
in the spoils of the conquered land, and the tithes
of Welsh parishes were alienated to enrich English
monasteries.
The Norman Conquest decided the English character
of the Scottish kingdom. In the time of the Conqueror
the chief power of the Scottish king lay in the district
between the Forth and the Dee. Southwards he held
English Lothian, the northern part of the old Ber-
nician kingdom, and on the south-west Strathclyde
or Cumbria—once a Celtic kingdom which had been
granted to the Scottish crown by Eadmund,-while in
the extreme south-west Pictish Galloway was rather a
tributary land than part of his actual dominions. On
7 Giraldus Cambrensis, ii. ed. Brewer, R.S.
222
NORMAN BRITAIN.
the north the royal power was bounded by the Mor-
maor of Moray, who, though nominally a subject,
was virtually independent of the Crown. Above the
land of Moray lay different Gaelic tribes and the
Northmen of Caithness and Ross. Norman England
helped the Scottish king to triumph over the power
of Moray, caused the Scottish kingdom and church
to adopt an English character, and changed the
seat of the royal power from Gaelic Alban to
English Lothian. The flight of Eadgar the Ætheling,
with his sisters Margaret and Christina, and some
of the great men of the north, to the court of
Malcolm, in 1068, gave the Scottish king a pretext for
engaging in border war; and although he sent some
message of submission to the Conqueror when he was
at York, he most cruelly devastated Cleveland and
Durham. Scotland was filled with English slaves of
both sexes, and their presence must have done some-
thing to forward the social changes which were effected
by the sons of Malcolm. The marriage of the Scot-
tish king with Margaret gave him fresh reason for
harassing the Norman border. In 1072, the Con-
queror advanced to Abernethy, on the Tay, and there
Malcolm met him and did him homage. During the
rebellion of Robert, in 1079, he again attacked Eng-
land. When William was reconciled to his son he
sent him against Malcolm. In order to protect the
borders, Robert founded a castle on the Tyne, which
was called Newcastle. Another bulwark was added to
England by Rufus. In 1092, he advanced the English
border by taking southern Cumbria, or the Carlisle
district, from Dolfin, a semi-independent chief,
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
223
who held it of Malcolm. He rebuilt Carlisle and
set up a castle there. He also peopled his new pos-
session with a colony of English ceorls, sending them,
"with wives and cattle, to dwell in the land to till
it." The next year Rufus tried to turn the relation-
ship acknowledged by the homage of Malcolm, into
strict feudal dependence, and on the appearance of
the Scottish king at his court at Gloucester, treated
him with contempt. Enraged at this insult, Malcolm
for the fifth time invaded England, and was slain on
the banks of the Alne. Malcolm allowed himself to
be guided by his queen, who was a saintly, learned,
and refined woman. He introduced greater state into
his court; he favoured Margaret's literary tastes, and
joined her in religious observances. Margaret was an
earnest ecclesiastical reformer, and the state of the
Scottish church gave her scope for the exercise of
her talents. In the ninth century, an order of monks
from Ireland, called Culdees, or God's servants, began
to take the place of the original monks introduced by
St. Columba or his fellows. Although, no doubt, the
first introduction of the Culdees into Scotland was an
effort after a stricter life, by the eleventh century the
order had deteriorated. Abbotships were held by
laymen, who handed down their office to their chil-
dren. There was no ecclesiastical discipline, for the
bishops were virtually little more than officers of the
abbeys, and many lax and evil customs prevailed.
Malcolm and Margaret held several councils, in
which the queen in person argued against these cus-
toms. Her husband, who regarded her with great
reverence, acted as her interpreter, for he knew English
224
NORMAN BRITAIN.
perfectly; and by their combined efforts the clergy
were brought to conform in many respects to those
Catholic usages to which the queen was accustomed.8
The partiality of Malcolm and his queen to English
men and English ways was distasteful to the Scots.
On the death of the king, the succession to the throne
was disputed between his brother and his son, and
the struggle seems to have taken the form of a trial
of strength between the national and foreign factions
in the kingdom.9 At length, in 1097, Eadgar, the
English ætheling, with the consent of Rufus, led an
army into Scotland and established his nephew Eadgar
on the throne. The marriage of Henry I. with
Eadgyth, the daughter of Malcolm and Margaret,
drew the Scottish kingdom into yet closer relationship
with England. As Eadgar left Scottish Cumbria as
an appanage to David, his youngest brother, his suc-
cessor Alexander was not strong enough to effect any
considerable reform in the state. He had, however,
probably learned from England the advantage of a
vigorous assertion of the royal authority, and he
accordingly demanded from the northern Mormaors
a submission which they were unused to make. On
their rebellion, he crushed their power in a fierce
battle by the Frith of Moray. He was not equally
successful in his attempt at ecclesiastical reform.
Hoping to secure a bishop of St. Andrews who would
help him to carry out his views, he procured the
8 Councils and Eccl. Documents, ii., part i., pp. 156, 175.
9 Robertson, Scotland under her Early Kings, i., 155;
I will here acknowledge, once for all, my great obligations to
this work.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
225
election of Turgot, who had been the confessor of
his mother. Turgot was prior of Durham and was
the first English bishop of St. Andrews. When he
applied to Thomas, archbishop elect of York, for
consecration, he was required to profess obedience to
the see of York. This demand was grounded on the
plan made by Gregory for the division of the whole
island between two metropolitans. The claim was
left unsettled, for when Thomas had received
the pall he consecrated Turgot, in obedience to
the command of Henry, reserving the right of
subjection. Before long Turgot gave up his bishopric
because the king thwarted him. Alexander, in order
to get rid of the claim of York, caused Eadmer, a
monk of Canterbury, the friend and biographer of
Anselm, to be elected as his successor. Eadmer,
however, insisted on regarding his see as subject to
Canterbury, and Archbishop Ralph claimed it on the
ground that Gregory included Scotland in his grant
of the metropolitan see of Britain to St. Augustine.
After much dispute, Alexander chose another bishop,
and Eadmer lost his office. Although there was no
metropolitan see in Scotland, neither of the English
archbishops had a good claim on the obedience of
the Scottish church, for in the unorganized state of the
Culdee episcopate there had been no exercise of metro-
politan authority, nor did any question arise as to the
right to the office of metropolitan until the Scottish
Crown set about to reform the Church after the English
model. In 1188, the pope disposed of the claims of
both archbishops by declaring the church of Scotland
to be immediately dependent on the Holy See.
Q
226
NORMAN BRITAIN.
On the accession of David the kingdom was greatly
strengthened by the union of Scottish Cumbria to
the Crown. Brought up at the English court, David
had the feelings of a Norman baron. In his Cum-
brian principality he kept many Normans round him,
and as his marriage with Matilda, the daughter of Earl
Waltheof, brought him the honour of Huntingdon, he
was a tenant-in-chief of the English king. With the
help of some of the barons of the north of England,
he destroyed the power of the Mormaor of Moray,
and extended the royal power over the northern
Highlands. This victory enabled him to reward
his friends, and many foreigners received grants of
Moray lands and founded families which soon counted
themselves as belonging to Scotland. David gladly
received all strangers who were able to add strength
to his throne, and as most of the land in Lothian and
Strathclyde was held immediately of the Crown, he
was able to settle them in those districts, which soon
became the most important part of his kingdom. So
it was that Norman lords held lands both of the
English and the Scottish crowns. Thus at the battle
of the Standard, Robert of Brus and Bernard of
Bailleul, two English barons of Norman blood,
renounced their homage to David and fought on the
English side, while Alan Percy fought for Scotland.
The time was yet far distant when men had definitely
to choose on which side of the border they would fix
their homes. On the death of Henry I., David
declared for his niece, and by so doing obtained from
Stephen the grant of Carlisle, and for his son Henry
Doncaster and the earldom of Huntingdon. He
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND.
227
•
also claimed the earldom of Northumberland for
his son in right of his mother, Matilda; and in spite
of his defeat at Northallerton, gained that land also.
The success of David's measures of reform is of
more importance than his
than his transient gains in
territory. He organised the church by taking
away the episcopate from the Culdees. He freed
the bishops from monastic control and appointed
and established a new diocesan system. St.
Andrews and some other large Culdee monasteries he
converted into Augustinian priories and made the
canons the episcopal chapter. Monasteries of regular
orders were established, and in some cases he forced
the Culdees who were already in possession of a
monastery either to take the new vows or to leave
their home. In civil matters David began to under-
mine the power of the Mormaors by confining their
authority to their own lands and handing over to
sheriffs the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
exercised as vicegerents of the Crown. In his new
system of administration he copied English police
arrangements and the procedure of the English courts.
He adopted the feudal land tenure of the Normans,
and laid the foundation of the political power of the
tenants-in-chief, who in after days formed an estate
of the Scottish realm. Copying English models in a
yet more excellent way, he organized boroughs and
granted them charters. These new communities
were naturally established where the English and
Flemings were mostly congregated. The laws of the
Four Burghs, "Berewic, Rokisburg, Edinburg, and
Strivelin," which were united in a kind of confederacy,
Q 2
228
NORMAN BRITAIN.
show how closely they resembled English boroughs,
Dwelling beneath the walls of a royal castle, the
burghers were strictly protected against any infringe-
ment of their rights by the castellan or his men.
Although the tenure of land within the borough
formed the basis of burgher right, these towns were,
nevertheless, distinctly mercantile. Each had its
merchant guild, of which neither dyer nor flesher
might obtain the freedom unless he foreswore to work
with his own hands. Dyeing, clothmaking, and tan-
ning were the principal trades, and none but a burgher
might buy wool to dye or to make cloth. All pleas,
save pleas of the Crown, were heard in the borough
courts before the aldermen and bailiffs, who were
chosen each year by the goodmen of the town. In
these courts the burgher might defend his right by
battle. 10 Other lords followed the king's example and
gave freedom to their towns.
While the subjugation of Wales, itself a result of
the Norman conquest of England, was at last
accomplished when England entered on a new
life under the first king that since the conquest
bore the English name of Edward, the com-
pletion of the nobler
the nobler victory which England,
through her own overthrow, won in Scotland was
beyond Edward's power. Hindered rather than
hastened by his premature efforts, the establishment
of order in Scotland was the work of centuries. And
perhaps it is not too much to say that the regene-
ration of Scotland, made possible by the events of
10 "Leges Quatuor Burgorum" (Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland), i., 5-44.
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND
229
1066, was not completed until the disarmament of
the clans and the extinction of heritable jurisdictions
after the rebellion of 1745.
The presence of the Normans in England insured
the conquest of Ireland. Ecclesiastical supremacy
paved the way for civil dominion. Irish bishops and
archbishops sought consecration from the archbishop
of Canterbury, and Lanfranc wrote letters to Irish
kings, exhorting them to correct the immorality and
reform the ecclesiastical abuses which prevailed in
their kingdoms. The submission of the Church
seems to have been regarded as the forerunner of the
subjugation of the land. Had the Conqueror lived
two years more, the chronicler said, "he had won
Ireland with his wariness, and that without any
weapons." Rufus was believed to have boasted that
he would throw a bridge of ships from the rocks of
Wales to the opposite shore, and lead an army across
it to conquest. When Henry II. meditated the
reduction of Ireland, he sought the sanction of the
Holy See, as his great-grandfather had sought it when
he determined on the invasion of England. Like
the Norman duke, the Angevin king was bidden go
forth as on a holy war, to root out corruption and
spread the religion of Christ. Unhappily, in Ireland,
even more than in Wales, the work of conquest was
done by private adventurers. And thus in its earliest
days English dominion in church and state was
stained with the vices of a feudal oligarchy.
230
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PEOPLE.
WHILE perhaps every people of Western Europe was
represented in the Norman colonization of England,
the only important additions to the population con-
sisted of Normans, Frenchmen, Bretons, and Flemings.
Large colonies of Flemings were, as we have seen,
planted in Wales. They were composed of men of the
working class, and neither the families of landowners
like Arnulf of Hesdin, in Somerset, or Gilbert of
Ghent, in Lincoln, nor of their dependents, would be
affected by the transplantation of their countrymen.
As, however, the Flemings belonged to the same race
and spoke a dialect of the same language as the
English, they were speedily amalgamated with the mass
of the people. The Bretons had no small share in the
work of conquest. The names of some large Breton
landowners in Devon and Cornwall suggest the thought
that the Welsh of Britanny may have cherished the
remembrance of the Damnonian kingdom. Another,
and larger body of Bretons settled in and about Norwich
under Ralph of Wader. These, however, and many
others of their countrymen were forced to leave
England in consequence of the conspiracy of 1075.
A third settlement was made under Alan of Britanny,
the founder of Richmond Castle, who had large estates
THE PEOPLE.
231
both in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. But the Kelts
are a home-loving race, and Breton ballads and
traditions point to the return of the descendants of
many of Alan's followers to their own land. The
main body of the new colonists consisted of Normans
and Frenchmen. The Normans themselves had
received a large intermixture of French blood, and the
labouring class of Normandy, to which probably the
archers of William's army mainly belonged, was far
more French than Scandinavian. Even the nobles,.
who, on the male side, boasted their descent from Rolf
or his companions, traced their genealogy through.
Frenchwomen, and save in names and in some
characteristics were almost Frenchmen. The colo-
nization which accompanied the Conquest was there-
fore mainly Romance in character, and it is not
misleading to find the conquerors as a whole called
French in opposition to the native English. In the
country the number of new settlers was probably not
sufficiently large as seriously to affect the character of
the population. In the towns, however, and especially
in the great trading cities the case was different. The
charter of William I. to the Londoners implies the
presence of a considerable number of Frenchmen in
the city before the Conquest, and a steady influx of
traders from Normandy seems to have been kept up
in after years. Other towns also received large
foreign colonies.
By the close of the Norman period the "French"
and "English" of Domesday were fused into one
people. Signs of their fusion naturally first appear in
the relations of England with foreign countries. Even
232
NORMAN BRITAIN.
in the days of the Conqueror, Lanfranc, in a letter
to the archbishop of Dublin, writes, "We English."
And during the reign of Rufus, Suger looked on the
rivals of his own people as Englishmen. At home,
however, the distinction was more marked. Rufus,
on the day of his death, is said to have received a
letter from the abbot of Gloucester warning him of
coming danger by relating the dream of a monk.
"Does he think," the king replied, "that I follow
the fashion of the English, who give up their journeys
for the snoring or the dreams of old women?" In
the next reign the sneers of the Norman nobles at
the marriage of Henry with Eadgyth show their con-
tempt for the English, and the wise Robert of Meulan
is said to have disliked them and to have opposed the
promotion of English clergy. Nevertheless the reign
of Henry I. was a period of amalgamation. The
Normans ever took wives of the people whom they
conquered, and Walter Map, writing in the latter
part of the twelfth century, says that Henry I. by
encouraging intermarriage and by every other means
knit the two peoples into a firm alliance.¹ Born in
England, the children of these mixed marriages
looked on themselves as Englishmen. Orderic for
example, who was the son of a French priest and an
Englishwoman, is full of patriotic feeling. He tells
us how he came to St. Evroul as a stranger and
foreigner, a little exile of ten years old to be enrolled
in the army of the Eternal King. The cruelties of the
barons in the years of the anarchy seem to have been
1 "De Nugis Curialium," 209.
THE PEOPLE.
233
exercised on all who were weak, without regard to
race, and the bond of affliction helped to complete
the union of the races. Richard FitzNigel, treasurer
of the Exchequer, in his famous Dialogue on that
court, written in the reign of Henry II., says that
English and Normans were then so intermarried, and
the nations were so thoroughly united, that in the case
of a freeman it was a hard matter to decide whether
he belonged to the one or the other. A villein, how-
ever, might always be presumed to be an Englishman,
and therefore the law of "presentment of Englishry
and the fine for murder then applied to a distinction
of condition rather than of race. From this time
villeins were despised, not because they were English-
men, but because they were villeins. When, how-
ever, new comers from Normandy or France settled
in England, they naturally brought with them
prejudices which had died out among those who had
dwelt together as one people. On the contemptuous
expressions of some of these foreigners has been
founded much idle romance about the supposed con-
tinuance of the distinction between the races.
""
The fusion of the two peoples is illustrated by
scattered notices which prove that during the twelfth
century some men of Norman descent, and of high
position, both spoke and understood English. Henry
I. certainly was one of them. And it is not wonderful
that the children of Englishwomen, as many men of
Norman name undoubtedly were, should speak the
tongue of their mothers and of the larger number of
their servants. The marriages between the two races
and the influence of fashion combined to displace
234
NORMAN BRITAIN.
many of our English proper names by those in use
amongst the Normans. There are many instances
which show how constantly, after the Conquest, Eng-
lishmen gave their sons foreign names. Thus, in the
Pipe Roll of Henry I., we find Walter the son of
Godwine and Otho Alwinessune. The influence of
this fashion caused the name of Henry's queen to be
changed from Eadgyth to Matilda, a change which
reminds us of that which gave to the Norman Emma
the English name of Ælfgifu. The residence of the
English æthelings in Rouen caused their names
to be somewhat fashionable in Normandy. Some
Edwards came over with the Conqueror, and Alfreds
were common enough among the Normans. But
cases in which Normans appear to have called their
children by English names other than these are
extremely rare. Edith, the daughter of William of
Warren, was most likely called after the wife of the
Confessor, the "Old Lady" of the English, who may
have been her godmother. For the most part our
English names fell into disuse, though some of them
have at different times come into fashion again. While
surnames of various kinds were constantly used in
early English times, hereditary surnames were alto-
gether unknown before the Conquest. They grew up
more quickly from the names of places than from the
names of forefathers. Baldwin, for instance, the
youngest son of Gilbert Fitz Richard, was not called
Baldwin Fitz Richard, but Baldwin of Clare, from a
lordship which his grandfather had in Suffolk, and
the name without the lordship was also inherited by
others of the same house. Yet even in this case the
THE PEOPLE.
235
surname does not seem to have been borne by all
the members of the house of Gilbert, and the regular
use of hereditary surnames belongs to a later period.
The change effected by the Conquest in the law of
alienation and hereditary succession was gradual. By
early English law the receiver of boc-land was unable
to alienate it from his kindred unless he was expressly
allowed to do so by the grant by which he received
it. On the introduction of Norman law the power of
alienating land by will passed away altogether. On the
other hand, while some restrictions existed in Norman
times on the power of alienation during life, they
partook of the spirit of the old law, and insured the
preservation of the ancient inheritance of the family.
The restrictions of the next age, on the contrary,
were imposed in favour of the feudal lord. By
English custom a man's land descended on his death
to all his sons equally. In the case of a tenant by
knight-service Norman law gave all his land to his
eldest son. No exact date can be assigned to this
change, nor was it made by any special enactment.
It was a necessary consequence of military tenures,
and came in with them. In the case of socage land
the English custom of descent continued during the
whole Norman period. By the time of Henry III.,
however, the descent of lands held in socage fol-
lowed the rule of primogeniture, except in certain
special cases, such as the county of Kent, where the
old English custom still holds good.
The Romance colonization of England naturally
drove English from its position as the official language
of the country. This was no matter of tyranny, for
236
NORMAN BRITAIN.
the ministers of the Crown could not speak English.
Nor was English supplanted by French. Some of
the writs of the Conqueror are in English, the rest—
by far the larger number-are in Latin, and Latin
soon became the only official language. The use of
Latin was not a compromise, for the common tongue
of Western Europe was as distinctly the language of
government as it was of religion. Its use in England
was no sign of servitude, though it was a sign that
our land had been brought into the commonwealth of
European nations. When, towards the end of the
thirteenth century, French took its place along with
Latin as an official language, all question of race.
distinctions had passed away.
William of Malmesbury notices how soon the two
races became like each other in manners and habits.
The Normans, he says, adopted the gluttony and
drunkenness of the English, while in other things the
English copied their conquerors. Habits of luxury
and extravagance prevailed among the upper classes
during the reign of the Norman kings. One sign of
the evil state of society was that men wore long hair,
a custom which was connected with the moral de-
pravity of the court of Rufus. In spite of the
reformation brought about by Henry, this custom
continued in his reign. In 1130 an Englishman of
knightly rank had a dream which put long hair out
of fashion, but after a little while men allowed their
hair to grow again. By the time of the Conquest
Englishmen had ceased to wear beards, and only
allowed the hair to grow on the upper lip. The
Normans, as the tapestry shows us, shaved their faces
THE PEOPLE.
237
all over. During the reign of Henry beards began to
be worn, and appear to have been regarded with much.
disgust by the clergy. Peaked shoes and rich mantles
were in fashion among the men. Ladies wore their
hair twisted into two enormous plaits, one on each
side of the face. Their veils and the wristbands of
their upper robe were of such preposterous length
that they were often knotted up to prevent them from
trailing on the ground. The Normans built houses
of stone, and William of Malmesbury speaks of
their love for spacious dwellings. Nevertheless the
houses which remain of this period, or perhaps rather
of the years which immediately succeeded it, are
small, consisting for the most part of a vaulted sub-
structure and of one room above it, sometimes divided
in the middle, with an exterior staircase. The use of
fire-places seems to have come in during the Norman
reigns, and chimneys were built in the walls, which were
of vast thickness. A splendid banqueting-hall was
sometimes added to castle or palace, such as the hall
of Rufus at Westminster, which the vainglorious king
declared was not half so large as he had meant it to
be. The Normans, no less than the English, were
addicted to gambling with dice. They were also
familiar with the game of chess. Minstrels, jesters,
actors, and dancers wandered from one castle or hall
to another, relieving the dulness of uncultured minds,
and a professional jester seems to have held a perma-
nent appointment in the court of the saintly Eadward.
The clergy set their faces against the players' per-
formances, which were often extremely coarse; and
Giraldus shows some liberality in declaring that rc-
238
NORMAN BRITAIN.
conciliation was not to be denied to play-actors or
apostates on their repentance. In order to provide
people with dramatic entertainments of a better kind
the clergy caused their scholars to act in the churches
representations of miracles and of the passions of
martyrs. Schools were still plentiful. The recorded
history of Oxford as a place of learning dates from
1133, when a Breton, named Robert Pulein, read
lectures there on the Holy Scriptures. In the next
reign, as we have seen, Vacarius taught the civil
law there until he was driven away. The abbey of
St. Alban's maintained the most famous monastic
school during this period. By the middle of the twelfth
century, however, many of the nobles neglected to give
their children any school teaching. A rude magnifi-
cence and a brutal disregard of the feelings of others
prevailed among the upper class. Nor do the women
of the Norman period, save in a few instances,
appear to have exercised much influence on society
for good.
The Romance notion of chivalry, with the class
distinctions and the narrow sentiments of honour
which grew round it, had little hold on England
until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Some
instances of real and some of overstrained courtesy
occur in the wars of our Norman kings, and the
introduction of the semi-religious ceremony of knight-
hood tended to strengthen the idea of respect as due
to a certain order of men rather than to mankind at
large. At the cavalry-battle of Noyon, for example,
in 1119, Orderic tells us that only three were slain,
for besides that the horsemen were clad in armour,
THE PEOPLE.
239
"as Christian warriors they strove not to slay their
brothers-in-arms, but to win a lawful triumph and to
benefit the church of God," though perhaps in reality
the hope of ransom had as much to do with the
smallness of the slaughter as any other motive. Be
this as it may, the connexion of knighthood with
land-tenure in England, and the subsequent legis-
lation which connected it more directly with taxation,
weakened its influences on society.
Of the condition of the labouring class during this.
period we have scanty means of judging. During
the century and a half preceding the Conquest the
ceorls lost much of their former independence.
Under the Normans they became the villeins of
feudal society. Before as well as after 1066 the word
"ceorl" was translated by villanus, and in a letter of
the men of Kent to Æthelstan, written in Latin, the
simple freemen, without nobility or office, call them-
selves "villani"; in writing English, however, we
must not describe ceorls as villeins until the time that
their dependence became fully developed and reduced
to a system by the introduction of foreign lords.
As the villeins of feudal society they were con-
sidered as attached to the land, and holding their
tenements as the customary tenants of the lord.
The part which the villeins took in the inquest
held before the Commissioners of the Domesday
Survey shows that they had not at that time lost
their ancient rights in the local courts. Nor did
they wholly lose these rights during the Norman
period, for they still, as of old, sent their representa-
tives to the court of the hundred and the shire. As,
240
NORMAN BRITAIN.
2
however, they were not allowed to be judices and
juratores, their position in these courts was not so good
as in the old days. It is declared by Glanvill, writing
in the reign of Henry II., that the villein had nothing
which he could call his own, that all he had belonged
to his master, and that he therefore could not redeem
himself from villenage. Yet it is certain that villeins
did sometimes purchase their own freedom and the
freedom of their wives and children. The strict
reasoning of the lawyers tended to depress the villein,
for his actual condition during this period was better
than that described by Glanvill. As against his lord
he had a right to claim the protection of the law for
his person, and as against all other men he was fully
secured. Men were villeins by birth. According to
Norman law the condition of the father defined that
of the child, though the offspring of an unmarried
female villein or neife (nativa) were born in villenage.
When children were born to a father and mother who
were villeins of two separate manors, the two lords
divided them with each other. Yet though the
villein was thus reckoned as part of his lord's wealth,
and was bought and sold along with the cattle on an
estate, he might not be separated from the land on
which he dwelt. Law books, indeed, speak of villeins
in gross, or men who belonged absolutely to their
lord, in distinction to villeins regardant, who were
villeins in respect of the land. But it is obvious that
those who are described as villeins in gross were not
really villeins. They were slaves or theows, of whom
2 Dr. Stubbs on Pipe Roll, 31 Henry I., p. 55, in Const.
Hist., i., xi., 132.
THE PEOPLE.
241
there were large numbers in England before the
Conquest. This confusion illustrates the fact that,
while the law tended to depress the lowest class of
freemen, mixing up the various grades of the ceorls
and bringing them all alike into one condition of
villenage, it raised the mere slave into the same con-
dition, so that absolute slavery silently died out.
And the degradation of men who once were fully free
contained a saving element which could have had no
place in the continuance of former slavery. Girt
round with the memory of the customs of brighter
days the villein needed only the revival of old rights,
not the invention of new indulgences, to restore him
to his former independence.
Provided that he had a just master, the position of
the villein during the Norman period was degraded
rather than absolutely miserable. Walter Map, for
example, despised villeins. It was grievous to him
that such boors should send their children to school
so as to enable them to rise in the world. The com-
plaint implies that the education of the children of
villeins was not uncommon. He blamed those who
preferred any lot to villenage. The poor were
rebellious in spirit and felt blows an injury. Yet he
was not an unkind master and took good care of his
own dependents. The villein was never out of work.
Though he received no wages in money, he was paid
like every one else in land, and he had no cause to
fear lest he should be turned out of his house and
3
³ De Nugis Curialium, 9-13; De Diversis Ordinibus
Hominum, 209–224. This poem, however, seems to belong
to a later date.
R
242
NORMAN BRITAIN.
ground. To many a villein manumission would have
been no blessing, for it would have brought with it the
loss of his home and of his daily bread. On the other
hand, as the lowest in the social scale, all burthens
fell at last on him. The heavy taxation of the reign
of Henry I. brought fearful misery on the labourers.
Of the year 1124 the Chronicler says, "A full heavy
year was it; the man who had any goods was bereft
of them by exactions and violent moots; they who
had none died of hunger." The next year a flood in
August ruined corn-land and meadow, and brought
famine and sickness on man and beast. As the
weakest, the villein was the easiest prey of lawless
men. When the hunter trod down his crops, he did
well to offer his best, with humble mien, to refresh
the great man in his sport. Such villeins as were
fitted by education or in other ways to get on in the
world must have longed for a change of life. If they
chose to throw up their holdings and take refuge in a
town, they obtained their freedom by remaining there
for a year and a day and by becoming members of
the guild. Those who gained their freedom thus
were probably not mere agricultural labourers. Every
great estate contained the whole body of workmen
which it required, and among them there were of
course many who would be able to get on well in a
town.
It is likely that the best masters were to be found
amongst the abbeys and other clerical bodies. From
the clergy the children of villeins gained the education
which fitted them for a different life than that of their
fathers. Such a life was offered them by the Church
THE PEOPLE.
243
herself, and it is evident that in many cases the sons
of villeins gained their freedom by taking orders; for
in the reign of Henry II. this practice was forbidden
by law, except when the lord had first given his con-
sent. The duty of manumission was strongly urged
by the clergy. Some of the records of manumission,
preserved in the famous Exeter books, afford interesting
illustrations of the position of villeins. As regards
the dictum of Glanvill as to the property of the
villeins, we read how Godwine Blaca (Black) bought
himself, his wife, and family from William Hosethe
for 15s., "and Elfric Hasl took the toll for the
king's hand." This is the record of the manumission
of a theow, and if the slave was allowed to have
private property (his peculium) and to redeem himself
with it, the villein was certainly in no worse case.
Manumission appears as a religious act in the record,
which tells us how "on the day of the translation of
the bodies of Bishop Osbern and Bishop Leofric,
Bishop William (W. Warelwast, of Exeter, 1107-1136)
declared Wulfric Pig free and sacless of the land at
Teigntun, and freed him for the love of God and of
St. Mary and of all Christ's saints, and for the
redemption of the souls of the bishops and of his
own soul."5
Here the expression, "sacless of the
land,” seems to imply that Wulfric Pig was a villein,
attached to, or regardant, the land. Another record
4 Thorpe, Diplomatarium, pp. 633, 637, 646.
5 This record has a special importance, for the translation of
the bishops out of the old into the new church proves that the
present cathedral church of Exeter does not stand on the same
site as its predecessor.
:
R 2
244
NORMAN BRITAIN.
►
has a peculiar interest. It describes how Liveger the
baker bought "a wifman" Edith of Bishop Geoffrey
(of Coutances) for 30d. "to be free and sacless, she
and her offspring, out of the land at Clist" (the
offspring need not have been then in existence); and
the deed ends,-" and may he who shall this undo
have God's curse for ever without end. Amen." The
reason of Liveger's purchase is told us by another
record. He bought Edith to be his wife, and married.
her. After a while another lord of Clist succeeded
the bishop. He tried to "undo" the deed of Liveger
and claimed the baker's wife as his niefe. Happily
the record of manumission was preserved; it was
put in evidence and the lord's claim was disproved.
Like a suit touching freehold, a claim of villenage
could only be heard in virtue of a royal writ, for the
king was lord of all his people as well as of their
land. The man who was claimed as a villein defended
his freedom by the oaths of his free kindred. If
their witness was unsatisfactory, an inquest was held
by the men of his neighbourhood and by their
finding his freedom was established. The signatures
to the record confirming the freedom of Liveger's
wife illustrate how in these, as in all matters,
Normans and Englishmen acted together without
distinction. The exclusion of villeins and "mean
men "from the class which supplied the judices and
juratores, the men of the neighbourhood who made
inquests, was probably unfavourable to the cause of
freedom.
Our knowledge of the town life of this period
comes chiefly from notices of a little later date.
THE PEOPLE.
245
Fitz-Stephen, a monk of Canterbury, writing in the
time of Henry II., describes the grandeur of London,
which, under the Norman kings, took the place of
Winchester as the royal city. In the east stood the
mighty tower built by Bishop Gundulf, and on all the
walls were strong fortifications. Two miles to the
west stood the minster of Eadward and the hall of
Rufus. Outside the walls pleasant gardens lay round
the houses of the citizens. The English ever loved
flowers, and their conquerors adopted their taste.
Even Rufus, when on a visit to Romsey, was taken
by the abbess, who was perhaps an Englishwoman,
into her garden to see her roses and other
flowers. Beyond the gardens of the Londoners
were meadows and pastures, and round about were
limpid springs, such as Holy well and Clerken well.
Besides the cathedral church, thirteen monasteries
and 126 parish churches stood within and around the
walls. Famous schools were attached to St. Paul's,
the Holy Trinity, and St. Martin's. Beyond the walls
was Smithfield, where was held a weekly market for
horses, cattle, and agricultural implements. The
ships of France and Normandy, of Denmark, of
Norway, of Flanders and Lüttich, and of "the empe-
ror's men,” brought gold and silver, silks, merceries,
and spicery to the great trading city. The strangers
sold their goods under strict regulations. No foreign
merchant might tarry in the city for more than forty
days, save only the Danes, who were treated as
fellow-citizens, the Norwegians, and the emperor's
men, who had their own hanse, or guild, and their
own hanse-house. Most of the houses in London
246
NORMAN BRITAIN.
were at this time built of wood, and there were
frequent fires.
Town life was strongly affected by the system of
guilds. As the family connexion proved too weak to
supply the manifold help which men needed from
each other, associations or guilds were formed after
the type of the family.6 Existing at first for religious
and social purposes, and also at a later stage to afford
their members mutual security against violence and
robbery, guilds appear in the eleventh century under
a new form. The merchants' guild, while keeping up
much of the religious and social character of earlier
institutions, was formed mainly for the protection and
advancement of trade. In respect of tenure, its mem-
bers formed a kind of burgher aristocracy. All the
merchants of the town belonged to it, and as mem-
bers of the guild their mercantile character was more
prominent than their position as burgage tenants.
They were probably, as we have seen, the purchasers
of the ferm of the town. At the other extremity of
town life, there was in every unchartered town a large
number of villeins; for while a town remained in the
demesne of a lord, its population answered to the
tenants of a manor. Between the burghers and the
villeins came the body of handicraftsmen. Nothing,
indeed, prevented a craftsman from becoming a
member of the merchants' guild if he was qualified
by tenure. Many, however, who were not bondsmen
had not this qualification, and were in danger of sink-
ing into the mass of villeins. From this fate they
6 See Dr. Lujo Brentano, on the History of Guilds.
THE PEOPLE.
247
were saved by the craft-guilds. These associations
were formed by men of the same craft, whether they
belonged to the guild-merchant or not, for the pur-
pose of protecting themselves and their interests.
As the guild-merchant kept foreign merchants from its
town, so the craft-guild had the right of forbidding
any one to exercise the same craft within the town
unless he became a member of the guild. For this and
other privileges the craft-guilds paid money to the
Crown. The weavers of London, for instance, in
1130, paid £16 into the Exchequer for their guild;
and in the same year the shoemakers of Oxford paid
five ounces of gold that they might have their guild
again. The formation of unlicensed or "adulterine "
guilds was punished by a fine. Each craft in London,
and probably in all large towns, had its own district.
Meeting in its own hall, and under its own alderman,
the craft-guild arranged the hours of labour, ordering
that all work should cease on Saturday "after noon
has been rung"; it admitted apprentices to its craft,
who, after they had served their time, received the
privilege of membership; and, above all, it took
measures to insure the good quality of the work of
the brethren. Each guild also formed a benefit-
club, providing for the relief of its own sick and
needy and for the burial of its dead. Nor did these
craft-guilds neglect the religious element, which was
the chief object of the earlier associations. The
Saddlers' guild, perhaps the earliest of the London
craft-guilds, had its hall, we may be sure, hard by St.
Martin's-le-Grand, where Saddlers' Hall now stands ;
for the congregation of the guild made a compact
248
NORMAN BRITAIN.
with the canons of the Church that they might enjoy
the religious benefits of St. Martin's.7 And other
craft-guilds, in which the observances of religion were
not so prominent, also took thought for the spiritual
welfare of their members. The orders of the guild
were enforced by fines, often consisting of drink,
which was consumed at the stated guild-feasts. It is
evident from the laws of the weavers of Winchester 8
that the members of some of these guilds were, for a
time, held as little better than villeins, and were, to
some extent, under the control of the full burghers.
But their payments to the Crown, and the privileges
which they received by royal grant, must have speedily
insured their independence. When the fully-qualified
burghers obtained the government of their towns,
they looked on the rights of the craft-guilds with great
jealousy. Nevertheless, under the protection of the
Crown, the craft-guilds grew in power and in numbers
until, after a long struggle, the craft-guilds of London,
in the reign of Edward III., supplanted the old
burghers in the government of the city.
The Jews are said to have been brought over to
England by the Conqueror. Aliens in race and in
religion, they had no legal status in the kingdom, and
were merely the chattels of the king. By the laws of
Eadward the Confessor, a compilation which seems
to represent the time of the Conqueror, they and all
their goods are said to belong to the Crown. As it
was considered sinful for a Christian to lend on in-
terest, the Jews were the only traders in money.
* Madox, Firma Burgi, p. 27; Liber Cust., Introd., liv.
8 Liber Custumarum, ii., i., 130.
THE PEOPLE.
249
They were allowed by the Norman kings to make
settlements called Jewries in the principal towns.
These Jewries were naturally placed near the walls.
of a town, where some space was still left for a new
colony, and, for the most part at least, they lay near
the castle, where they were protected by the king's
castellan. The Old Jewry still marks the site of
their earliest settlement in London. By the end of
the Norman period they were settled in most of the
large towns throughout the kingdom. In Norwich,
Thetford, Cambridge, Oxford, Winchester, Leicester,
York, and even in St. Alban's and St. Edmundsbury,
were Jewries of some importance. Hated of all men,
not merely for the sake of their religion, but chiefly
because they found their opportunities for gain in
the misfortunes of others, they depended wholly on
the protection of the Crown, and were forced to pay
largely for it. Rufus is said to have employed them
to farm the revenues of the sees which he kept
vacant. From the way in which he used the Jews
as a means of shocking the feelings of his own
people,⁹ this statement may well be true, though it
does not rest on any satisfactory authority. The
Norman kings obtained money from the Jews in
various ways. They levied taxes on them as they
did on the tenants of their demesne; when any
Jew was declared guilty of an offence, an exorbitant
fine was imposed on the Jewry generally; and, since
the Jews were shut out from the benefits of the
common law, they had to pay large sums to the king
9 See p. 140.
250
NORMAN BRITAIN.
"for help" against their debtors. The passion for
building which prevailed during the Norman times
forced men of the highest rank, and even some of
the greatest religious houses, to borrow of the Jews.
Holding a monopoly of the trade in money, and
dealing in a scarce article, they charged enormous
interest. They must, however, have run considerable
risks, and were put to great expense in collecting
their debts.
The wealth of the Jews, and their behavour to
their Christian neighbours, have been made, as far as
this period is concerned, the subject of some exagge-
ration. A consistent tradition has, indeed, connected
Jewish names with certain stone houses at Oxford,
which appear to have been of considerable size, and
"Jews' houses" are still to be seen at Lincoln and
St. Edmundsbury. No doubt some of the richer
Jews, such as Aaron of Lincoln, lived in good stone
houses; and the houses of some of the richer
Jewries, in the reign of Richard I., are said to have
been like the palaces of kings. 10 But there is no
ground for believing that the Jews were the first to
build stone houses in our towns. And as regards
some of these so-called Jews' houses, it should be
remembered that, after the expulsion of the Jews,
this name was probably applied to the synagogues
and schools existing in each of the great Jewries
which were then turned to other uses. Even if all the
traditions about Jews' houses are true, there are other
examples of stone houses of the same date, both in
14
R. Coggeshal!, p. 27.
THE PEOPLE.
251
towns and in the country, to which no such stories
are attached. While some of the Jews doubt-
less were very wealthy, there seems no evidence
that, as a body, they were possessed of great
riches in Norman times. Their settlement in
Oxford was probably one of the largest in the
kingdom, but in the second year of Henry II. the
talliage paid by the Jews was not more than roos.
In the same year, however, the sheriff of Cambridge-
shire accounts for as much as 60 marks from the
Jews of Cambridge. The enormous fines laid upon
them are not so much proofs of their wealth as of
the extortion of the king; for by demands of this
nature the Crown created a special claim on the pro-
perty of the whole Jewry. Nor is there sufficient
reason for accepting the picture of their attitude of
"proud and even insolent defiance." Galling, no
doubt, it was to the Norman noble to find the
Exchequer enforcing the payment of his just debts
to the despised Jews, as, for example, in the case of
Richard FitzGilbert, the head of the great house of
Clare, who is charged in the Exchequer roll of 1130
with a debt of 200 marks for money borrowed of
the Jews. But the accusations made against them
rest on very weak foundations, for the story of an
isolated act of insult to the religion of the majority,
such as that of a Jew of Oxford, who is said, in 1080, to
have mocked at the healing power of St. Frideswide,
even if it be true, proves little as to the general con-
duct of his people. And the two notices out of which
the theory of their insolence has been mainly evolved
are not worth much more. In the first of these,
252
NORMAN BRITAIN.
William of Malmesbury complains because the Jews
declared that, in their disputation with the bishop and
clergy in the reign of Rufus, they were overcome
by force rather than by argument.
Their assertion
was, however, natural, and may possibly even have
been true. Another often-quoted notice of their
insolence is the complaint made by the chronicler of
St. Alban's of the pride and arrogancy of the Jew
Aaron. The abbey owed Aaron a large sum. On the
death of the abbot in 1188, he came to St. Alban's
and declared that it was he who had made the rich
shrine of their saint, and that if it had not been for
him St. Alban would have lacked lodging. Seeing
that this was true, and that the Jew was an unpaid
creditor, he had surely more cause of complaint than
the monks. So far, indeed, from holding a proud
position, it was not until 1177 that the Jews were
allowed any burying-place in England, save in the
spot called the Jews' garden in Cripplegate.11 Up to
that time, at however great a distance from London a
Jew might die, he had to be brought thither for burial.
The life of a Jew was a matter which concerned the
king's purse. Accordingly in 1130 we find that
Richard Fitz William, who had killed a Jew, paid
20s. into the Exchequer, the same sum as that at
which the manbote, or value of a serf's life, was
assessed by law. As every Jew belonged to the
king, Rufus would not allow attempts to be made to
convert any of them to the Christian faith, for he could
not afford to lose one of these valuable chattels, The
11 Walter of Hemingburgh, c. 26.
THE PEOPLE.
253
hideous accusations against the Jews, which in so many
ages and in so many lands have been the means of
gratifying the vile passions of the greedy and brutal,
first appear in England during this period. A fine of
2,000 marks levied on the Jews of London in 1130,
for killing a sick man, is suggestive of one of these.
This accusation was probably based on the death of a
patient of some Jewish physician. In the reign of
Stephen an instance of an accusation of the usual
kind is recorded by the English chronicler. The
Jews of Norwich are said to have bought a Christian
boy, named William, and to have crucified him on
Good Friday. The monks buried the body of the
child in their church. Miracles were worked at the
tomb, and William received the honours of a saint
and a martyr. In spite of hatred and oppression,
the Jews increased in wealth. Henry I. granted
them privileges, which were confirmed and enlarged
by his grandson, who is much blamed for the favour
he showed them.12 A comparison of the entries con-
cerning the Jews in the Pipe Rolls suggests that they
must have prospered in the time of the anarchy.
During the Angevin period, their position and their
financial operations were matters of considerable im-
portance, and were made the subjects of special
administrative organization.
12 Gesta, Hen. II., i., 182.
254
NORMAN BRITAIN.
CHAPTER XVII.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
AMONG the various consequences of the Norman
Conquest, the changes which it wrought in our lan-
guage will never be wholly undone.¹ The Norman
era, however, was neither the first nor the last
period of linguistic change. On settling in their new
home, our fathers were brought into contact with the
speech of the conquered race, and adopted a few
Welsh words, belonging to domestic life, and a few
Latin words, like chester and port, significant of the
character of the Roman occupation. A large influx
of Latin words followed their conversion. Some of
these, like bishop, were distinctly ecclesiastical, while
others came to them from their connexion with Latin
Christendom in other matters. During the seventh and
eighth centuries civilization and learning found their
home in Northumbria, and the Anglian tongue became
in consequence the literary language of our land. The
West Saxon, therefore, as well as the Northumbrian,
called his speech English. The Danish invasion,
As regards the first part of this chapter, I acknowledge my
great obligations to Mr. Kington Oliphant's Old and Middle
English and to Professor Earle's Philology of the English
Tongue, and beg to refer my readers to these books, from
which I have derived much profit and enjoyment.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
255
however, put an end to the literary pre-eminence of
Northumbria, and the ancient Anglian dialect sank.
into obscurity until it rose into fresh importance as the
language of the Scottish kingdom, and has come to
be called Scotch, as though it were a foreign tongue.
In the tenth century the literary language must be
sought in the dominant kingdom of Wessex, and is
embodied in the translations of King Ælfred and of
the Abbot Ælfric. Meanwhile in the north and east
the Danes and English grew together into one
people. Their union has the closest connexion with
the linguistic effects of the Conquest. Our ancient
speech was inflexional. It had, that is to say, the
power of joining words together so as to make up
a sentence by the changes in the endings of the
main words themselves. While, however, the Danes
naturally understood English words, they would miss
the significance of the inflexions. Accordingly, in
the land colonized by the Danes, men, came
to use prepositions as a means of making them-
selves clearly understood, and inflexions became.
mere ornaments to the language. And as this
intermixture of peoples prevailed in the district
whose dialect has become the dominant speech of
England, the loss of inflexions in modern English
was rendered certain. As ornaments they were of
course preserved more carefully in literary language
than in conversation, and most of all in the expres-
sion of poetry and religion. When, after 1066, the
highest places in church and state were filled by
foreigners, the English priests and minstrels lacked.
encouragement, and so the old literary standard
256
NORMAN BRITAIN.
died out. The shock of the Conquest shook off the
already lifeless inflexions from our words, and the
death of our national literature left no means of pre-
serving them as literary adornments. The loss of our
inflexions then, insured by the course of our earlier
history, was consummated by the Conquest. Besides
this other and even more important changes were
wrought in our language. Before we proceed to note
them, let us remember that the English of our fathers
was no mean speech. More cultivated than any other
Teutonic dialect, with a settled grammar, and even
with some approach to a settled orthography, dig-
nified, concise, and flexible, the English language
was used not unworthily in translations from Latin
authors, as well as in our native literature.
During the first half of the eleventh century some
corruptions crept into our language, and a few
stranger words were brought into it by foreign immi-
grants. After the Conquest the loss of our literary
standard hastened the processes of corruption and
addition. No vernacular poetry, save one or two
scraps in the Chronicle, appeared for a long time
after 1066, and, though English was used in some
royal charters, in the Peterborough Chronicle, in
some books of sermons, and the like, it ceased to
be a literary language, and remained only as spoken
by the people in the various local dialects. Of these
dialects the speech of the people dwelling in the East
Midlands, in some sort the meeting-place of Angle
and Saxon, and the land where, after 1066, more
English was written than anywhere else, became in
the fourteenth century the dominant tongue and has
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
257
gained an abiding-place as the language of modern
culture. As regards the influx of new words which
followed the Conquest, it has often been remarked
that these additions illustrate the character of the
Norman colonization. Though the kingship remained
English, our king held a French court, attended by
his chancellor and other French officers. The earl
made his wife a countess, for we have no English
feminine for any official title, and his French bailiff
took the place of the English reeve. So, too, the
English ceorl on Norman lips became a villein; and
the oxen, sheep, and swine he fed were turned by his
master into beef, mutton, and pork. Still, during
the Norman period the influx of foreign words was
not large, and the two languages remained distinct.
Such as they were, the new words which came to us
were not taken straight from Latin, as at the two
earlier infusions, but as they were disguised under a
Romance or French shape. The habit of neglecting
Latin for French forms grew apace, and has to
account for some ugly importations into our language.
•
The best days of English literature seem to
have ended some years before the Conquest. The
Chronicle-writers, however, carried on their work
until the Abingdon scribe laid down his pen when
he came to the overthrow of his country, and the
Canterbury version ended in the reign of the Con-
queror, and the Peterborough Chronicle only was left
to tell the story of our people up to the end of the
Norman period. Besides this chronicle, compiled in
the land which was to be the birth-place of our
modern English, little of any literary importance was
S
258
NORMAN BRITAIN.
written in our tongue before the thirteenth century.
The last portion of this chronicle, finished about
1160, and recording the events between 1130-1154,
may be taken as an index of the linguistic changes
wrought during the reigns of our Norman kings. It
exhibits the loss of case-endings, some confusion in
grammar, and a tendency to use French forms.
Sentences are constructed more simply than in the
times of literary language, prepositions are placed at
the end of relative clauses, and the verb no longer
comes last. In other matters, too, such as the use of
contractions and the substitution of the northern a
for æ, it is evident that by the end of the Norman
period the spoken language had no small influence
on the language of writing. Sometimes foreign words
are used to express new ideas. As early, for example,
as the record of 1086, an English ending was tacked
on to a French word to describe how the Conqueror
“dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere." Sometimes,
too, a foreign word is used in pure wantonness when
an English word was ready to hand. And so we are
told in the same place how the king "bær his
corona," instead of his cynehelm; and, again, under
1137, how Stephen wasted not the heord, but the
tresur of his uncle. Nevertheless, the language even
of the latest entries of the Peterborough Chronicle is
English and not a mixture of tongues. As a proof
of this we may take a bit of the tale of the sorrows of
the anarchy:-
7
Me henged up bi the fet and smoked heom mid ful smoke;
me henged bi the bumbes other by the hefed and hengen
bryniges on her fet. Me dide cnotted strenges abuton here
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
259
hæved and uurythen to þat it gæde to the hærnes. Hi diden
heom in quarterne þar nadres and snakes and bades wæron
inne and drapen heom swa.
Or, in modern English,
They hanged them up by the feet and smoked them with foul
smoke; they hanged them up by the thumbs or by the head
and hung burning (things) on their feet. They put knotted
strings on their heads, and writhed them so that it went to the
brain. They put them in dungeons wherein were adders and
snakes and toads, and killed them so.
All through the twelfth century English was occa-
sionally written, and though the literary standard was
no longer kept to, our old words lived on, and our
language did not lose the power of compounding new
words as they were wanted. As a spoken tongue it
was, of course, on the lips of the people; but if it had
been spoken only it would never have held its ground
as a distinct language side by side with the language
of the conquerors. At the beginning of the next
century there was much which seemed as though
English would remain distinct from French, and if it
had kept its distinctness it would also necessarily
have become the victorious language. The strength
of the English tongue at that time is shown by the
works of two poets. Layamon, a secular priest, living
at Areley Kings, by the Severn, wrote in the dialect
of the south-west a translation of Wace's "Brut,"
itself a metrical version of the romance of Geoffrey
of Monmouth. Alliterative and rhythmical, some
of his verses have much of the swing of our older
poems, though they lack their literary precision, while
S 2
260
NORMAN BRITAIN.
others are written in rime. He tells us how he
took Wace's book and began to write :-
Layamon leide beos boc,
he heom leofliche biheold,
fetheren he nom mid fingren,
þa leaf wende,
libe him beo drihten,
and fiede on boc felle.
Layamon laid this book, the leaf he turned, he lovingly
beheld it, may the Lord be good to him! feathers (a pen)
he took with his fingers and with zeal on the book fell.
About the same time, Orrmin, in even more strictly
Teutonic fashion and in the dialect of the East
Midlands, wrote, perhaps not far from Peterborough,
a version of the Gospel story in alliterative verse,
calling it Orrmulum, "for this that it Orrm wrote."
Close on the writings of Layamon and Orrm fol-
lowed a new and disastrous era in the history of our
language. The beginning of this period is marked by
the appearance of a book called the "Ancren Riwle"
(the "Rule of Nuns "), written in 1220, which contains
a large number of French words and idioms. During
the next sixty years many old English words and
terms of expression were pushed out of our language
by this foreign influx, and, worse still, we lost at the
same time our power of making up new English words.
These changes were brought about partly by the love
of foreign fashions, and partly also by the preaching
of the friars, which was addressed to all men alike,
and so did much to bring the speech of the people
nearer to the speech of the upper class. To this
period far more than to Norman times belongs
the importation of the Romance element into our
language. Foreign influence also affected the
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
261
character of our literature as well as its language,
and the riming chronicle of Robert of Gloucester
is an example of the extent to which Englishmen
had, by the end of the thirteenth century, adopted
some of the leading characteristics of French poetry.
By that time, however, the English tongue had
again begun to find its place in literature, and the
lay of Havelok the Dane, written in the dialect
of the East Midlands about 1280, is English both
in spirit and in manner. The revival of an English
literary standard may be held to have been completed
when, in 1303, Robert Manning of Brunne wrote, in
the dialect of the Fen country, his "Handlyng Synne,"
a translation of the "Manuele pecche." "12 From that
time this dialect has become the language of literature
and of educated people. As truly for centuries a merely
local speech as the rich dialect of the labourer of West
Somerset now is, the language of the East Midlands
has come to be looked on as the only good English,
while the native speech of any other part of England
is ignorantly held to be a corruption of the mother-
tongue.
When English verse rose again after the dark
days of French fashions, the final victory of the
Romance rime over the alliterative rhythm of our
old national poetry was near at hand. Although
rime was used fitfully in English verse before the
Conquest, it owed this victory over our sounding
measures to the influence of the French metrical
chronicles and to the importation of French words
The history of this fall and rising again of our language
may be read with great interest in "Old and Middle English.”
262
NORMAN BRITAIN.
more suited to rime than to alliteration. Few
idiomatic changes have been made in our language
since Robert of Brunne told how the labourer re-
buked the insolence of the lord :-
Þe Lord, þat made of erbe erles,
Of the same erbe made he cherles;
Erles myght and lordes stut
As cherles shal in erbe be put;
Erles, cherles, alle at ones,
Shal none knowe youre from oure bones.
Thus the language of the East Midlands triumphed
over the French imported in the thirteenth century—
an importation which was itself a consequence of
the victory of the Normans. Some heavy losses
indeed our speech has suffered, both from the
immediate and from the later effects of the Con-
quest. That it has gained nothing is an assertion
which can only be made by those who forget the
manifold calls made upon it by the advance of
culture. Able and facile as our old speech proved
itself to be in all demanded of it, the thoughts of the
younger world are deeper and the distinctions of phi-
losophy and science more subtle than could be told
by the language of Ælfred. As to our losses, our
poets must do their best towards giving back to us
the power of making up new English words, while
each of us may do something at least to hinder further
mischief by never using a foreign word when we
might without affectation use an English word instead.
During the Norman period nearly all prose was
written in Latin. To us the most important charac-
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART. 263
teristic of this Latin literature is the rise of English
historical writing. Bringing with them William of
Poitiers and Guy of Amiens to tell the story of our
country's fall, the Normans roused a love for history
in the conquered people. Florence, a monk of
Worcester, after compiling a long chronicle, ends his
work with an independent record of events from
1030 to 1116, written in a sober and critical spirit.
About the same time Eadmer, the friend and biogra-
pher of Anselm, wrote an account of the ecclesiastical
disputes of the reigns of William II. and Henry I.,
preserving for us many picturesque details both of
famous men and famous scenes. Although Orderic
wrote his so-called ecclesiastical history in his Norman
convent, we may fairly claim for ourselves one of the
most prolix and most delightful of chroniclers as
born in England of an English mother, and as a lover
of his native land. The books of Symeon of Durham,
written in the twelfth century, preserve the local,
and especially the ecclesiastical history of Northern
England. In the latter part of the same century
Henry, archdeacon of Huntingdon, compiled a
chronicle of events down to 1154. The work of
a secular priest, at a time when monks were almost
our only writers, the chronicle of the lively archdeacon,
though of little value as an independent authority,
has an interest of its own. Henry of Huntingdon
loved old things, and he went about with his eyes
and ears open. He gives us the earliest notice of
Stonehenge, and has evidently weaved into his Latin
story many pieces of old popular poetry which would
otherwise have been wholly lost to us. Before the
264
NORMAN BRITAIN.
middle of the century the books of William, a monk
of Malmesbury, began a new era in our historical
works. Writing not as a mere annalist, but as an
historian, William deals with his information in a
critical and philosophic spirit. Like Orderic he was
half an Englishman by birth, and though some-
what divided in feeling on national questions, he
had a strong love for English antiquities. With
some share at least of the historic faculty of Bæda,
he was a worthy forerunner of Matthew Paris. And
though he and others of our old historical writers
were monks, it must not be supposed that their view
of events was limited to their monasteries or even
to their own land. The great Benedictine houses
lodged strangers from every country in Christendom.
And while they were certainly almost the only learned
men in England, the Benedictine monks were further
fitted for historical work by constant association with
men of other nations and as members of an order
which had its home in all lands alike. Among English
writers on other subjects, Æthelhard of Bath studied
the learning of the East in the Norman kingdom of
Sicily and wrote on Natural Philosophy in the spirit
of the author of the "Novum Organon." It is pleasant
to find that in 1130 the scholar-king Henry made a
grant of money to our English philosopher.3
When the Confessor built the West Minster, he was
the first, so William of Malmesbury tells us, to build in
a way which in the days of the writer was almost
universally adopted. This remark fixes the date of the
3
Pipe Roll, 31 Henry I., p 22.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
265
introduction of the Norman style of Romanesque
architecture into England. The vast church of the
Confessor set the fashion of large buildings, and after
the Conquest most churches of any importance, even
though lately finished, were pulled down by the
Normans on every side to be rebuilt on a larger
scale. Yet the new style did not for some time
drive out the primitive Romanesque of our land. At
Lincoln, for example, Coleswegen built his churches
in primitive fashion, even while the Norman castle
and minster were in progress, and the native style
held its ground, especially in the smaller churches, for
many years. The ordinary type of a large Norman
church in England, as in Normandy, is cruciform,
with an apsidal chancel and a low and massive tower
at the intersection.5 The west fronts seem to have
presented one large door, a row of small arches,
pierced here and there to serve as windows, and a
window of larger size above. Rebuildings have,
however, spared very few Norman exteriors. In
some cases the tall western tower of our primitive
style was left by the Norman builders, and in some
small churches without aisles or transepts they placed
their tower, as at Iffley, between the nave and the
chancel. The doorways are usually of great depth,
with a semircular arch and many richly-moulded
orders. The windows are generally small with a deep
splay. The rectangular piers of our older style were
replaced in larger churches by massive cylindrical
• Freeman on Romanesque Architecture, Fortnightly Review,
October, 1872.
• See p. 45.
266
NORMAN BRITAIN.
piers, sometimes, as at Gloucester and Tewkesbury,
carried to an extraordinary height, though at home
the Normans were accustomed to the shape which
they here displaced. In smaller churches, the
piers are less massive and should rather be called
columns.6 The arches are semicircular and square
in section. Timber roofs were used over all large
spaces and vaulting was confined to crypts, aisles,
and chancels. Sometimes profuse and sometimes
scarce, the amount of ornamentation supplies no
means of judging the date of a Norman church.
While the earlier Norman style was brought to
such perfection in the early years of the twelfth
century, as may be seen in the nave of Durham,
a distinct change appears at about the same time
in the work of Bishop Roger at Sherborne. Richer
ornaments, lighter columns, more elegant capitals,
and larger windows with slender shafts, mark the
later Norman style, also to be seen in its highest
form at Durham in the Galilee of Bishop Hugh of
Puiset. From such buildings the transition to the
early English work with its pointed arches was easy
and gradual, for the use of the pointed arch did
not imply a change of principle. Wanted for struc-
tural reasons, it was seen in the East, in Sicily, and in
Aquitaine, and men used it because they wanted it.
That the change was gradual is proved by abundance
of examples. Malmesbury Abbey probably affords
the earliest, as well as the best, instance of a
Romanesque church with pointed pier-arches. At
6 Norman Conquest, v., 629.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART. 267
Fountains (1140-1150) also, the pointed arches of the
arcades stand, along with the Romanesque work of
the building at large; and the chapel of St. Cross,
built about the same time, while instinct with the
severe grandeur of Romanesque architecture, shows
the close relationship of the pointed arch to the
increase of refinement in design and workmanship.
Established at last under the next dynasty, the
change from the Norman to the Early English style
opened the way for a long series of triumphs in
that sovereign art in which Englishmen formerly
excelled.
As to the houses of this period, something has been
already said in the last chapter. The pillared hall
attached to some great house, palace, castle, or
abbey, such as the hall of Oakham, or such as
was once the hall of Westminster, is the most note-
worthy feature of domestic architecture in the Norman
times. It is also interesting to mark the way in
which the character of domestic building was affected
by the change to greater richness and lightness in
ecclesiastical work. The narrow slits with deep splays
which served as windows were gradually supplanted
by square-headed windows, divided by a mullion, and
surmounted by a flat round arch; and the rich
doorway of the "Jews' house" at Lincoln, be-
longing to the twelfth century, carries the chimney
in a striking manner. Save in chapel and hall,
the Norman castle offered little opportunity for
architectural adornment. The angles of their massive
keeps are broken by turrets containing stairs, and
the sides are often relieved by flat buttresses. In
268
NORMAN BRITAIN.
spite of its profuse employment of carving, Norman
architecture in England was not enriched by the
highest kind of sculpture, and the figures of Henry I.
and his queen in the porch at Rochester are almost
the only examples we have of statuary of this period.
Painting was used in the decoration of buildings, and
the wooden roof of the choir of Conrad at Canter-
bury, painted like the heavens, was so glorious as to
draw all eyes. The illuminations of twelfth-century
MSS. are more splendid and intricate than in former
times, though this increased adornment is sometimes
marred by an artificial taste never seen in the work of
our earlier artists. Although the invention of the
four-line stave in music has been often ascribed to
Guido of Arezzo, who wrote about 1024, a MS. of the
reign of Æthelred the Unready proves, if indeed it is
written by one hand, that this new system of notation
was even then known here, and had already begun to
take the place of the sound-marks written without
stave. In whatever way the question of our debt to
Guido ought to be decided, it is interesting to find
an Englishman, named John of Cotton, chief among
the disciples of the great master. While, however,
the English had thus before the Conquest made con-
siderable advance in the art they loved so well, they
had no power of expressing, except orally, the relative
duration as well as the pitch of the notes they em-
ployed. If the invention of the Time-table was not
due to Franco of Köln-and it is, indeed, unlikely
that any one man produced such a system without
* Will. Malmes., De Gestis Pontif., i., 214; Gervase, 1294.
LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND ART.
269
forerunners in his work,-his treatise on the Measured
Chant, written towards the end of the eleventh cen-
tury, developed the system of Time-notes and made.
it known to the world at large. It is probable that our
fathers were not behindhand in adopting this great
invention, for the earliest extant work on Measured
Music, after the treatise of Franco, was written by
Walter Odington of Evesham in 1220.8
If I have done my work aright, this little book
shows that the Conquest of England by the Normans
was neither like the first page nor the last in the his-
tory of a people. Hastening and completing many
changes already begun, as well as bringing in some
which were wholly new, the Norman period of our
history cannot be understood without some know-
ledge of the earlier history of the conquerors and of
the conquered people. Nor can we comprehend these
changes in all their fulness without the history of our
race at home and beyond sea up to the present day;
and, indeed, we may be sure that many of the con-
sequences of these changes are not yet fully worked
All history is continuous. The special interest
of our own history lies, to some extent, in its special
continuity, and this continuity is never more evident
than when we study the history of our people under
the dynasty of the Norman kings.
out.
8 For the early history of music in England see the articles
Musica Mensurata and Notation, by Mr. Rockstro, in Dr.
Grove's Dictionary of Music.
INDEX.
ADELA of Blois, 198
Ælfred, ætheling, 35, 63, 65,
75
Ælfric, archbishop-elect, 54
abbot, 55-58, 109, 255
Elfwine, bishop of Winchester,
63
P
Æthelhard of Bath, 264
Ethelred the Unready, 28, 34
Æthelric, bishop of South
173, 175-177, 214
Archers, 41, 79-80
Architecture, 45, 59, 264-267
Arts, different, 59-61, 264-269
Asker, 12
Saxons, 122
Alexander II., pope, 75
king of Scotland, 224
Alienation, 235
Ancren Riwle, 260
Anglesey, 159
Anselm, archbishop, 109, 170- Chancellor, 117
BALDWIN of Redvers, 200
Baronage, 31, 119, 148–167
Bayeux, 11, 16-17, 21, 23, 27
Beards, 236-237
Beaumont, house of, 160-165
Bec-Herlwin, 43, 170
Berengar of Tours, 44, 110
Bishops, 53, 108, 117, 174,
Bretons and Britanny, 17, 18,
21, 23, 71, 76, 88, 151, 202,
230
Bristol, 58, 134, 204, 214
Brown, Thomas, 217
178
Botho, 22, 24
Brentano, Dr. Lujo, 245
CAEN, 44-45
Canon law, 55, 111, 173, 212
Canons, 56, 107, 178
Canterbury: archbishopric, 53,
106, 169, 225; Conrad's
choir at, 268
Carlisle, 222, 226
Carucates, 96
Castles, 64, 83, 85-86, 203,
209, 267
Charles the Great, 9-10
the Simple, 17, 25
Charters
of Henry I., 187,
189; of Stephen, 199; the
Great, 165, 192; municipal,
196; to Jews, 252–253
Chivalry, 38, 119, 141, 144,
238
Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon,'
257-259, and passim.
Church: English, 53-58, 61,
102-114, 168-185, 211; Nor-
man, 29, 41-43; Scottish,
223-225, 227; Welsh, 220
Cistercian Order, 180, 184,
(C
207
Civil law, 173, 211
"}
272
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Clair-sur-Epte, treaty of, 17-18
Cluniac Order, 103, 107
Cnut, 4, 67
Combat, judicial, 7, 124
Convocation, 177
Copsige, 83
Councils, ecclesiastical, 29, 54,
Earls and earldoms, 4, 49,
117-119, 202
Education, 57, 238, 241
Edward I., 1-2, 217
Emma (Ælfgifu), 35, 63, 67,
234
English language, 133, 233-
235, 254-262
and Normans, fusion of,
165, 230-234
170, 176-177
lay, 55, 98, 116, 121, 169, | Englishry, presentment of, 134,
19c-195
113
Courts, ecclesiastical, 111, 168,
Crusades, 164, 214
Culdees, 223
Curfew bell, 134
DANES, 17, 24, 27, 85, 89
David, king of Scotland, 188,
208, 224, 226
Dawkins, Mr. W. B., 10
Deans, 179
Domesday, 92–99
Dress, 237
Dudo, 14-18, 27
Durham, 87, 266
EADGAR, king of Scotland,
224
Eadgar, ætheling, 70, 80-81,
82, 85, 224
Eadgyth, wife of Eadward,
64-65
wife of Henry I., see
Matilda
Eadmer, 225, 263
Eadric the Wild, 83, 89
51, 54, 64, 69, 72
Eadward, ætheling, 70
Eadwine, earl of Mercians, 69,
80, 82
233
Eudes, count and king, 13
Eustace, count of Boulogne,
66, 83, 84
son of Stephen, 207-208
Exeter, 82, 93, 243
Ealdgyth, wife of Harold, 69
Ealdred, archbishop of York,
51, 54 73, 81, 85, 133
Earle, fessor, 254
FECAMP, abbey of, 28
Feudalism, 32, 52, 90–91, 115,
125, 187, 189
Flemings, 76, 202, 219, 230
Florence of Worcester, 73,
263, and passim
French language, 236
Frenchmen, use of term, 64,
94, 122, 231
|
Folcland, 91
Forests and Forest law, 125,
136, 139, 147, 157, 191
Fountains abbey, 184, 207,
GARDENS, 245
Gardiner, Professor, 106
Eadward the Confessor, 35, Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances,
86, 95, 122, 152, 154, 244
Martel, count of Anjou,
38, 40
the Fair, count of Anjou,
38, 188, 198, 201, 208
of Mandeville, 205-206
Gerberoi, 136
Gilbert of Clare, 219.
267
Freeman, Mr. E. A., 19, 38,
77, 142, and passim
INDEX.
273
Giraldus Cambrensis, 219
Gisla, wife of Guthred, 13, 17
wife of Rolf, 17
Glanvill, 240, 243
Glastonbury abbey, 105, 183
Godwine, earl, 49, 54, 64, 65,
67, 69
Gregory VII. (Hildebrand),
pope, 75, 103, 112, 176, 213
Guido of Arezzo, 268
Guilds, 246-248
Gundulf, bishop of Rochester,
122, 175, 245
Gunnor, 29, 36
Gytha, 73
IIAMON Dentatus, 37
Harding, Stephen, abbot, 180
Harold, son of Godwine, 39,
50, 68, 70-80, 84
226
Harfager, 8, 13, 14, 72
Hardrada, 78
Blaatand, 27
Hasting, 13, 16
Havelok the Dane, lay of, 261
Henry V., Emperor, 188, 216
I., of England, 127-129,
145-147, 161, 172, 176,
186, 195, 233
II., of England, 149,
186, 195, 208, 221
VIII., of England, 174
I., of France, 37-39
earl of Huntingdon, 201,
bishop of Winchester,
198, 202, 211
of Beaumont, earl, 161
of Huntingdon, 263
Hereward, 83, 89
Herfast, bishop of Thetford, 183
Herleva, 36
Herlwin, abbot, 43
Hides, 96, 125
Houses, 59, 237, 245, 267
Howorth, Mr. H., 14, 17–18
Hugh the Great, duke of the
French, 25, 29
Capet, 29-30
earl of Chester, 132, 158,
Τ
217
earl of Shrewsbury, 156,
158-159
of Grantmesnil, 154, 156
INNOCENT II., pope, 199, 206
Inquest, trial by, 123-124, 191
Investitures, 114, 172
Ireland, 229
Ivo of Grantmesnil, 164
JEWS, 140, 194, 248-253
John XV., pope, 28
Jumièges, abbey of, 11, 24
Juries, 191, 244
Justiciary, 116
KINGSHIP, Norman, 115-116
Kington-Oliphant, Mr., 254,
261
Knights and knighthood, 119-
120, 187, 189
LANFRANC, archbishop, 43-
45, 104-113, 122, 130, 138–
139, 169, 229, 232
Language, 2, 5, II, 22, 46,
219; see “English language"
Latin, 236
:
Law of Rolf, 20, 27; of King
Eadward, 28, 187, 205; see
Courts, Lay," &c.
Legates, 104, 181-182
Layamon, 259
Leofric, earl, 49, 65
Lewis, king of West Franks,
25, 27
VI. of France, 201, 208,
66
216
Lisbon, taking of, 214
London, 58, 78, 80-81, 196-
197, 198, 204, 231, 45
Lothian, 221-222
274
NORMAN BRITAIN.
MABEL, Countess, 152-153
Magnus Barefoot, of Norway,
158
Maine, 39, 89, 143
Malcolm Canmore, of Scot-
land, 222-224
Malger, archbishop of Rouen, Odo, bishop of Bayeux, 83,
86, 98, 119, 122-123, 131-
132, 154-156
Officers, court, &c., 31, 116-
42
Man, Isle of, 159
Manners, 61, 141, 236-239
Manors, 98
Margaret, queen of Malcolm,
70, 222-224
Mark, 7
Marriage: Danish, 23, 36; of
clergy, 61, 103, 177, 220
Matilda, queen of William I.,
44, 133, 219
(Eadgyth), queen of
Henry I., 187, 224, 234
Empress, 188, 201, 204,
216
daughter of Waltheof,
226, 227
Mercenaries, 90, 126, 142, 202
Military service, 52, 99, 126,
143, 187, 189
Monasteries, 57, 107, 180-185,
223
Montgomery, 152; house of,
152-163
Morkere, earl, 69, 80, 82, 89
Mortemer, battle of, 39, 41
Music, 60, 105, 268-269
NAMES, 234
Neal of St. Sauveur, 37
Newcastle, 222
New Forest, 136, 144
Nobility, 8, 31, 119, 165–167
Normandy, 9, 13, 15, 17-30,
156, 163, 208, 214
Normans, 3, 17, 21, 26, 31,
32, 45-47, 148, 164, 216,
236
|
Northmen, 5-9, 11-13, 20, 22
Northumberland, 49, 65, 69,
82, 84, 87, 93, 154, 157, 227
OATH, Harold's, 71-72, 74;
special forms of, 137, 140,
146
117
Ordeal, 123, 124, 139
Orderic, or Vital, 85, 217,
232, 238, 263, and passim
Orrm, 260
Osmund, bishop of Salisbury,
109
Oswulf, 84
Otto (the Great), king of East
Franks, 25-26
Oxford, 86, 194, 211, 238,
249, 251
PAINTING, 29, 60, 268
Parliament, I
Penenden Heath, gemot at,
122
Picot, sheriff, 122-123
Pipe rolls, 193
Ponthieu, 70, 159
Popa, 16
Powell, Mr. F. G., see Vig.
fusson, Mr. G.
Primogeniture, 235
RACE, questions of, 5, 9, II,
219, 230
Ralph of Wader, 150-151
of Toesny, 33-34, 156,
160
Ramsey Abbey, 206
Ranulf, Flambard, bishop of
Durham, 117, 124-126, 145,
169
earl of Chester, 205, 208,
209
INDEX.
275
Rectors, lay, 180
Rhys ap Tewdr, 218
Richard the Fearless, duke of
the Normans, 23, 26–31
the Good, duke of the
Normans, 31
Fitz Nigel, bishop of
London, 233
of Clare, 220
Fitz Scrob, 64, 67, 69
Robert the Strong, 13
duke of the French, 19
the Magnificent, duke of
the Normans, 35, 36
duke of the Normans,
116, 133, 135, 138, 144,
152, 154, 161, 164, 222
of Mortain, 97, 158, 163
earl of Gloucester, 200,
204, 209, 218
Wiscard, 34, 216
of Jumièges, archbishop,
54, 65-66, 68, 75
of Belesme, earl of
Shrewsbury, 152-156, 159,
162-163
|
of Meulan, earl of
Leicester, 160, 165, 175
earl of Leicester, 165,
203, 208
of Mowbray, earl of
Northumberland, 152, 154,
157-158
Fitz Hamon, 218
of Rhuddlan, 217-218
Pulein, 238
Manning, 261
K
of Gloucester, 261
Robertson, Mr. E. W., 224
Rockingham, council of, 171,
Roger of Montgomery, earl of
Shrewsbury, 107, 152, 154,
156, 217
175
Rockstro, Mr., 269
Roger, bishop of Salisbury,
188, 192, 198, 203, 266
earl of Hereford, 150-
152
of Beaumont, 160
Rolf, 13, 14-21, 28
Rouen, 11, 12, 13, 18, 23, 24
SAINT ALBAN'S Abbey, 59,
249, 252
Salisbury: gemots at, 101, 120
188; service-books, 109
Scotland, 82, 88, 221-229
Senlac, battle of, 2, 41, 77–80
Sheriffs, 118
Sicily and Southern Italy, 34,
41, 139, 217
Simon of Montfort, earl of
Leicester, 165
Simony, 103, 105, 125, 169,
172
Siward, earl of the Northum-
brians, 65
Slaves and slave-trade, 58, 61,
134, 240
Somerset, 83, 84, 86, 88
Spain, 33, 34
Sprota, 23, 31
Stamfordbridge, battle, 78, 81
Standard, battle of the, 201,
226
Stephen, King, 188, 198-209
of Aumale, 158
Stigand, archbishop, 68, 73,
I04
Stubbs, Dr. W., 7, 111, 120,
197, and passim
Swegen, son of Godwine, 65,
67
Swend, king of Denmark 85
Symeon of Durham, 263
TAPESTRY, 60; of Bayeux, 60,
71
Theobald, archbishop, 206, 211
Thomas of London (Becket),
archbishop, 208
276
NORMAN BRITAIN.
Thurmod, 27
Thurstan, archbishop of York,
201
Tinchebrai, battle, 215
Tostig, earl, 69, 78
Towns, 58, 70, 195, 211, 227
Trade, 58, 183, 245
Transubstantiation,
44, 55,
109-110
Turgot, bishop of St. An-
drews, 225
URBAN II., pope, 171
VACARIUS, 211, 238
Val-ès-Dunes, battle of, 38
Varaville, battle of, 39, 41
Vigfusson, Mr. G., and Powell,
Mr. F. Y., Corpus Poeticum
Boreale, 5, 16
Villeins: Norman, 32; English,
53, 94, 98-99, 233, 239-244
WALERAN of Meulan, 165
Wales and Welsh, 83, 154,
159, 217-221, 230
Walkelin, bishop of
Win-
chester, 107
Walter Map, 241
Waltham, 57-58
Waltheof, earl, 85, 135, 150-
151, 226
Warangian guard, 213
Wedmore, peace of, 19
Westminster abbey, 57, 264;
hall, 237, 245, 267; council
of, 176
William Longsword, duke of
the Normans, 16, 21–26
the Conqueror, 36-41,
67, 70-138, 150
Rufus, 124-125, 128,
129, 138-144, 157, 169–171,
176, 218, 229, 232, 237, 251
son of Henry I., 188
bishop of Durham, 154,
168, 175
bishop of Exeter, 243
Talvas, 36, 152-153
Fitz-Osbern, 75, 83, 130,
150
of Warren, 107, 234
of Poitiers, 60, 263, and
passim
of Malmesbury, 87, 264
and passim
Witenagemot, 8, 49, 50, 54,
55, 120-121, 188
Women, 7, 47, 61, 106
Writs, 117, 192, 244
Wulfstan, bishop of Wor-
cester, 54, 104, 134, 151,
155
Spritarė
York, 82, 83, 85, 249; arch-
bishopric, 106, 225
THE END.
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