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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

SELECT CHARTERS

STUBBS

Bonbon
HENRY FROWDE
Oxford University Press Warehouse
Amen Corner, E.C.

GUw 2)o*ft

MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE

SELECT CHARTERS AND
OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF
ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE FIRST
ARRANGED AND EDITED

WILLIAM STUBBS
t).D., HON. LL.D., D.O.L. ; BISHOP OP OXFORD
SOMETIME REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY

EIGHTH EDITI

on rTrowbridce Reference Libra

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M.DCCC.XCV

©jforfc

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

PREFACE
J. HIS book is intended to be primarily a treasury of reference :
an easily handled repertory of the Origines of English Consti
tutional History ; and, secondarily, a manual for teachers and
scholars. With a view to the first purpose, I have tried to
collect in it every constitutional document of importance during
the period that it covers. With a view to the second, I have
attempted by way of illustration to point out the bearings of the
several documents on one another and on the national polity ;
supplying in the Introductory Sketch a string of connexion and
some sort of continuous theory of the development of the
system. The study of Constitutional History is essentially a tracing of
causes and consequences ; the examination of a distinct growth
from a well-defined germ to full maturity : a growth, the parti
cular direction and shaping of which are due to a diversity of
causes, but whose life and developing power lies deep in the
very nature of the people. It is not then the collection of
a multitude of facts and views, but the piecing of the links of
a perfect chain. And in this comparatively complete and intel
ligible connexion of cause and consequence, it has a certain charm
that makes up for the default of everything depending on the
play of personal character, the unlooked-for and the picturesque.
It is of the greatest importance that this study should become
a recognised part of a regular English education. No know
ledge of English history can be really sound without it : it is not
creditable to us as an educated people that while our students are
well acquainted with the state machinery of Athens and Rome,
they should be ignorant of the corresponding institutions of
our own forefathers : institutions that possess a living interest
for every nation that realises its identity, and have exercised on
the wellbeing of the civilised world an influence not inferior
certainly to that of the Classical nations.

vi Preface.
I have pointed out in the introductory chapter my reasons
for not going further than the reign of Edward I. The later
history is rather a history of politics than of polity, and has to
be illustrated by a very different sort of documents. A more
consistent supplement or companion to this volume would be a
comparative assortment of corresponding Origines of the other
constitutions of E ui ope. This is a branch of study without which
the student cannot fully realise either the peculiar characteristics
of his own national polity, or the deep and wide basis which it
has in common with those of the modern nations of the Continent.
To have furnished however in this volume, even the bare texts
of the chief constitutional monuments of France, Germany, Spain,
Italy, and Scandinavia, would have obliged me to alter the plan
altogether ; nor could the comparative Constitutional History of
Europe be illustrated at all thoroughly on the same scale.
For the present, I commend this little book to the good
offices of teachers, and to the tender mercies of pupils, in the
firm conviction that the subject it illustrates is of the first
educational importance, and in the hope that the plan and line
of study which it suggests will be fouud well calculated to draw
out the mind, and to extend the area of sound teaching.
Oxford, October 7, 1870.

In the Second Edition a few additions have been made to the
Excerpts, and five or six documents of interest have been added
amongst which the Habeas Corpus Act and the Act of Settle
ment are the most important. An interesting charter of Canute
will be found inserted at p. 75.
Oxford, January 14, 1874.

PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
The demand for a new edition of this book justifies me,
I trust, in believing that it has been found useful to students
of English Constitutional History, and in hoping that it will
continue to be so. In preparing it for the press, I have thought
it well to make some small modifications in the ' terminology '
of the earlier part, and to get rid of a few expressions which
belong more properly to French and German History. Some
of these, useful enough in a comparative survey, are not directly
appropriate to English customs or institutions, which, although
nearly if not quite identical with those of the Continent, have
never, in contemporary documents, borne the same designations.
The use of these terms, accordingly, leads occasionally to the
misconceived notion, that customs which are either matter
of common primitive origin, or of independent analogous
development from common origin, are borrowed or derived
in their matured form by one national system from another.
This risk is considerable in the study of the commonly called
feudal institutions and of many theories on the history of land-
ownership. In relation to this point, I will add a word of caution,
necessary in these days, although familiar to antiquaries and
students of continuities. The first occurrence of the mention of
particular terms, or forms of institutions, is treated by diversely
constituted minds and different schools, in ways diametrically
opposed. To one it is an evidence of novelty or innovation, to the
other a presumption, strong enough to be a proof, of a previous

viii Preface to the EigJitk Edition.
existence. The balance of reasonableness is, in human history, on
the side of the latter, for as a rule facts are older than records,
customs older than statutes ; and many records have perished,
in all probability, before the one that survives furnishes evidence
of an institution which may and often must have existed long
before it came to be embodied in record at all. Investigators
who reject this consideration would reduce the domain of
archaeological study to a vacuum, or to a collection of uncon
nected and unorganized atoms.
Now the history of institutions, as of nations, runs through
occasional tunnels ; and it may very well be that a custom,
or law of primitive life, emerges at the end of such a tunnel in a
form somewhat modified from that in which it entered, whilst
on careful analysis, its identity is unmistakeable, its history being
susceptible of varied hypothetical explanations. That this
generalization is open to occasional misunderstanding or mis
application, any historical student must, and will readily grant;
but I confess that to me, as an old investigator, a good deal of
the accepted theory of continuous History, in this region, at
least, of History, seems to rest on arguments as sound, within
its own material and area, as those on which Copernicus and
Kepler worked out their astronomical conclusions. Where there
are periods of occultation, a working hypothesis is often all that
can be adduced in sustentation of continuous History, and it is
well that every such hypothesis should be freed as much as is
possible from confusion between essentials and accidents, as well
as from the peremptory dogmatism which identifies theory with
discovery. But a working hypothesis, constantly being realized
and illustrated even by detached discovery, gradually approaches
to the position of proved History. And, this being allowed for,
I do not hesitate to express my confidence in the future of
historical work conducted on the plan on which in this and in
my other books I have tried to work.
I have to acknowledge, very gratefully, my obligations to
Professor York Powell and Mr. A. L. Smith, for kind advice and
suggestions. I have inserted, as addenda, a specimen Pipe Roll for

Preface to the Eighth Edition. ix
Oxfordshire, which will illustrate the Dialogus de Scaccario,
and incidentally the legal history of the year to which it
belongs ; and a curious relic of the scheme of national defence
set on foot by John in 1205, which has a special bearing on
the development of the Militia system and the office of Constable
in counties and their subdivisions.
W. OXON.
CUDPESDON, March 14, 1895.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
PAOB
A Sketch of the Constitutional History of the English
Nation down to the keign of Edward I .. .. .. 1-5 1
PART II.
Extracts illustrative of the Early Polity of the English 52
Extracts from Caesar .. .. .. -. .. 52
Extracts from Tacitus .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 54
Extracts from the Early Laws of the English . . . . . . .. 60
Ethelbert .. ,  61
Hlothaere and Eadric .. .. .. .. .. .. 61
Wihtred  61
Ini .. ..  61
Pontificale Egbert!  <"
Cone. Legatin. A.D. 787  62
Alfred  6*
Edward  64
Oath of Fealty  64
People's Ranks and Law .. .. .. .. •• •• 65
Of Wergilds  65
Athelstan  66
Edmund  67
Edgar  68
Ordinance of the Hundred  68
Ethelred  72
Canute .. •¦ •• •¦ ¦¦ •• •¦ •• 73
Edward the Confessor .. .. .. •• •• ¦• 7^
PART III.
Select Charters and Excerpts; Norman Period.
William I  79
Excerpts  8o
Charter to the City of London  82
Statutes  83

xii Contents.

PAfiR

Ordinance separating the Spiritual and Temporal Courts . . 85
Extracts from Domesday Book . . . . . . . . . . 85
Title of the Ely Domesday  86
Customs of Chester .. .. .. .. .. .. 87
Customs of Lincoln .. .. .. ,. .. 89
Customs of Oxford and Oxfordshire . . . . . . . . 90
Customs of Berkshire . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
William II .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 91
Excerpts .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 92
Henry I .. .. .. .. .. ,. .. .. ..93
Excerpts .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 96
Charter of Liberties .. .. .. .. .. .. 99
Letter of Henry I to Anselm .. .. .. .. .. 102
Order for holding the Courts of the Hundred and the Shire .. 103
Extracts from the Leges Henrici I .. .. .. .. 104
Charter to the Citizens of London
Charter of Thurstan to Beverley
Customs of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Stephen ..
ExcerptsFirst Charter
Second Charter

107109110
"3114119 119

PART IV.
Select Charters and Excerpts; Henry II.
Henry II .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..122
Excerpts .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 127
Charter of Liberties .. .. .. .. .. ..134
Constitutions of Clarendon .. .. .. .. .. 135
Assize of Clarendon .. .. .. .. .. .. 140
Liability to Scutage .. .. .. .. .. .. 146
Inquest of Sheriffs .. .. .. .. .. 147
Assize of Northampton .. .. .. .. .. ..150
Assize of Arms .. .. .. .. .. .. 153
Assize of the Forest .. .. .. .. .. .. 156
Ordinance of the Saladin Tithe .. .. .. .. .. 159
Extracts from Glan vill .. .. .. .. .. .. 160
Charters of Boroughs .. .. .. .. .. .. 164
Winchester .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 165
Winchester .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 165
Lincoln .. .. .. .. .. .. ..166
Nottingham .. .. .. .. .. .. 166
Oxford .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 167

Contents. xiii
T-v> 1 PAGE
Dialogus de Seaccario .. .. .. .. .. .. 168
Praefatio .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 168

Liber Primus ..
Liber Secundus

170209

PART V.
Select Charters and Excerpts ; Richard and John.
Richard I  349
Excerpts .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 251
Form of proceeding on the Judicial Visitation .. .. .. 258
Proclamation for the Preservation of Peace .. .. .. 263
Charters of Towns . .
Winchester

Lincoln
John Excerpts

264
265266
268 270

Writ for levying a defensive force .. .. .. .. 281
Summons to a Great Council .. .. .. .. .. 282
Writ for the Assessment of the Thirteenth .. .. .. 283
Concession of the Kingdom to the Pope . . . . . . . . 284
Summons to a Great Council .. .. .. .. .. 286
Grant of Freedom of Election to Churches .. .. .. 287
Articles of the Barons ¦ .. .. .. .. .. .. 289
Great Charter of Liberties . . .. .. .. 296
Order for Inquiry into Evil Customs . . . . . . . . 306
Charters of Cities and Boroughs .. .. .. .. 307
(1) Nottingham .. .. .. .. .. .. 308
(2) Northampton .. .. .. .. ..' .. 310
(3) Dunwich .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 311
(4) Lincoln .. .. .. .. .. .. ..312
(5) York  312
(6) Hartlepool   313
(7) Niort  313
(8) Helstone  313
(9) Helstone .. .. ..  314
(10) London .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 314
PART VI.
Select Charters and Excerpts ; Henry ITI.
Henry III   3'°"
Excerpts .. .. ¦• •• •¦ •• ¦¦ •• 320
Announcement of the Reissue of the Charter . . . . . . 337

Contents.

Judges

First Charter of Henry III
Summons of the Sheriff to bring up the County in Arms
Second Charter of Henry III
Charter of the Forest
Writ for the Collection of a Carucage
Third Charter of Henry III
Writ for the Collection of the Fifteenth ..
Writ for the summoning of Four Knights of the Shire
Writ for assembling the County Court before the
Itinerant
Writ for assembling the ' Jurati ad Arma '
Writ for the Collection of the Fortieth . .
Writ for the Conservation of the Peace ..
Writ for the Collection of Scutage
Confirmation of the Charters
Writ for the Collection of the Thirtieth . .
Record of a debate in the Council of the Nation
Writ for enforcing Watch and Ward and the Assize of Arms . .
Sentence of Excommunication against " Transgressors of the
Charters
Writ for carrying out the Watch and Ward and Assize of Arms
Writ summoning two Knights of the Shire to grant an Aid
Charter of Henry III to Oxford . . . .
Documents relating to the Provisions of Oxford
I. The King's consent to a Project of Reform
II. The King's consent to the Election of the Twenty-
four
Petition of the Barons, at Oxford
Provisions of Oxford
Translation ..
Proclamation of the King's adhesion to the Pro
visions
Provisions of the Barons
Writ summoning three Knights of the Shire to
Parliament
VIII. Award of S. Lewis
Documents connected with Simon de Montfort's Administration
I. Writ for Conservation of the Peace and Summons to
Parliament
II. Form of Peace determined on in the Parliament . .
III. Summons to the Parliament of 1265 . .
IV. Confirmation of the Charters ..
V. Summons to Parliament at Winchester
VI. Dictum de Kenilworth

III.
IV.V.
VI.
VII.

PAGE 339
343344 347
351353
35535735«
359 360
3623<4365366
36S 37°
373 374
375
377378380381382387393 396
4004°S
406 409
411
4124'5416
418 419

Contents. xv
PART VII.
Select Charters and Excerpts; Edward I. PAGE
Edward I .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .426
Excerpts .. .. .. .. .. .. 429
Order for the Proclamation of the King's Peace .. .. 447
First Parliament of Edward I . . . . . . . . . . 448
I. Statute of Westminster I (Extract) . . . . . . 450
II. Grant of Custom on Wool . . . . . . . . 451
Summons to Ecclesiastical Councils .. .. .. .. 452
I. Summons to a Council of Bishops .. .. .. 453
II. Summons to a Convocation of Prelates, Archdeacons,
and Collegiate and Monastic Clergy . . . . 45 3
III. Summons to a Convocation in which the Archdeacons
act as Proctors for the Parochial Clergy . . . . 454
IV. Summons to a Convocation in which the Diocesan
Clergy are represented by Episcopal Nominees . . 455
V. Summons to a. Convocation in which the Diocesan
Clergy are represented by their Proctors . . . . 455
Writ for Distraint of Knighthood .. .. .. .. 456
Statute of Mortmain .. .. .. .. .. .. 457
Writs for Parliament and Councils in 1282 and 1283 .. .. 460
I. Letter of Credence for a Royal Commissioner to raise
an Aid . . . . . . ¦ . 464
II. Letter of Thanks for the Aid negotiated . . . . 464
III. Writ of Summons of Knights of the Shire . . . . 465
IV. Writ of Summons to the Archbishops and Clergy . . 466
V. Writ of the Archbishop summoning Convocation .. 466
VI o. Summons of Borough Membera to a National Council 467

VI b. Statute of Merchants ..
VII. Writ for the Collection of a Thirtieth
Statute of Winchester
Translation
Transactions in Parliament in 1 290
I. Grant of Aid pur fille marier . .
II. Summons of Knights of the Shire
III. Statute Quia Emptores ..
Parliament of 1294
I. Summons of the Clergy
II. Summons of the Knights of the Shire
Great Council and Parliament of 1295 
I. Summons of the Archbishop to a Great Council

469
469
469 472
475
477
477 478 479
480481 482
484

II. Summons of the Archbishop and Clergy to Parliament 484

XVI

Contents.

PAGE
III. Summons of an Earl to Parliament . . . . . . 485
IV. Summons of the Representatives of Shires and Towns
to Parliament . . . . . . . . . . 486
V. Writ for the Collection of an Aid .. .. .. 486
Confirmation of the Charters .. ,. .. .. .. 487
De Tallagio non Concedendo .. .. .. .. .. 497
Summons to the Parliament of Lincoln . . . . . . . . 499
Summons to a Colloquium of Merchants . . . . . . . . 500
Writ for the Collection of Talliage .. .. .. .. 501
Modus Tenendi Parliamentum . . . . . . . . . . 502

APPENDIX. Petition of Right
Habeas Corpus Act
Bill of Rights
Act of Settlement .

515517523
528

ADDENDAGLOSSARY

53'

535

P A E T I.
A SKETCH OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
OF THE ENGLISH NATION DOWN TO
THE KEIGN OF EDWAED I.
J. HE English nation is of distinctly Teutonic or German
origin. The Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, who, according to Bede,
furnished the mass of immigrants in the fifth century, were
amongst those tribes of Lower Germany which had been the
least affected by Roman influences. They entered upon a land
whose defenders had forsaken it, and had carried away with
them most of the adventitious civilisation which they had main
tained for four hundred years ; whose inhabitants were enervated
and demoralised by long dependence, wasted by successive pesti
lences, worn out by the attacks of half-savage neighbours and
by their own suicidal wars ; whose vast forests and unreclaimed
marsh-lands afforded to the new-comers a comparatively easy
conquest, and the means of reproducing at liberty on new
ground the institutions under which they had lived at home.
This new race was the main stock of our forefathers : sharing
the primeval German pride of purity of extraction ; still regard
ing the family tie as the basis of social organisation ; migrating
in groups of allied and kindred character, and commemorating
the tribal identity in the names they gave to their new settle
ments; honouring the women of their nation, and strictly careful
of the distinction between themselves and the tolerated remnant

2 Introductory Sketch. [part
of their predecessors. The variations of physical and mental
characteristics which in the progress of fourteen hundred years
have been developed between the English and North German
types, may be amply accounted for by natural and political
causes : the natural ones, the air, food, water, and other almost
imperceptibly efficient workings of the land on its inhabitants ;
the political ones, the total difference of history, and of mental
and moral discipline.
It is unnecessary to suppose that any general intermixture
either of Roman or of British blood has affected this national
identity. Doubtless there were early intermarriages between
the invaders and the natives, and probably in the west of
England a large and continuous infusion of Celtic blood. But
though it may have been locally or relatively great, it could
only be in very small proportion to the whole. The language,
the personal and local names, the character of the customs
and common law of the English, are persistent during historic
times. Every infusion of new blood since the first migration
has been Teutonic ; the Dane, the Norseman, and even the
French-speaking Norman of the Conquest, serve to add intensity
to the distinctness of the national identity. It is true that, as
civilisation has advanced, the language and the legal system
have absorbed new elements, some of them peculiar, some of
them common to all civilisation. The language, continuous
in its perfect identity from the earliest date, unchanged in
structure and tenacious in vocabulary, has drawn in from the
Latin services of the Church, and from the French of the
Courts, new riches of expression ; as it has become the literary
language of a free people, it has received from the common
sources of all literature new forms, which, as the nation has
educated itself, have been thoroughly incorporated with the
older ones. It is true, in the same way, that from the scientific
study of law, somewhat of Roman forms, and somewhat more
of Roman principles, have entered into a combination with the
elder and more purely developed institutions of the race ; but
neither the growth of modern English as a literary language,
nor that of English law in its composite form, can be made to

I-J Ancient German Polity. 3
synchronise in any stage with any possible infusion of foreign
blood. They bear the marks of a rapid civilisation assimilating
new elements, not of a much mixed race retaining fragments of
earlier and shattered systems.
But were the evidences of intermixture of race much stronger
and more general than they are, to the student of constitutional
history they are without significance. From the Briton and
the Roman of the fifth century we have received nothing. Our
whole internal history testifies unmistakably to our inheritance
of Teutonic institutions from the first immigrants. The Teu
tonic element is the paternal element in our system, natural
and political.
The first traces, then, of our national history must be sought
not in Britain but in Germany : in the reports given by Caesar
and Tacitus of the tribes which they knew. In these reports
we have, it is true, a somewhat indistinct picture : so indistinct
that it has been interpreted in many and even in contradictory
ways ; but one which is certainly capable of being interpreted
by the clearer history of the later stages of the institutions
which are common to the race ; and which so interpreted does
give a probable and consistent representation. We have in the
Germans of the first century a family of tribes whose common
political characteristics are these : —
They have in the time of Tacitus ceased to be pastoral and
unsettled races : they occupy fixed seats instead of annually
changing their pastures and hunting-grounds, as they were said
to do when Caesar wrote ; but they are not so far settled as to
have divided the land amongst individuals. The several com
munities allot annually their arable lands among the freemen :
these have their own several homesteads ; but the pasture lands
are not only held but used in common, and the whole land of
the settlement belongs to the community. The community, the
vicus of Tacitus, is joined with others of the same tribe, and
the aggregate is the pagus : an aggregation of pagi is a
civitas or populus. The vici and pagi are governed by
principes appointed by the nation in its popular assembly.
These principes administer justice, but with the aid of n
b 2

4 Introductory Sketch. [part
hundred companions or assessors in each district. Out of them
probably are chosen the duces or leaders of the host in war,
to whose force each district contributes its hundred fighting
men, but whose authority over the allied chieftains is based on
personal prowess, not on delegated or otherwise vested right.
These principes have the privilege of being attended by a
train of comites, who fight for them in battle, wait on them
in peace, and regard the honour of association with them as
more than a compensation for such diminution of freedom as
the relation of patron and dependent involves. Some of the
tribes are led by their principes only: others have adopted
royalty : possibly in imitation of neighbouring polities ; possibly
as a relic of a patriarchal stage, in which the family tie was not
merely the chief but the only bond of organisation, and the
head of the race possessed a priestly character or represented
a semi-divine descent ; possibly as a centre and symbol of unity
among confederated tribes, desiring to embody their own iden
tity in a common hereditary monarchy. In connexion with
this royalty we read of nobiles, in blood more dignified, but
with no rights other than those enjoyed by all the freemen of
the tribe. The king is chosen on the ground of noble descent ;
but his royalty does not, if we take the simple words of Tacitus,
imply much authority : the communities are governed by their
principes chosen in the national assembly; and in war they
are led by the duces whose prowess exacts their respect : the
whole business of the nation is transacted by the Councils of
the nation.
In these Councils, held at stated times and attended by all the
freemen of the tribe, who by admission to the use of arms have
added to their character of members of the family that of full
membership of the civitas, the principes form a separate
body which has authority to determine minor business and to
prepare agenda for the larger gathering. The whole people
meet in that larger gathering, and treat of and decide on mea
sures of higher import. In the several administrations the rule
of the magistrate is limited by the advice of his assessors : the
dux cannot punish without the assistance of the priests : the

I-J Ancient German Polity. c
king is unable to act without the national council ; by it the
principes are elected, lawsuits terminated, offenders against
the tribe condemned. Nor is the relation of the king to the
principes parallel with that of the princeps to his
comites. The princeps fights not for the king but for
his own glory; the comes fights not for glory, but for the
princeps. The king then represents but the unity of the
tribe, the princeps the authority of the community, the dux
the influence of personal pre-eminence.
There are at the bottom of the scale unfree cultivators of
the soil, not slaves, but tenants paying rent and holding land
under the free ; slaves proper, such as captives in war, or
gamblers who have staked and lost all ; and lastly, freedmen.
Tacitus does not mention the Jutes or Saxons at all, and
the Angles only as one of a list of North German tribes whose
places he does not fix. To Ptolemy we owe the identification
of the seats of the two last, between the Elbe, the Eyder and the
Warnow, in the modern duchies of Holstein, Lauenburg and
Mecklenburg. We can discern nothing distinctive about them,
except that in the second century they were recognised but
insignificant tribes.
Between the age of Tacitus and Ptolemy and that of Bede we
have very few distinct data : we know, however, that during the
period the name of Saxon was extended to a great aggregation
of North German tribes, which retained their independence of
Rome, their ancient religion and seats, and very much of their
ancient barbarism. To what extent they had developed the
germs of a political system common to them with the rest of
the Germans, before they took possession of their new home, can
only be conjectured. We may, however, safely argue that their
progress had not been rapid : it is certain that whatever pro
gress was made was free from Eoman elements : it is probable
that the Saxons were behind the rest of the Germans in the
distinctness of polity which belongs to the tribes with which
the Romans were better acquainted. The importance attached
to the tie of kindred, even in the eighth century, in England,
marks a more primitive or more purely developed system than

6 Introductory Sketch. [part
that described by Tacitus, whilst Bede's account of the govern
ment of the Old Saxons, the Saxons of Germany of his own
day, bears evidence of a state of things little removed from that
described by Caesar. In the midst of the obscurity, two points
stand out with clearness, — (i) that the Teutonic occupation of
Britain was a migration and not a mere conquest ; and (2) that
the nations so migrating came from a settled country, and must
be credited with the same amount of organisation here which
they had possessed at home. We are thus freed from the
necessity of supposing that our forefathers had after their
migration to begin with the first elements of settled civilisa
tion ; but we are also prepared to see changes in the primeval
system under which they had lived at home, originated, neces
sitated, and shaped by the fact that they had made so great
and general a movement.
In the first place, a nation moving in mass has not to learn
the first lessons of colonial life. It has the names, the offices,
the functions of the system in which its corporate organisation
is inherent. The tie of kindred is strong, but it does not super
sede, nay, it carries with it the organism of the vicus and the
pagus, probably also that of the civitas. The new-comers
have but to divide the land, and then for peace or war, justice
or politics, simply to reproduce their own old condition. The
vicus, village, or township, will even retain its old proportionate
numbers : the superior divisions will have that indefiniteness
which even in the age of Tacitus belonged to the hundreds,
the centeni, of the Germans. The system, such as it is, is
transported whole, at the point of development which it has
reached at home.
But, in the second place, it will be modified and advanced
by the very process of migration : the necessity of order and
mutual reliance will have strengthened the cohesion of the mass.
The successful dux or princeps who has brought his people
over the sea, although at home he was no king, and perhaps
owned no king, has, now that he has reached the new land, won
for himself a rank beyond that of an elective magistrate • he
has shown himself a son of Woden, the great leader of the

Lj Effects of Migration and Conquest. 7
migrations, and founds a new royalty and nobility in his own
person. He unites the hereditary character of royalty with the
prestige of the successful leader and the authority of the elective
magistrate. The king of the new land is much stronger than
the king, the dux, or the princeps of the old.
These processes are, of course, not peculiar to the occupiers
of Britain : they are of the necessities of all the migrations :
the Franks and the Goths, as they move, are affected in the
same way. Yet out of the Frank and Gothic systems arises,
under the influences of Roman intermixture, a new one so
rapidly and so greatly advanced, that it is in some respect an
antithesis to that of the English. The civilising power of Rome
and the necessities of conquest have, in the sixth century, in
France and Spain, forced the process into a maturity which it
has not reached in England or in un-Romanised Germany four
centuries later. We must add to the two conditions already
specified, that the Teutonic system transplanted with the race
into Britain grows up more purely and is developed more freely,
with less of imitation, and with slower, steadier, stronger
growth. The progress towards political union in England does not
begin with the aggregation of units. There is no reason to doubt
the substantial truth of the traditions which ascribe the origin
of the kingdoms of Kent, Sussex, East Anglia, Deira and Ber-
nicia, to the conquests of single chieftains ; or that the kingdom
of Wessex was the result of a long series of aggressions led by
a single line of princes with their dependent under-kings ; or
that Mercia was an accretion, under one great organiser, of a
considerable number of little states, created by late migrations
under more insignificant chiefs into a country the dangers of
which were now known, and the organisation of the immigrants
consequently less close.
We thus arrive at the point of time at which the conversion
of the people to Christianity introduces a new bond of union,
the influences of a higher civilisation, and a greater realisation
of the place of the English in the commonwealth of nations.
The reduction of the whole of the Church organisation of the

8 Introductory Sketch. [part
seven kingdoms into the National Church, was the work of
Theodore of Tarsus : the introduction of the forms and decencies
of ecclesiastical councils into the meetings of the nations gives
its peculiar character to the English Witenagemot; and the
union of ecclesiastical and civil organisation throughout the land
impresses a perpetuity on the divisions and subdivisions which
before had been determined by the occupancy of the family or
tribe. The separate vicus, or township, becomes the sphere of
duty of a single priest, and later is called his parish ; the
kingdom becomes the diocese of a bishop ; the whole land the
province of the metropolitan : the rival archbishops head rival
nationalities ; the greater dioceses are subdivided on the lines
of the earlier under-kingdoms in six of the seven states, and
when Wessex late in the day begins to subdivide, she follows
the same idea. The organisms of Church and State advance
side by side; the shires become the archdeaconries, and the hun
dreds the deaneries of a later age. The archdeacon or bishop
presides with the ealdorrnan and sheriff in the shiremoot ; the
parish priesc leads his people to the hundredmoot, or even to
the fyrd ; the witenagemot has its most distinct and permanent
constituent in the clergy, bishops, and abbots.
There are in the Anglo-Saxon system, as we find it in the
laws and charters of the kings, certain distinct steps of growth
in political insight; but as the development during five centuries
was very gradual, there are many features of the system which
remain almost in permanence during the whole period, and
run on in different combinations still later. The system is
developed purely and slowly, and we are at no loss to trace
the continuity of its growth from the earlier germs. From the
seventh to the eleventh century the national organisation may
be generally described thus : —
The people occupy settled seats ; the land is appropriated to
separate townships, and in these certain portions belong in entire
possession to separate owners, whilst others are the common
property of the community ; and there are large unappropriated
estates at the disposal of the nation. Each of these townships
has an organisation of its own ; for certain purposes the in-

I-J Anglo-Saxon System. a
habitants are united by the mutual responsibility of the kin
dred ; for others they are under the authority of their reeve,
who settles their petty disputes, collects their contributions
to the national revenue, leads the effective men to the fyrd,
and with his four companions represents the township in the
court of the hundred or in the folkmoot. The townships are
not always independent ; sometimes they are the property of
a lord, who is a noble follower, comes, gesith, thegn, of
the king, with jurisdiction over the men of the township,
and many of the rights which we associate with feudalism.
Where, however, this is the case, the organisation is of the
same sort ; the reeve is the lord's nominee, the moot is the
lord's court, the status of the inhabitants is scarcely less than
free, and their duties to the state are as imperative as if they
were free.
A cluster of townships is the hundred or wapentake; its
presiding officer is the hundred-man : he calls the hundred-
moot together, and leads the men of the hundred to the host,
or to the hue and cry, or to the shiremoot. He is generally
elected, although sometimes the feudal element is all powerful
here also, and he is nominated by the noble or prelate to whom
the hundred belongs. He has no undivided authority ; he is
helped by a body of freemen, twelve or a multiple of twelve,
who declare the report of the hundred, and are capable of
declaring the law. Nearly all the work of judicature is con
tained in this, for questions of fact are determined by compur
gation and ordeal. The shiremoot is a ready court of appeal,
and the royal audience is accessible only when both hundred-
moot and folkmoot have failed to do justice.
A cluster of hundreds makes the shire ; its officers are
the ealdorman, the sheriff, and the bishop ; its councillors are
the thegns, who declare the report of the shire ; its judges are
the folk assembled in the shiremoot, the people, the lords of
land with their stewards, and from the townships the reeve and
four men and the parish priest.
The shiremoot is the most complete organisation under the
system : it is the folkmoot; not the witenagemot of the

10 Introductory Sketch. [part
shire, but the assembly of the people ; in it all freemen in person
or by representation appear. Its ealdorman is appointed by
the witan of the whole nation, like the princeps of Tacitus ;
its reeve once, perhaps, elected from below and authorised from
above, like the king or bishop himself. The ealdorman leads the
whole shire to the host, the sheriff commands the freemen, the
lords their comites and vassals, the bishop's reeve or abbot's
reeve the tenants of the churches ; all under the ealdorman as
the national leader. The ealdorman and bishop attend the
witenagemot ; the sheriff executes justice and secures the rights
of the king or nation in the shire.
The union of shires is the kingdom ; whether there be two
or three as in any of the seven kingdoms, or all together in the
kingdom of Athelstan or Edgar. But the kingdom is merely
an aggregation of shires, which in many cases have themselves
been kingdoms of earlier formation, with the minimum of
necessary administration. The king is at the head : the national
council is the witenagemot.
Under the Heptarchic arrangement there was no organised
unity but the ecclesiastical. The Church in this aspect is older
than the State. The Church councils were the only national
councils, the metropolitan the only person whose word had the
same force everywhere : it was through the Church that the nation
first learned to realise its unity. Yet the unity of the race,
though not available for organised government, was not for
gotten. There was no period within historic times when one
of the seven kingdoms had not an honorary and more or less
real precedence. Whether or no this precedence was expressed
by the title of Bretwalda, it involved no inherent authority, nor
does it imply any unity of administration. Each kingdom has
its own witenagemot, and the deliberations of the kings are
rather consultations of plenipotentiaries than national councils.
Only when Wessex has finally annexed the other kingdoms, is
the nation counselled for by one witenagemot.
Neither in its earlier nor in its later form, neither in the
seven nor in the one, is the witenagemot formed on the model
of the lower courts. It is not a folkmoot ; although it repre-

x-] King and Witenagemot. n
sents the people, it is not a collection of representatives : its
members are the principes, the sapientes, the comites and
counsellors of royalty, the bishops, the ealdormen, and the king's
thegns. The witenagemot can never have been a large as
sembly; seventeen bishops, a variable number of ealdormen,
according as the shires were distributed singly or in clusters,
never perhaps more than twenty; of vassal members also a
variable number, gradually increasing as the power of the crown
became greater and the number of jurisdictions multiplied
under the leaven of feudalism.
The process of time and change of circumstances have now
reversed the dictum of Tacitus. On greater matters the princes
consult, on smaller matters all ; the plebs, the folk, rises
no higher than the shiremoot. But the whole claims of the
people as against the king are vested in the witenagemot, and
as the character of the king varies, those claims are more or
less actively exercised. The witan, where they are able, have
the right of electing and deposing kings ; in conjunction with
the king, of nominating ealdormen and bishops, of regulating
the transfer of public lands, of imposing taxes, of voting sup
plies and so deciding war and peace, of authorising the en
forcement of ecclesiastical decrees, of joining in the making
of laws, of sitting as a high court of justice over all persons
and causes.
But under a strong king many of these claims are futile ;
the whole public land seems, by the eleventh century, to have
been regarded as at the king's disposal really if not in name :
the sheriffs, ealdormen, and bishops are named by the king ;
if he be a pious one, the bishops are chosen by him with respect
to the consent of the diocesan clergy ; if he be a peremptory
one, they are appointed by his determined will. But the powers
of legislation and taxation are never lost, nor does the king
execute judgment without a court which is in name, and in
reality perhaps, a portion of the witenagemot.
Neither taxation nor legislation is very onerous work : the
trinoda necessitas and the rents of the public lands supply
for a long time all the necessary expenses of government. Ex-

12 Introductory Sketch. [part
traordinary taxation is imposed by the witenagemot, as the Dane-
geld or the shipgeld; a regular tax of two shillings on every
hide of land furnishes a bribe to the Danes, or a contribution
of a ship and its equipments is levied on the shires in due
proportions, to enable the king to resist them. The laws are
mostly concerned with minute adjustments and modifications
of usages, the great body of the common law being yet trans
mitted orally or by custom, not reduced to writing until it is
in danger of being forgotten.
The fabric is crowned by the king ; not the supreme law
giver of Roman ideas, nor the fountain of justice, nor the
irresponsible leader, nor the sole and supreme politician, nor
the one primary landowner ; but the head of the race, the
chosen representative of its identity, the successful leader of its
enterprises, the guardian of its peace, the president of its assem
blies ; created by it, and, although empowered with a higher
sanction in crowning and anointing, answerable to his people.
He is the national representative; the national officers are his
officers ; he leads the army of the nation as the ealdorman that
of the shire ; he is supreme judge, as the sheriff is in the shire
moot ; in each capacity his power is limited by a council of free
advisers ; and he is bound by oaths to his people to govern
well, to maintain religion, peace, and justice, they being bound
to him in turn by a general oath of fidelity.
It would be rash to affirm that the system thus characterised
ever existed in integrity, much more so that it existed in any
thing like this integrity for the whole four centuries that pre
ceded the Conquest. Yet that every single portion of it existed
at some period during those centuries, and when it ceased to
exist was superseded by some other arrangement of the same
kind, is capable of proof. Varieties of practice may have pre
vailed in different ages and districts, as to the names of the
inferior courts, as to the number and functions of the assessors
of the shiremoot, as to the law of compurgation, wergild and
ordeal, as to the responsibility of the kindred, the hundred or
the township for the production of culprits ; but the general
machinery was permanent, and during the greater part of

I0 Later Development.

13

the time little affected by Frank, Roman, or Celtic laws or
politics. From the end of the tenth century a change sets in which
might ultimately by a slow and steady series of causes and con
sequences have produced something like continental feudalism.
The great position taken by Edgar and Canute, to whom the
princes of the other kingdoms of the island submitted as vas
sals, had the effect of centralising the government and in
creasing the power of the king. Early in the eleventh century
he seems to have entered on the right of disposing of the
public land without reference to the witan, and of calling up
to his own court by writ suits which had not yet exhausted
the powers of the lower tribunals. The number of royal vassals
was thus greatly increased, and with it the power of royal and
noble jurisdictions. Canute proceeded so far in the direction
of imperial feudalism as to rearrange the kingdom under a very
small number of great earls, who were strong enough in some
cases to transmit their authority to their children, though not
without new investiture, and who, had time been given for the
system to work, would have no doubt developed the same sort
of feudality as prevailed abroad. Already by subinfeudation or
by commendation great portions of the land of the country were
being held by a feudal tenure, and the alodial tenure which had
once been universal, was becoming the privilege of a few great
nobles too strong to be unseated, or a local usage in a class of
landowners too humble to be dangerous.
The Norman Conquest in one aspect stopped this natural growth
of feudalism : in another, it may be said to have introduced
the feudal system. Had this system been developed naturally,
it would have doubtless become, as it did abroad, the framework
of government. The Conqueror saw the evils of this exemplified
in France. He, from the beginning of his reign, attempted to
rule as the national sovereign, not as the feudal lord. The great
confiscations resulting from the rebellions of the native earls
threw however, enormous territories into his hands, and these,
being distributed among his followers on the feudal conditions,
constituted him at once the supreme landowner. To these

14 Introductory Sketch. [part
conditions all other tenures were gradually but rapidly assimi
lated ; they were not, perhaps, entirely so assimilated when
Domesday-book was drawn up, but before the accession of
Henry I they seem to have become uniformly feudal.
On the Continent, the feudal system had, under the necessities
of conquest and by the influence of Roman principles of law,
worked itself into the ver)- machinery of government. The
origin of vassalage has been traced to the relation of the
comes to the princeps in the German, or to that of the client
to his patron in the Roman system ; and the double title to
the land, either to the emphyteutic tenure of the latter, or to
the beneficium of the Merovingian conquerors. But so far
it was a tenure only. When the beneficium began to be here
ditary, and the provincial governors to be the great beneficiary
proprietors in the province, often also by marriage or descent
great alodial owners, then the powers of jurisdiction and
military command became feudal also. The royal power
was eclipsed by that of its own officers, and the king became
primus inter pa/res, or often enough the servant of his own
servants. This was the condition of things with which William the
Conqueror had been conversant in France, and in a lower degree
in Normandy itself, where the greater vassals were always try
ing to reduce the duke's authority to a shadow, to maintain
the immunity of their lands from his higher jurisdiction, and to
get rid of his ancient right to garrison their castles. It was
not without a long struggle that he had established his position
against the predecessors of the nobles who formed the strength
of the confederation by which he had to secure his conquest.
To avoid the renewal of the struggle upon the new soil
William from the beginning of his reign took strong and de
cided measures. At the earliest opportunity he abolished the
great earldoms which Canute had created, and placed the govern
ment of the shires, through the office of sheriff, in direct depend
ence on himself. For the vassals who demanded and had a right
to demand a share in the fruits of their victory, he provided by
liberal gifts of land ; but these were scattered throughout the

lJ Results of the Norman Conquest. 15
country in a way that made united organisation of great estates
impossible. In the cases in which he is said to have created or
continued palatine counties,— those of Chester and Shrewsbury
on the Welsh march, that of Durham on the Scottish border,
and that of Kent as a guard against aggression from Picardy, —
two were entrusted to ecclesiastics who could not found families ;
and generally not even his most faithful servants were trusted
with either large connected estates or great hereditary jurisdic
tions. He further maintained in full efficiency all the lower or
ganisation of the earlier system, adding definiteness and distinct
ness where it was wanted : he enforced the frankpledge, and upheld
the courts of the hundred and the shire, although in so doing he
had to suffer the continuance of the private jurisdictions or fran
chises of the nobles, and even the extension of the principle on
a small scale to the new estates of his vassals. But in order to
preclude any hope of creating an independent jurisdiction to the
exclusion of his own, he renewed the old custom by which every
freeholder took an oath of fealty to the king ; nor did he, whilst
trying to strengthen the national institutions, at all relax the
hold which his feudal position gave him on the Normans, in the
exaction of all customary rights and dues.
In all the organisation of the state, however, great changes
did follow the Conquest. The officers of the government were
Normans ; their offices received Norman names ; and the assi
milation of all tenures to the feudal introduced the feudal
principle into every department. Hence, although not perhaps
all at once, the national council, instead of being the assembly
of the wise men of the nation, became the king's court of feudal
vassals : the royal revenue began to consist largely of feudal
aids and other incidents : as the feudal lord, the king became
the head and source of all jurisdiction, and the administration
of his court and household a centralisation of all lower organi
sation, national or imported.
In both respects, then, in the maintenance of the inferior
organisation and in the creation of a ministerial body in the feudal
court itself, William imposed a check on the feudatories already
crippled by the dispersion of their estates and the limitation of

1 6 Introductory Sketch. [part
their jurisdictions ; and the restriction of their power was the
security of the people at large : — but to work the composite sys
tem he was compelled to use the feudatories ; and they naturally
worked it to their own purposes, thus gaining a vantage-ground
for their struggle against the royal power which lasted for
nearly a century, and ended in the humiliation or extinction
of all the great families of the Conquest. Throughout this
struggle it may fairly be said that, although in the way of pecu
niary exaction the kings pressed their hold on the great vassals
to an undue extent, the interests of the crown and the people
were one.
At the head of the administrative system, now, stands the
king, the feudal lord of all the land, the source of all jurisdic
tion, the supreme arbiter of war and peace. His court, whose
counsel and consent are the only restriction on his power, is
composed of his own vassals, even the prelates being compelled
to do homage in token of their secular dependence on him. But
he is also the king of the nation, his council is the witenagemot
of the nation, and the laws by which he rules are the laws
which his people have claimed from him as their own. Inde
pendently of the whole feudal machinery, the people are bound
to him by oath, and he to them by his coronation promises and
charter of liberties.
The enormous amount of business entailed on the king by
this complication of new and old relations, compels the appoint
ment of a minister who shall stand to him in the whole king
dom in the same relation in which the sheriff does in each
shire. This is the justiciar, or lieutenant-general of the king,
who is the king's representative in all matters ; regent of the
kingdom in his absence ; and, whether the king is absent or
present, the supreme administrator of law and finance. Under
him the king's clerks or chaplains are formed into a body of
secretaries, the chief of whom bears the title of Chancellor.
The Conqueror himself executed in person a great part of the
business of the state ; it is under William Rufus that the jus
ticiar becomes the prime minister : in this great office the Con
queror was strong enough to employ a great baroii ; William

!•] The Norman Kings. 17
Rufus employed a safer official, a lawyer or a chaplain after
his own heart.
The organisation of the justiciar's administration dates from
the reign of Henry I, the chief systematiser of it being Roger,
bishop of Salisbury, whose family retained the direction of the
machinery for nearly a century. The staff of the justiciar is
a selection from the barons or vassals of the crown who are
more nearly connected with the royal household, or qualified by
their knowledge of the law for the position of judges. These
are formed into a supreme court attendant on the king, the
Curia Regis, which when employed upon finance sits in the
chamber and is known by the name of the Exchequer. The
several members are called, in the Curia, justices, their head
being the capitalis justiciarius, or chief justice; in the
Exchequer, bar ones or baron es scaccarii, a title which
continues to belong to them after they have ceased to be chosen
from the ranks of the great vassals.
This staff of officers, which may be regarded as standing to
the justiciar in the relation in which the twelve thegns stand
to the sheriff in the folkmoot, as .a judicial committee repre
senting the whole court of vassals, is the germ of the entire
administrative machinery of the constitution. By it all appeals
are decided, and to it all suits may be called up on application
of the suitors : to it belongs the assessment and collection of all
revenue. As the royal council, it shares in the revision and
registration of the laws and charters which it attests. Below
it the only judicial machinery is the old one of the shires, the
hundreds, and the local franchises. But in the decreeing of
taxation and the authorising of laws it has no direct influence ;
these powers are still vested in the king and the witan, —
the king and the national assembly now composed of his
vassals. The legislative functions of the national council are under
the Norman kings rather nominal than real. But the form of
participation is retained : the counsel and consent of 1
may be traced in the amendments of the old laws^by>^e i
queror and Henry I. This immemorial counse/and consent
' 'TrniMhririffD QafftTWl

t8 Introductory Sketch. [part
descends from the earliest Teutonic legislation, and is preserved
to our own day, a standing and perpetual protest against the
imperial doctrine favoured by the lawyers and founded on the
devolution of all legislative power on the king, — ' Quod principi
placuit legis habet vigorem.'
The taxation of the country involves little trouble to the
supreme council. It depends partly on the ancient national
system, partly on the new feudal one. A tax based on the
former requires no new authorisation : a grant from the latter
merely the vote, and a statement of the amount wanted, where
a special gift over and above the prescriptive feudal dues is
demanded. Under the Norman kings, there is no instance in
which such grant is debated, much less refused. It is no small
limitation of autocratic tyranny that it should have been thought
necessary to ask it.
The assessment and collection of the revenue is the work of
the Exchequer : there on two fixed days in the year every sheriff
appears and accounts for the sums due from his- shire : — the
f'erm of the shire, that is, the rent formerly paid in kind or in
maintenance, now commuted for fixed sums, from old public
lands and royal demesnes : the Danegeld, also probably com
pounded for : the proceeds of the fines of the local courts : the
feudal aids, and other incidents. It is only in these latter heads
that any variation occurs that requires adjustment. The others
are all fixed by law, and the proportions payable by each estate
are determined by Domesday-book. But as the lands have
changed hands, and immunities and franchises are constantly
altered by royal charter, some debate between the payers and
receivers is needed. The sheriff, who is often a local magnate,
cannot be trusted to arrange this ; so a detachment of the staff
of the justiciar makes the circuit of the shires : these officers
debate with the landowners the number of hides for which they
owe Danegeld, or the number of knights' fees from which aids
and reliefs are due ; they likewise assess the towns, which are
now becoming important contributors to the revenue. These
fiscal visitations of the barons lead to judicial visitations also,
and so to a union for both purposes with the local organisations,

•J The Norman Kings.

19

which, as time advances, is a long step towards the consolida
tion of constitutional government.
In this way the Norman administration worked ; in many
cases with great hardship to individuals, but rather depressing
than crushing the old national organism. It is gradually de
veloped. William the Conqueror was, so far as any king of the
English could be, an irresponsible ruler ; he was not a great
organiser, but a powerful and laborious man. His hand was
in everything, and his wisdom kept him from being a tyrant.
William Rufus was a tyrant of the worst sort ; but he was with
out the business powers of his father, and the work of govern
ment in the hands of Ranulf Flambard was full of irresponsible
and wanton oppression. Henry I, as able a man as his father,
and as despotic as his brother, by the employment of organised
administration, set a limit on his own caprice. Routine is the
only safeguard of a people under a perfect autocracy, and by
routine Henry I helped to bring on the reign of law. It is
only in the struggles of the clergy that the idea of liberty finds
any expression.
The attitude of the people to the crown during these reigns
is constant : the whole national system is safe in their support
of one another. The great vassals are the common enemies of
both. Hence William Rufus and Henry I in their emergencies
found it easy to purchase the effectual aid of the country by
promises ; and the people were sustained in their ancient cus
toms by the king's fear of increasing the jurisdictions of the
barons. The words by which Henry I in his Charter provides
for the maintenance of the rights of the lower landowners, are
a significant proof of this, and of the way in which matters
have to change before it is necessary for the barons to force the
same provisions on John ; in little more than a century the
attitudes of the king and barons are reversed. In one important
way, however, Henry I connected the local courts with the Curia
Regis, by uniting several sheriffdoms under one of his justices.
The justices were among the novi homines of the baronage,
and, like all ministerial bodies, were jealously watched by both
nobles and people. c 2

20 Introductory Sketch. [paet
The twenty years that follow the death of Henry I, and are
called the reign of Stephen, are a period without example in our
history. The feudal baronage take advantage of the struggle
for the crown, to throw off every sort of restraint ; and by
dividing between the two parties in a way that prevents either
from gaining a decided advantage, to destroy the new admini
strative machinery, and exercise irresponsible powers on their
own estates. They now exemplify all the mischievous charac
teristics of continental feudalism : private wars ; countless for
tified castles ; the cruel exercise of summary jurisdictions ; the
striking of private coinage. Each baron is a king in his own
castle. That it is only for their own immunities that they fight,
appears clearly from their desertions and tergiversations during
the continuance of the war. To this disorganisation and the
irreconcilable opposition of the Empress, Stephen had nothing
of his own to oppose. He was a brave man, but without re
sources, without administrative power, and devoid of political
tact. By one act of impolicy, intemperate rather than unjustifi
able, he broke with the clergy, to whom he owed his throne,
and with the administrative corps, at the head of which Bishop
Roger of Salisbury still was, without whose aid he had not a
chance of maintaining it. His weakness had suffered the power
of both to become overweening ; his impolicy set both in array
against him, and by one act he alienated every element in the
state, and cut off his own sources of revenue. The attempt
which he had made to create for himself a strong party and a
rival nobility, by erecting new earldoms to be provided for out
of the revenue and by the demesne lands of the crown, pro
voking the jealousy of the barons and impoverishing the royal
income, threw him for support on taxation which he had no
means of enforcing. The natural result was war, and anarchy
succeeding war, in which all central administration, except the
ecclesiastical, collapsed. When all parties were exhausted, the
bishops obtained the place of mediators, at which they had long
aimed ; and the succession of Henry II was the result of the
compromise. Amongst the terms of the pacification which were
intended to bind both Stephen and Henry, was a regular pro-

T0 Policy of Henry II.

21

gramme of administrative reform, for the abolishing of the
evils of the late anarchy, and the restoration of national pros
perity. The castles were to be rased, the coinage reformed,
the sheriffs to be replaced, the crown lands to be resumed, the
new earldoms to be extinguished, foreigners to be banished,
the administration of justice to be provided for, the Golden
Age to return.
The reign of Henry II initiates the rule of law. The ad
ministrative machinery, which had been regulated by routine
under Henry I, is now made a part of the constitution, enun
ciated in laws, and perfected by a steady series of reforms. The
mind of Henry II was that of a lawyer and man of business.
He set to work from the very beginning of the reign to place
order on a permanent basis, and, recurring to the men and mea
sures of his grandfather, to complete an organisation which
should make a return to feudalism impossible. To destroy the
' adulterine' castles, to abolish the ' fiscal' earldoms, to resume
the alienated crown lands, was the first, the destructive part
of his work ; to restore the machinery of the Exchequer and
Curia Regis, to extend their powers and to bring them into the
closest contact with the provincial organisation, was the next
step. The greatest obstacles to the carrying out of this policy
were the barons, and, unfortunately, the clergy also ; the former
must be compelled to agree to the restriction of their hereditary
jurisdictions within the smallest compass, and the latter to allow
themselves to be, in all matters not purely spiritual, subject to
the ordinary process of the law. Hence arose the two great
struggles of the reign : in that with the barons Henry was
successful ; in that with the clergy, although worsted and humi
liated, he carried off the fruits of victory. These matters ought
not to be regarded separately ; the Constitutions of Clarendon
were but a part of a scheme which was to reduce all men to
equality before the same system of law.
In his first years, Henry renewed the provincial visitations
of the justices for both fiscal and judicial purposes ; at a later
period he largely increased the staff of judges for this very end,
and at the same time greatly expanded the system of inquest by

22 Introductory Sketch. [part
jury, which superseded the old processes of trial by battle and
compurgation, and led by no indistinct steps to the incorpora
tion of the machinery of the shire and of the borough in the
national council or parliament. The instructions given to the
visiting judges are precise enough, — they are to enter the fran
chises of the barons, and to take cognisance of castle guard and
every relic of old immunities.
A second measure of reform less directly aimed at the feuda
tories, was no less effectual to the diminution of their strength.
The commutation of military service for a money payment,
or scutage, placed the military training of the people and the
disposal of their forces in the king's hands. It enabled him
to hire mercenaries for his foreign wars, to dispense with the
hated Danegeld, and to bring the ecclesiastical baronage under
contribution. The revival of the ancient militia system, or
fyrd, by the Assize of Arms, enabled him to dispense with
the military services of the barons for the maintenance of order
at home. This ancient force had been called out under William
Rufus and Stephen ; it was now reorganised and ordered to
furnish itself with modern weapons. Henry trusted the people
more than the barons.
A third symptom of his decided policy was the bestowal of
the office of sheriff on lawyers and soldiers rather than on the
great barons, who had already succeeded, in some cases, in
making it hereditary ; during the whole of Henry's later years,
these very important functionaries were drawn from the class
which furnished the barons of the Exchequer and itinerant
justices ; and their powers were easily limited and regulated by
the Curia Regis.
All these measures have a greater significance, viewed as parts
of an extended scheme of administration ; the reforms which
they betoken run into every region of public business.
Henry II made the national council a different thing from
what Henry I had left it ; he summoned it at regular intervals,
twice or thrice every year of his stay in England. Its composition
was that of a perfect feudal court ; archbishops, bishops, abbots,
priors, earls, barons, knights and freeholders. The business

I0 Judicial System under Henry II. 23
transacted in it was political, fiscal, legislative and judicial. In
every public matter the nation was, in theory, consulted ; the
laws were issued * cum consensu et consilio ; ' even taxation, as
we may infer from the questions raised by Becket in the council
of Woodstock, was suffered to come into debate ; the king sat in
person to hear the complaints of his people, and decided them
by the advice of his bishops and judges. It was in a great
council that he determined on the resumption of the alienated
demesne ; in another he arranged the great quarrel between
Castille and Navarre ; in another he issued the assize of Cla
rendon ; in another he discussed the marriage of his daughter.
That towards the end of the reign he found it necessary to limit
the numbers of lower freeholders who attended the councils, is
very probable ; the use of summonses which prevailed from the
first years of the reign gave him the power of doing this.
The Curia Regis and Exchequer continue to be united, but
undergo a large modification by the increase and diminution of
the number of judges. It is probable that Henry, as Edward I
afterwards did, found the chances of corruption and oppression
too tempting for the sort of men that he was educating, the
lawyers and clerks of the court. He found it necessary in 11 78
to restrict the number of those who exercised their functions in
the Curia to five, and to reserve for his own hearing in council
the causes in which this court, which until now had been
a final court of appeal, failed to do justice. This limited
tribunal is the lineal predecessor of the existing Courts of King's
Bench and Common Pleas ; whilst the upper court of appeal,
the king in his ordinary council, is the body from which at
later dates the judicial functions of the Privy Council and the
equitable jurisdiction of the Chancellor emerged. It is this
council which, in conjunction with the elements of parliament,
summoned to meet, but not under the proper parliamentary
style, constitutes the great councils of the next century. And
further still, this ordinary council, in union with the barons
and bishops, containing all who received a special summons to
parliament, formed in the fourteenth century the Magnum
Concilium, or great council of the king. It was from the

24 - Introductory Sketch. [part
mixture of the powers of the two bodies that the House of
Lords received its judicial character as a court of appeal, and
the Privy Council derived its legislative character, which it
attempted to carry out in the form of ordinances. The original
tribunal, the king's ordinary council, retained its undiminished
powers throughout, changing at various times and throwing
off new offshoots, such as the Court of Star Chamber, until it
has reached our own time in the form of the Judicial Com
mittee of Privy Council. The limited tribunal of the Curia
Regis continues, with varying numbers, until the reign of John,
when the Common Pleas are separated from the other business
and fixed at Westminster. Soon after the date of Magna Carta
it divides and arranges its business into that of three courts,
retaining the same staff of judges for all, and the chief justiciar
at the head. Towards the end of the reign of Henry III the
three courts receive each a distinct staff, and the extinction of
the old pre-eminence of the great justiciar results in the com
plete separation of the three for all purposes. In the Ex
chequer Chamber, however, they long retain a trace of their
ancient unity of organisation.
The visits made to the shires by the itinerant judges and
barons form a very important part of the training of the people
for self-government ; not only in the judicial, but in the fiscal
business also. Henry II, if not the inventor, was the great
improver of the system of recognitions by jury. The machinery
which had been occasionally used before, and which may be
traced to Karolingian usage, he applied to every description of
business. By the ordinance of the grand assize, the person
whose possession of land was impugned was empowered to
make choice between trial by battle, and the examination
of his right by a body of twelve sworn recognitors, who
were selected by four sworn knights summoned for the purpose
by the sheriff acting under a royal writ. In the other recog
nitions, as of Mortdancester and Novel disseisin, the twelve
recognitors were simply summoned by the sheriff, acting in this
case also under a special precept from the king. Out of these
recognitions arose the system of trial by jury ; the jurors are at

I,J Recognition by Jury.

25

first witnesses of the fact ; as business increases they are, under
Edward I, afforced by the addition of persons better acquainted
with the matter ; a further step separates these afforcing jurors
from the original twelve, and the former then engross the cha
racter of witnesses, the jury becoming the judges of fact after
hearing evidence. The sworn knights who nominate the re
cognitors of the grand assize are, further, the first germ of a
county representation. By the assize of Clarendon, a like prin
ciple is applied to criminal jurisdiction. Twelve lawful men of
each hundred, with four lawful men from each township, are
sworn to present criminals or reputed criminals of their district,
in each county court ; the prisoners so presented being sent at
once to the ordeal. In this case, Henry simply utilised the
machinery that had existed probably since the time of Edgar, but
he adapted it to the principle of recognition ; the twelve lawful
men are witnesses, as they were under the older system, but the
process is an inquest under oath, as in the case of the great
assize. From this double character of judge and witness the
grand jury system historically descends ; the permission to tra
verse the verdict of the grand jury by a new inquest is of later
introduction, and was adopted as a consequence of the abolition
of ordeal in the reign of Henry III.
But the principle of recognition by jury is found applicable
to other matters than judicature. As early as the year 1070,
William the Conqueror had used it to obtain from the native
population an enunciation of the laws under which they claimed
to live. In the preparation of the Domesday survey it had
been applied, moreover, to fiscal business. The inquest then
was made by the oath of the sheriff, the barons and freeholders
of the shire and the hundred, the priest, the reeve, and six
villeins of each township ; and it was used to ascertain the
extent and liability of every estate in the kingdom. It was not,
however, applied generally to the purpose of taxation until the
reign of Richard I. The steps by which so important a stage
towards self-taxation and representation was gained are of
curious importance. An aid having been decreed by the
national council, the collection of it becomes the work of the

2,6 Introductory Sketch. [part
sheriffs and of the officers of the Exchequer. The classes from
which it is to be demanded are, roughly speaking, the knights,
the towns, and the socage tenants ; the barons, greater and
lesser, the boroughs, and the lower freeholders. The military
tenants are allowed to certify by their own cartel the number
of knights' fees for which they are liable. The towns, through
their burgage holders, make their agreement with the barons
itinerant ; but the lower freeholders are assessed by the sheriff
and his officers, and have no check upon their exactions unless
their hardships can be made known to the king. When taxa
tion descends to personal property, the sheriff has no basis of
calculation ; it is in this, then, that the necessity of some ma
chinery of assessment first introduces the jury system. Under
the assize of arms in 1181, Henry II directs the liability
of each man, either in rent or in chattels, to be estimated by a
sworn body of knights or lawful men of the venue ; and the
same plan is used for the levying, of the Saladin tithe, also on
personal as well as real property, in 1188. When Richard I, in
1 198, exacted a carucage or aid of five shillings on the hide, he
applied the principle of jury assessment in the most elaborate
way to the whole land of the country. How important were
these developments of the idea of representation will be seen
by-and-by. These are but a few of the measures by which Henry II and
his ministers provided for the security of his people, — through
which he earned their confidence, and trained them, both by
the enjoyment of legal security and by the responsible part laid
on them in judicial and fiscal matters, for a time when their
co-operation would be required in the higher departments of
government, in the decreeing, not the executing only, of legis
lation and taxation. In these the king had the help of the
financial family founded by Bishop Roger, and of the great
legist Ranulf Glanvill. He lived long enough to see the success
of his policy in making England rich and contented, and a race
of nobles springing out of the administrative houses, which was
to strengthen the law and make common cause with the people.
Richard's reign is in constitutional matters the supplement of

r0 Principle of Election.

37

his father's ; the administrative progress which may be traced in
it is to be credited not to himself but to his ministers. Richard
FitzNeal, the treasurer, continues the management of the
Exchequer ; Hubert Walter, the justiciar,, develops the ma
chinery which may have originated in the genius of his master,
Henry II, or his uncle, Ranulf Glanvill. The pecuniary neces
sities of Richard, and his long absences from England, threw
the whole responsibility on the ministers, and after the anarchy
of his first two years, owing to the jealousy of the barons and
the faction fights arising from the quarrels of John, Geoffrey,
and William Longchamp, this devolved altogether on Hubert
Walter. He united in his own person the whole secular and
spiritual authority.
From the transactions of the earlier part of the reign we
gather little that is constitutionally important. The attack on
the chancellor was not a constitutional attempt to assert the
responsibility of a minister, but a struggle of factions ; the
encouragement of the town element is not a deliberate act of
policy, but the result of an occasional expedient for raising
money. One or two apparently minor points, however, are of
importance. We have seen that Richard's ministers were the
first who applied the representative system to the assessment of
real property in general for the purpose of national taxation. A
step which is scarcely less important is the introduction of the
system of election to county functions and offices. This is applied
in the first instance to the choice of coroners, who, according to the
assize of 1194, are to be chosen in every county, three knights
and a clerk, to keep the pleas of the crown. The measure was
doubtless intended to be a check on the power of the sheriffs,
who were forbidden by the same assize to act as justices in their
own counties : a proof that the baronial party still required to be
restrained from attempting to strengthen their hold on the local
jurisdictions. This assize prescribes also the way of selecting
the grand jury : four knights are to be chosen in every shire,
who in turn are to choose two out of each hundred ; these two
are to co-opt ten more out of their own hundred, and the twelve
are to form the jury for the hundred. The plan partly resembles

28 Introductory Sketch. [part
that used for the nomination of recognitors for the grand assize,
and was likewise a check on the power of the sheriff, to whom
the nomination seems to have before belonged. It is possible
that the knights electors are henceforth chosen by the suitors,
and that the article of Magna Carta which orders them to be
elected, for the recognitions of novel disseisin, mort-dancester,
and darrein presentment, by the county court, is an explanation
of 'earlier custom. But in the case of the coroner there is no
such question ; the existing immemorial usage, as well as the
words of the assize, proves that the election was by the whole
body of freeholders. It is the first attempt at popular election
in England within the historic period, unless we regard as such
the privileges granted to certain of the boroughs to elect their
magistrates. This had been attained by some towns, by payment
of a fine, under Henry II ; in the reign of John it becomes a
general privilege conferred by charter.
The steps taken in the direction of freedom and security under
these administrators were doubtless of importance in themselves.
They were an extension of the rule of law into regions where
the rule of force had been far too general. But it must not be
thought that they were a pure concession to the desire of free
dom and good government. Henry II and Hubert Walter
recognised the fact, which Henry I had seen before them, that a
people able to count on personal and commercial safety is much
more profitable to the Exchequer than one over-taxed and un
constitutionally oppressed. The reign of Richard is not only a
period of reform in law, but of unparalleled exactions in money.
The various plans of taxation adopted by the earlier kings are
all resuscitated and amplified. The scutage of Henry II is
applied to the raising of funds for the king's ransom, and in
creased in amount. The carucage of Richard is but the Danegeld
under a new name, and of larger and more profitable assessment.
The feudal dues are all exacted ; the wool of the Cistercians is
seized ; the plate of the churches is borrowed ; the moveables as
well as the land are rated. These plans are maintained after the
original call for them has been answered. Nor is the opposition
to this systematic oppression so marked as might be expected.

I-] Reign of John. 29
There are murmurs against the justiciar ; the regular clergy
are compelled by virtual outlawry to pay the carucage ; the
mob of London rises against the burghers, because of the unfair
ness of the assessment ; but the only formal resistance to the
king in the national council proceeds from Saint Hugh of Lin
coln and Bishop Herbert of Salisbury, who refuse to consent
to grant him an aid in knights and money for his foreign
warfare. This, which is done not on ecclesiastical but on con
stitutional grounds, is an act which stands out prominently by
the side of Saint Thomas's protest against Henry's proposal to
appropriate the sheriff's share of Danegeld.
The peculiar circumstances with which the reign of John
begins — a questionable title, perfected by the election of the
nation — might have seemed for a time to necessitate the ob
servance of legal forms. But although from time to time he
summoned his vassals and demanded an aid in constitutional
form, he more frequently exacted the taxes without a formal
grant, and by imposing fines and levying ransoms on the
barons who offended him, without a legal process or sentence,
went in oppressiveness far beyond anything done by Richard's
ministers. From the beginning of his reign he took both caru
cage and scutage as a matter of course, and raised the rate of
the latter from twenty shillings to two marks on the knight's
fee. In 1201 and 1205 he exacted from the army which he
had collected at Portsmouth a payment in commutation of ser
vice much as William Rufus had done when he plundered the
national militia of the viaticum provided by their counties. In
1204 he levied from the tenants in chief enormous 'auxilia mili-
taria,' and raised the rate of scutage to two marks and a half.
In 1207 he demanded and received a thirteenth of all chattels
throughout the country. The ingenuity with which he deve
loped the system of fines is a fertile theme of historians. After
the death of Hubert Walter in 1205, relieved from the incon
venient admonitions of a counsellor to whom he owed so
much— rid also of his competitor, Arthur— having lost his
French dominions, and endangered his hold on England by his
quarrel with the clergy — he took advantage of the general

30 Introductory Sketch. [part
disorganisation to play the tyrant without restraint. The funds
arising from the confiscated estates of the Norman nobles and
the exiled bishops enabled him to spend lavishly, to hoard also
largely, and to collect an army aud fleet for resistance to Philip II,
and even for the invasion of France. But the universal disaffec
tion brought all his preparations to nothing. After offending
every portion of his people, he had to yield to the papal claims ;
and when he had yielded, the desertion of his vassals left him
powerless even for revenge. It was the resistance of the
northern barons to his command that they should join his
expedition to Poictou, that provoked him to the vindictive pro
ceeding which ended in his complete surrender. The barons
found a counsellor in Archbishop Langton, and a programme
for the redress of grievances in the charter of Henry I. This
they compelled John to renew, with large additions, at Runny-
mede, and in securing their constitutional rights to themselves
bound him to observe the same rules towards all free men.
Thenceforth no tax over and above the customary feudal aids is
to be taken without consent of the national council, the common
council of the realm, the assembly of the barons, the greater of
whom are to be summoned by special writ, the lesser by a general
one through the sheriffs. The privileges secured by the great
charter of John become in their turn the basis or programme
of new claims which are the subject of struggles that run
through the whole reign of Henry III, and in those struggles
are made good. The next reign sees them accepted by the good
faith, and defined by the administrative genius, of Edward I.
The agreement between the king and his people — for Magna
Carta, although in form a charter, is in substance a treaty of
peace — that no tax shall be exacted without a grant from the
common council of the kingdom, and that that common council
shall be summoned in a definite and satisfactory way, may seem
to be but a small instalment of constitutional reform, and not to
go beyond what was already the theory of government in Eng
land. But the words of the charter, to be carried out at all, in
volved much more than they expressed. The old state of things
that had followed the Conquest was quite worn out. The le"-al

l] Politics of the Thirteenth Century. 3]
reforms and general policy of Henry II had created a new
nobility, whose interests were entirely English, and had restored
the ancient county organisation ; whilst the privileges procured
by fine from the same king, and bought in the shape of charters
from his sons by the towns, had created a new element of poli
tical life. The new baronage compelled the king to grant the
charter : the counties and the boroughs had to work their way
into the full participation of its provisions by slow degrees. The
history of these steps has an interest partly political and partly
constitutional, and deserves examination in separate detail.
The political situation may be generally stated thus : — Since
the Conquest, the political constituents of the nation had been
divided between two parties, which may be called the national
and the feudal. The former comprised the king, the ministerial
nobility which was created by Henry I and Henry II, and
which, if less richly endowed than that of the Conquest, was
more widely spread, and had more English sympathies ; the
other contained the great nobles of the Conquest, and the
always large but varying body of lower vassals, who were
intent on pursuing the policy of foreign feudalism. The na
tional party was also generally in close alliance with the clergy,
whose zeal for their own privileges extended to the defence of
the classes from which they chiefly sprang, and whose vindi
cation of class liberties maintained in the general recollection
the possibility of resisting oppression.
The clergy may be roughly divided into three schools, — the
secular or statesman school, the ecclesiastical or professional,
and the devotional or spiritual. Of these, the representative
men are Roger of Salisbury, Henry of Winchester, and Anselm
of Canterbury. Thomas the Martyr more or less combines the
characters of the three throughout his life. The three stages
through which he passed, that of chancellor, that of primate,
and that of candidate for martyrdom, answer well to the three
schools of the clergy. Throughout the whole period, the first
of these schools was consistently on the side of the king, the
last as consistently on the side of the nation. The second,
when its own privileges were not in danger, was, from the

32 Introductory Sketch. [part
peace of the Church in 1107 to the Becket quarrel, and after
the conclusion of that quarrel, continuously on the same side.
No division of the clergy ever sympathised with the feudal
party. The strength of the parties was locally divided. The national
party was strongest in the north, where the successive forfeiture
of English and Normans had put it in the royal power to provide
amply for its supporters ; where the national spirit and insti
tutions lingered the longest, and only required the assurance
of good government to place themselves on the king's side.
The domains of the great earls lay more in the middle of
England, which was therefore the seat of disaffection and
uneasiness generally, the towns taking the royal or national
side against the nobles. The southern shires were more de
cidedly royalist, the great domains and strong castles of the
kings and their kinsmen in the neighbourhood of the seats of
government, and the diffusion of episcopal influence, giving
them a very considerable advantage. The feudal party made up
for its want of strength in other classes of society and other
parts of England, by foreign alliances, and the extent and
wealth of great foreign domains. The intense dislike of the
English to foreigners, which was wisely humoured by Henry II,
and as foolishly disregarded by Stephen, John, and Henry III,
contributed an ingredient of personal partisanship.
Henry II had broken the feudal party by war, and disarmed
it by policy : he had succeeded so well, that the very men who
had been his opponents accepted their position, and became
the most faithful adherents of his sons. At his death, and
during the reign of Richard, there seemed to be every chance
that the national party would soon comprise every element
of political life ; the party quarrels of the period arising from
mere personal causes, and the great body of the baronage,
as well as the rising municipalities, being faithful. And these
chances might have been made a certainty, when the loss of
their Norman estates had robbed the feudalists of their vantao-e-
ground. But the growth and consolidation of the national party had

!•] Politics of the Thirteenth Century. 33
contributed largely to the increase of the power of the king.
The constitution gained in strength and consistency, and the
king was the strongest element in the constitution. Henry II's
measures, double in their intention, and double in their success,
had created a strong royal power and a strong national spirit
in conjunction. John's despotic conduct set the two forces
which his father had laboured to strengthen and consolidate,
in array against each other. From the beginning of the thir
teenth century the struggle is between the barons, clergy, and
people on the one side, and the king and his personal par
tisans, English and foreign, on the other. The barons and
prelates who drew up the Articles of the Charter were the sons
of the ministerial nobles of Henry II, the imitators of Saint
Anselm and Saint Hugh, of Henry of Winchester, and Thomas
of Canterbury.In the history that follows we trace new elements as well as
old complications. The national party of 12 13 was itself
divided between those who, like Robert Fitz Walter, would
bring in French aid, and those who stood merely by the national
rights. The king's party contained two, or even three sections :
his own personal friends and ministers, his foreign allies, and
the small but powerful mediating party acting under papal in
fluence. Of these, the first may be regarded as represented by
Hubert de Burgh and Peter des Roches ; the second by Falkes
de Breaute", and the third by the legate Gualo. John's death
removed the great obstacle to the union between the elements
which were capable of uniting : the French detachment of the
national party collapsed, and the position of the foreign allies
of John was made untenable. The national baronage under
William Marshall and the king's friends under Hubert de
Burgh united, and the papal agents were gradually but effect
ually edged out. The early struggles of Henry Ill's reign
were for the expulsion of the foreign element. But the happy
omens which the clearance seemed to promise were rendered
futile by the folly, the falseness, and the foreign proclivities of
the young king himself, who as soon as he grasped the sub
stance of power brought back into the political arena every

34 Introductory Sketch. [part
single element of discord. Refusing to be .bound by his father s
engagements, treating his most faithful servant with personal
ignominy, and in that act reviving the rivalry between the
friends of the king and the friends of good government ; throw
ing himself into the closest alliance with Rome, and crushing
the spirit of the national Church ; rivalling his father in the
multiplicity of his exactions, now contrary to the letter of his
own obligations ; and bringing in hosts of foreigners hateful to
the people, and the cause of unparalleled extravagance and oppres
sion — he let loose every element of misery, and roused every
political constituent to resistance.
Strangely enough the head of the disaffection was the man
who perhaps had least of all in common with the nation, except
the sense of justice. Simon de Montfort was a foreign adven
turer ; by descent representing on one side the purest feudalism
of Normandy, and on the other the great feudal party of the
Conquest ; brother-in-law of the king, and by the hereditary
ambition which marked his paternal house, fitted rather for a
usurper than for a defender of other men's rights. Yet there is
no reason to doubt either his political wisdom or his sincerity
and honesty. His strength, however, was in the false position
of the king. Neither the ability of the versatile, experienced,
and travelled statesman, nor the confidence of the Church, nor
the wealth of his English earldom, nor his own brilliant nature,
could have won for him the reputation of a hero and martyr-
saint, much less the substance of power. At the head of the
barons, trusted by the clergy and worshipped by the people,
he forced on the king the new programme of good government ;
a programme which contained indeed little more than was
already binding, but which owed its importance, as its advo
cate owed his strength, to Henry's falseness. Strong in resist
ance, and victorious in battle, Simon de Montfort undertook to
administer, and attempted to unite under a premature political
organisation, all the possessors of power in the land. But the
force which had been so great against the king in arms, was
inefficient in supremacy : again it became clear that Simon's
chief strength was in his rival's folly and weakness. The escape

!•] Edward I. 35
of Edward from captivity renewed the strife, this time with a
different result. The death of Simon Restored Henry III to
the throne, and left the party which Simon had united broken
and ready for new combinations.
The long struggle of the constitution for existence ends with
the reign of Edward I. This great monarch, whose command
ing spirit, defining and organising power, and thorough honesty
of character, place him in strong contrast not merely with his
father, but with all the rest of our long line of kings, was not
likely to surrender without a struggle the position which he
had inherited. For more than twenty years he reigned as
Henry II had done, showing proper respect for constitutional
forms, but exercising the reality of despotic power. He loved
his people, and therefore did not oppress them : they knew and
loved him, and endured the pressure of taxation, which would
not have been imposed if it had not been necessary. He admits
them to a share, a large share, in the process of government : he
develops and defines the constitution in its mechanical character
in a way which Simon de Montfort had never contemplated.
The organisation of parliament, of convocation, of the courts
of law, of provincial jurisdiction, is elaborated and completed
until it seems to be as perfect as it is at the present day ; and
the legislation is so full that the laws of the next three cen
turies are Uttle more than a necessary expansion of it. But
until he is compelled by the action of the barons, he retains the
substance of royal power, the right to the purse-strings, the
rio-ht to talliage the towns and the demesnes of the crown
without a grant from the parliament. Edward I would not
have been nearly so great a king as he was if he had not
thought this right worth a struggle ; nor if, when that struggle
was going against him, he had not seen that it was time to
yield ¦ nor if, when he had yielded, he had not determined
honestly to abide by his concessions. The political party that
forced him to the concession was not to be compared with the
earlier combinations of the century : Bohun and Bigod had
doubtless personal claims at heart, and not political ones : but
they took advantage of a state of things which Edward saw
d 2

36 Introductory Sketch. [part
could not be resisted. The confirmation of the Charters com
pletes the present survey of political history.
The idea of constitutional government, defined by the mea
sures of Edward I, and summed up in the legal meaning of the
word parliament, implies four principles: first, the existence
of a central or national assembly, a ' commune consilium regni ;'
second, the representation in that assembly of all classes of the
people, regularly summoned; third, the reality of the repre
sentation of the whole people, secured either by its presence in
the council, or by the free election of the persons who are to
represent it or any portion of it ; and fourth, the assembly so
summoned and elected must possess definite powers of taxation,
legislation, and general political deliberation. We will now trace
very briefly the origin, growth, and combination of these.
First. The Commune Concilium had existed from the earliest
times, first as the witenagemot, and afterwards as the court of
the king's vassals, or, in a manner, as combining the characters
of both. It had in neither stage been representative, in the
modern meaning of the word. The witenagemot acted for the
nation, but was not delegated or elected by it : the Great Council
of the Norman kings included in theory all tenants in chief of
the crown, but had no special provision for these to represent
their under-tenants, or for the securing of the rights of any not
personally present. The witenagemot possessed and exercised
all the powers of a free council ; the Norman court or parlia
ment, claiming the character of a witenagemot, if it possessed
these rights in theory, did not exercise them. At no period,
however, of our early history was the assembling of the national
council dispensed with.
Second. The representation of all classes of the people is
necessary for the complete organisation of a national council,
and that complete organisation is legally constituted by sum
mons to parliament. In this three principles are involved : the
idea of representation, the idea of exhaustive representation,
and the definite summons.
I. The idea of representation was familiar to the English in
the minor courts, the hundredmoot and the shiremoot. The

T-J National Representation. 37
reeve and four men represented the township in these assem
blies ; the twelve assessors of the sheriff represented the judicial
opinion, sometimes the collective legal knowledge of the shire.
At a later period the inquest by sworn recognitors, in civil
suits, in the presentment of criminals, and in the assessment of
real and personal property, represented the country, that is the
shire or hundred or borough, for whose business they were
sworn to answer.
II. The political constituents of the nation (exclusive of the
king), — the three estates of the realm, — are the clergy, the
baronage, and the commons. A perfect national council must
include all these : the baronage by personal attendance, the
clergy and people by representation. The bishops, although
their right to appear personally in the Commune Concilium is
older than the introduction of the feudal principle on which
the theory of baronage is based, have, by the definition of lawyers,
been made to sink their character of witan in that of barons,
amongst whom they may for our present purpose be included.
The representation of the estates then implies the union in
parliament of (1) the baronage lay and clerical, (2) the lower
clergy, and (3) the commons.
1. The baronage, in its verbal meaning, includes all bar ones,
that is all Taomagers, holding directly of the crown ; but by suc
cessive changes, the progress of which is far from easy to fix
chronologically, it has been limited, first, to all who possess a
united ' corpus ' or collection of knights' fees held under one
title : secondly, to those who, possessing such a barony, are
summoned by special writ : thirdly, to those who, whether
entitled by such tenure or not, have received a special sum
mons : and finally, to those who have become by creation or
prescription entitled hereditarily to receive such a summons.
The variations of dignity among the persons so summoned,
represented by the names duke, marquis, earl, and viscount, are
of no constitutional significance. The baronial title of the
bishops and mitred abbots originates in the second and third
of the principles thus stated.
2. The inferior clergy had immemorially their diocesan as-

38 Introductory Sketch. [part
semblies and their share in the provincial councils of the Church,
— a share which would be as difficult to define as is that of the
plebs or populus in the ' commune consilium regni ;' but which
does not much affect constitutional history until the period of
Magna Carta. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the
doctrine was gaining ground that the taxpayer should have a
voice in the bestowal of the tax ; the legal position of the bene
ficed clergy had been long definitely settled ; and the changes in
the character of taxation took from them the immunities which
they had earlier possessed and still persistently claimed. The
aids which John condescended to ask of the inferior clergy were
not granted by assemblies, but collected by separate negotiation
through the archdeacons, in the same way that the sheriffs or
itinerant judges negotiated the aids of the towns and counties.
In a council held by John in 1207 the regular clergy were re
presented by the abbots ; in another in 1 2 1 3 the cathedral
clergy were represented by the deans ; the rest of the clergy not
at all. In both of these cases there are analogies with the deal
ings of the lay estates that might be traced at length. Passing
over the anomalous councils of the next forty years, we find in
1254 a writ directing the archbishops and bishops to assemble
all the clergy for the purpose of granting an aid ; in 1255 the
proctors of the clergy appeared in parliament at Westminster
and presented their gravamina. In 1283, Edward I summoned
them by their proctors to great councils at Northampton and
York; in 1294 they were summoned by their proctors to the
parliament at Westminster; and in 1295, by the clause praemu-
nientes in the writ summoning the bishops to parliament, the
clergy were summoned to appear there ; the deans and priors of
the cathedrals and the archdeacons in person, the chapters by
one proctor, and the clergy of each diocese by two, having full
and sufficient power from the chapters and the clergy. This
clause has been inserted, with a few exceptions, ever since ; the
constant usage dating, as stated by Hody, from the 28th of
Edward III ; but it has not been acted upon since the fourteenth
century. We may trace in this the defining hand of Edward I,
who doubtless intended by this means to introduce a complete

!•] County Representation. 39
and symmetrical system of representation into the lower depart
ment of his parliament. It was defeated by the clergy them
selves, who preferred to vote their aids in convocation, their own
especial assembly or provincial council; which, also during the
reign of Edward I, was a few years earlier reconstituted on the
representative basis, in two divisions, one meeting at London and
the other at York. The convocations, which were summoned by
the archbishops and were divided according to the provinces, the
measure of representation differing in the two, must be care
fully distinguished from the parliamentary representation of the
clergy, which was summoned by the king's writ directed to the
archbishops and bishops, and was intended to be an estate of
parliament. 3. The commons must be regarded as composed, for political
purposes, of the population of the shires, the ancient divisions
on the administration of which the early political system of the
country was based ; and that of the towns or boroughs, which
had been erected by successive grants of privileges into the
status of substantive political bodies.
(a) Enough has been said already of the origin and growth
of representation in the former. It would not appear that there
was any provision for the incorporation of the representatives
of the shires in the Commune Concilium before the reign of
John ; and when the principle is adopted, it is questionable
whether they owed their privilege to their constitutional posi
tion as the most prominent portion of an estate of the realm, or
to their being the most ready machinery for the representation
of the minor barons, the lower tenants of the crown. The 14th
Article of Magna Carta promises that these shall be summoned
by a general writ, and through the sheriffs. The only constitu
tional mode of the sheriff's action was in the county court.
Hence the minor barons, to be consulted at all, must be
consulted in the county court. But that court was already-
constituted of all the freeholders, and the machinery of repre
sentation and election was already familiar to them. It would
then appear certain that from the time at which the represen
tatives of the shires were first summoned, they were held to

40 Introductory Sketch. [part
represent the whole body of freeholders ; and although there was
at a later period a question whether the wages of the knights
of the shire should be paid by the whole body of freeholders,
or only by the tenants in knight service, it was never peremp
torily determined ; nor has there ever been a doubt but that
the representation was that of the whole shire, and the election
made, theoretically at least, in pleno comitatu, down to the
Act of Henry VI, which restricted the electoral franchise to the
forty shillings freeholders.
The first occasion on which the representatives of the shires
were summoned to consult with the king and other estates is
in the 15th of John, 1213 : when the king by writ, addressed
to the sheriffs, directs that four discreet men of each shire shall
be sent to him, ' ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni
nostri.' These 'four discreet men' must be regarded in con
nexion with the custom of electing four knights in the county
court to nominate the recognitors and grand jury; and the
14th Clause of the Charter, directing the summons of the minor
barons by the sheriff, must be interpreted or illustrated by this
writ. The next case in which it is clear that representatives
of the shire were called to parliament is that of 1254, when two
knights represent each county. In 1261 the barons, and after
them Henry III in opposition, summoned three knights from
each shire. In 1264, Simon de Montfort summoned four; to
the famous assembly of 1265 he summoned two. In the great
assembly which swore allegiance to Edward I in 1273, four
knights, and in the second parliament of 1275 two, represented
each shire. The mention of the commonalty in the early writs
and statutes of Edward I seems to show that the practice was
pursued with some approach to continuity, and certainly in
some cases, as in the councils of 1283 and in the parliament
of Shrewsbury, it was fully carried out. But the character of
these assemblies is a matter of debate, and it cannot certainly
be said that the knights of the shire were formally summoned
to proper parliaments until the year 1290, or that they were
regarded as a necessary ingredient of parliament until 1294.
Their regular and continuous summons dates from 1295.

lJ Growth of Boroughs. 41
(0) The boroughs of England, like the counties, stood in a
double relation to the king. In very many cases they were in
his demesne, and had received their privileges as a gift or pur
chase from him ; and in all cases they were a very important
element in taxation. Either then on the feudal principle as
demesne lands, or on the political ground as an influential part
of the nation, they stood on a basis, not indeed so old as that
of the county organisation, but in all other respects scarcely
less important. Their history tells its own tale : beginning as
demesne of a king or of a bishop, abbot or secular lord, they
had by the time of the Conquest obtained recognition, as indi
vidualities apart from the body of the counties to which locally
they belonged. They were indeed generally subject to the
jurisdiction of the king as his demesne, and not included in the
corpus comitatus. But the towns so situated at the time of the
Domesday survey were few, and, even for a century after, they
increased in number and importance slowly. Their internal
condition was but that of any manor in the country ; the reeve
and his companions, the leet jury as it was afterwards called,
being the magistracy, and the constitution being further
strengthened only by the voluntary association of the local
guild, whose members would naturally furnish the counsellors
of the leet. The towns so administered were liable to be called
on for talliage-at the will of the lord, and the townsmen were
in every respect, except wealth and closeness of organisation,
in the same condition as the villeins of an ordinary demesne.
The next step taken in the direction of emancipation was the
purchase, by the tenants, of the firma burgi, that is, the ferm of
the dues payable to the lord, or the king; within the borough :
instead of being collected severally by the reeve or the sheriff,
these were compounded for by a fixed sum, which was paid
by the burghers and reapportioned amongst themselves. The
grant of the ferm was accompanied by, or implied, an act of
emancipation from villein services ; and the recipients of the
orant were the burghers, as members of the leet or of the guild,
or in both capacities. The burgage rent was apportioned among
the houses or tenements of the burghers, who thus became

42 Introductory Sketch. [part
tenants in burgage and on an equality with tenants in free and
common socage. The possessors of these burgages were, until
a further organisation was provided, the political constituents
of the borough.
The privileges of the boroughs had not got much beyond this
at the death of Henry I ; the burghers of Beverley, who were
chartered during his reign by their lord the archbishop of York,
with the same privileges as those enjoyed by the citizens of
York, are empowered by their charter to have their hans-hus,
and there to make their by-laws, and to enjoy certain immu
nities from tolls within the shire. It is impossible to argue
from the privileges of the city of London to those of the pro
vincial towns ; and in the scarcity and uncertainty of the early
charters there are many serious hindrances to any generalisa
tion. Amongst the rights claimed by London at this date, are
those of electing its own sheriff, of exemption from external
judicature, freedom from several specified imposts, and protec
tion for corporate estates. London, however, can never have
been regarded as a town in demesne ; and its privileges, vested
in the powerful burghers of the free city, served as a model for
those which were gradually emancipated. Under Henry II we
trace an increase in the privileges recognised or granted by
charter : the king confirms the liberties enjoyed during the
reigns of Edward, William, and Henry I ; by special privilege
the villein who has stayed a year and a day in a chartered town
unclaimed is freed in perpetuity, or the towns are exempted
from the jurisdiction of the sheriff or king's officer. It is only
by fine that they obtain now and then the right to elect their
own officers. This and other rights scarcely less important are
occasionally granted in the charters of Richard, and commonly
in those of John, which seem to recognise in the borough a
modified corporate character but little short of the later idea
of incorporation. The charter of John to Dunwich is especially
full ; bestowing the character of a free borough, enumerating
the rights, such as Sac and Soc, in which the burghers enter into
the possession of the status before belonging to the lord of the
franchise ; the ferm of their town ; immunity from all juris-

I-J Borough Representation. 43
diction except that of the king's justices ; the right to appear
before the justices, if summoned, by representation of twelve
lawful men, and of being assessed in case of an amercement by a
mixed jury, half named out of their own body. The privileges
of the towns advanced very little further than this during the
thirteenth century : but at the beginning of it the principle of
representation and election was thus applied to them.
No idea of summoning the towns to appear before the king-
by their representatives can be traced higher than the reign of
John. Before and after this the richer tenants in burgage may
have occasionally attended the royal councils with the other
freeholders. They would, however, have no representative cha
racter whatever ; nor is there any trace of their magistrates,
to whom such a character would belong, being summoned to
Parliament, as they were to the States General in France by
Philip the Fair. The first notice of a united representation
occurs in 1213, when John summoned the representatives of the
demesne lands of the crown to estimate the compensation to be
paid to the plundered bishops. By a writ to the sheriffs, they
are directed to send to S. Albans four men and the reeve from
every township in demesne. In this may be distinctly traced
a connexion with the county court representation of earlier and
later times. The assembly so constituted met, and is dignified
by Matthew Paris with the title of a council ; the archbishop,
bishops, and magnates being present at it. It is indeed the
assembly to which, through the justiciar, John proposed the
restoration of the laws of Henry I. From this date, however,
to the parliament of Simon de Montfort, we find no further
traces : nor can this case be taken as more than pointing the
way to the later system. The taxation was still a matter of
arrangement with the officers of the exchequer, and for no other
purpose were the towns likely to be consulted. The summons
of Simon de Montfort was directed to the citizens and burghers
of the several cities and boroughs, each of which was to send
two representatives. After the year 1265 there is again a long
blank; for although in several places the burghers are spoken of
as joining in grants of money at the king's request, it cannot

44 Introductory Sketch. [part
be shown that their representatives were convoked for the pur
pose before the year 1295. The national councils of 1273 and
1283, and the parliament of Shrewsbury, contained represen
tatives of the towns, but they are not allowed by constitutional
lawyers the full name of parliaments ; nor is it certain whether
the representatives attended as representing an estate or a part
of one, or merely for the purpose of informing the king and
magnates. In 1294 the towns were asked for their contri
butions by distinct commissions ; in 1295 they were summoned
regularly to parliament; and although the series of writs is
not so complete in the case of the towns as in that of the
counties, their right was then recognised, their presence was
seen to be indispensable, and the representation has been con
tinuous, or nearly continuous, ever since.
The great difference between the representation of the coun
ties and that of the boroughs is this; that it was in the power of
the crown or its advisers to increase or diminish the number
of boroughs represented — a power based on the doctrine that
their privilege was the gift of the crown, and their status
historically that of royal demesne. But their association with
the knights of the shire, whose numbers could not be altered,
and whose possession of their right sprang from the more
ancient part of the constitution, prevented the third estate from
falling into the condition into which the corresponding body fell
in Spain, where the custom of summoning towns was adopted
earlier ; and in France, where it was possibly imitated by Philip
the Fair from the practice of Edward I.
III. The status of the parliament was constituted by the
writs of summons, addressed to the barons individually, and to
the sheriffs for the representation of the third estate. In the
latter case both towns and counties chose their representatives
in the shiremoot. Where the particular form of writ was not
observed, — and both for military levies of the vassals and for
great councils a distinct form was in use, — the assembly,
although it might contain every element of a parliament, was
not regarded as one. The obscurity of our knowledge on this
point, caused by the loss of the ancient writs, occasions the

1-J Great Councils.

45

difficulty that exists about the assemblies of the reign of
Henry III and of the early years of Edward I, during which
many councils were held which contained certainly knights of
the shire, and possibly deputies from the towns, but which are
called Great Councils rather than parliaments, for this technical
reason — either they contained other ingredients besides the
regular ones of parliament ; or they did not contain all the
ingredients of parliament ; or the towns were summoned other
wise than through the sheriffs ; or the number of representatives
varied ; or the selection of the boroughs was irregular ; or the
purpose specified in the writ was other than parliamentary.
Such councils were occasionally held in the succeeding reigns,
and exercised many of the powers of parliament, but taxes
imposed by them, and laws enacted by their authority, were
regarded as of questionable validity, and sometimes had to be
formally re-enacted. These councils were, however, a part
of the process by which the institution of parliaments ripened.
The regular tribunal of later date, to which the same name
of Great Council is given, contained the lords spiritual and
temporal, the judges of the courts and the other members of the
king's ordinary council. For judicial purposes it exercised a
right which parliament as such had not, and which has descended
from it to the House of Lords only. It also advised the crown
in all matters of government, although any attempt at legisla
tion was watched very jealously by the Commons.
Third. The combination of the principle of election with that
of representation has been illustrated by what precedes. The
idea of election was very ancient in the nation, and had been
theoretically maintained in both the highest and the lowest
regions of the polity : the kings and prelates were supposed to
be elected ; the magistrates of towns, the judicial officers of the
counties and forests, were really so from the beginning of the
thirteenth century, if not before. In this, as in every other
constitutional point, the freedom claimed and often secured by
the clergy served to maintain the recollection or idea of a right.
In the reign of Edward I the lawyers represented it as an
ancient Teutonic right that the ealdorman, the heretoga, and

46 Introductory Sketch. [part
the sheriff were elected officers. The election of sheriff was
claimed for the counties during the parliamentary struggle
which produced the Provisions of Oxford, and was secured to
the freeholders by the Articuli super Cartas in 1300; but the
privilege was withdrawn early in the next reign. The two
principles of election and representation have never been divided
in England since the reign of Edward I, although the variety
of franchises and disputes on the right of voting for members
of parliament are for many centuries bewildering in the ex
treme. The towns, however close the elective franchise, have
never been, as in France, represented by their magistrates
as such.
Fourth. Of the four normal powers of a national assembly,
the judicial has never been exercised by the parliament as a
parliament. The House of Commons is not, either by itself
or in conjunction with the House of Lords, a court of justice :
the House of Lords has inherited its jurisdiction from the
Great Council. Another power, the political, or right of general
deliberation on all national matters, is too vague in its extent
to be capable of being chronologically defined ; nor was it really
vindicated by the parliament until a much later period than
that on which we are now employed. The two most important
remain, the legislative and the taxative, the tracing of whose
history must complete our present survey.
1. The ancient theory that the laws were made by the king
and witan co-ordinately, if it be an ancient theory, has within
historic times been modified by the doctrine that the kin»
enacted the laws with the counsel and consent of the witan.
This is the most ancient form existing in enactments, and is
common to the early laws of all the Teutonic races : it has
of course always been still more modified in usage by the
varying power of the king and his counsellors, and by the share
that each was strong enough to vindicate in the process.
Until the reign of John the varieties of practice may be traced
chiefly in the form taken by the law on its enactment. The
ancient laws are either drawn up as codes, like Alfred's, or as
amendments of customs : often we have only the bare abstract

*•] Counsel and Consent. 47
of them, the substance that was orally transmitted from one
generation of witan to another ; where we have them in in
tegrity the counsel and consent of the witan are specified. The
laws of the Norman kings are put in the form of charters ;
the king in his sovereign capacity grants and confirms liberties
and free customs to his people, but with the counsel and con
sent of his barons and faithful. Henry II issued most of his
enactments as edicts or assizes, with a full rehearsal of the
counsel and consent of his archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
earls, barons, knights, and freeholders. The compact of John
with the barons has the form of a charter, but, as already
stated, is really a treaty based on articles proposed to him, and
containing additional articles to secure execution. From the
time of John the forms vary, and the reign of Henry III con
tains statutes of every shape — the charter, the assize, the
articles proposed and accepted, and the special form of provisions,
which are analogous to the canons of ecclesiastical councils.
From the reign of Edward I the forms are those of statutes and
ordinances, differing in some ascertained respects, the former
formally accepted in the parliament as laws of perpetual obliga
tion, and enrolled : the latter proceeding from the king and his
council rather than from the king and parliament, being more
temporary in character, and not enrolled among the statutes.
All alike express the counsel and consent with which the king
fortifies his own enacting power : but several of the early
statutes of Edward are worded as if that enacting power resided
in the king and his ordinary council ; and it is not clear whether
this assumption is based on the doctrine of the scientific jurists
who were addicted to the civil law, or on imitation of the
practice of the French kings, just then made illustrious by the
Establishments of Saint Lewis.
The actual force of the expression ' counsel and consent,' which
is preserved during so long a period and under such various
developments of the royal power, can only be estimated approxi
mately, according to the occasion or the needs or the character
of the sovereign who acknowledges it. It stands, for at least a
century after the Conquest, as the record of a right rather than

48 Introdtictory Sketch. [part
the expression of a fact. Under Henry II and his descendants,
by whom a large share of power was actually vested in the
ministers and judges, the facility of consultation was much
increased, but it remains an obscure point, whether consent
could be withheld as well as bestowed, and whether it was not
generally taken for granted. From the reign of Henry III it
was probably a reality ; and from that of Edward I downwards
the form has a typical force, and the variations later introduced
into it have a great deal of meaning. After the permanent in
corporation of the commons, from 1318 downwards, the form is,
by the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and the commonalty
of the realm. From the first year of Edward III the share of
the commons is frequently expressed as petition ; by the assent
of the prelates, earls, and barons, and at the request of the
commons : under Eichard II the assent is occasionally expressed
as simply that of the lords and commons. Henry IV enacts
with the advice and assent of the lords at the request of the
commons. In the 23rd of Henry VI the addition by authority
of parliament first occurs ; and from the 1st of Henry VII the
mention of petition is dropped, and the regular form becomes,
the advice and assent, or consent, of the lords spiritual and
temporal and commons in parliament assembled, and by authority
of the same. These forms certainly are not uniformly observed,
but the origin of the changes may be exactly traced, and will be
found to synchronise with the later changes in the balance of
power between the several estates and the sovereign.
The further question, Were the estates on an equality in
respect of legislation t may be thus briefly answered. The
claim of the clergy and commons to a voice was not admitted
so early in legislation as in the case of taxation : once admitted,
the power of the commons very quickly eliminated all direct
interference on the part of the clergy. Down to the end of the
reign of Edward I it can hardly be said that the right of counsel
was extended to the commons at all ; it is in the next reign
that their power of initiation by way of petition is first recog
nised. As late as the 18th of Edward I, the statute Quia
Emptores was passed by the king and barons, before the

'•J Taxation.

49

day for which the commons were summoned. As to the clergy,
there is no doubt either that they exercised the right of petition
or that the king occasionally made a statute at their request,
with the counsel of the lords, and without reference to the
commons ; but acts so sanctioned were not regarded by the
lawyers as of full authority, and are relegated, perhaps rightly,
to the class of ordinances. Possibly the royal theory was that
the right of petition belonged to both clergy and commons,
whilst the counsel and consent of the lords only was indispen
sable. It was not until the 15th of Edward II that the
voice of parliament, when revoking the acts of the ordainers,
distinctly enunciated the principle that all matters to be esta
blished for the estate of the king and people ' shall be treated,
accorded, and established in Parliaments by the king and by the
assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and commonalty of the
realm, according as it hath been hitherto accustomed.'
The growth of the right of the commons may be traced in
the forms of the writs : in those of John, the knights of the
shire are summoned simply ' ad loquendum ;' those of Simon de
Montfort describe them as ' tractaturi et consilium impensuri ;'
ad tractandum as well as ad considendum et consentiendum
being the form of summons usual in the case of a Great Council.
Edward I, in 1283, summons the representatives of the towns
ad audiendum et faciendum; in 1294, he summons the knights
of the shire ad consulendum et consentiendum, pro se et commu-
nitate ilia, Us quae comites, barones, et proceres praedicti ordi-
naverint; with which agrees the fact, that in 1290 they were
not assembled until the legislative part of the work of the par
liament had been transacted. From the year 1295, however
the form is ' ad faciendum ;' under Edward II it becomes ' ad
consentiendum, et faciendum,' to assent and enact. From this
time, then, the commons were admitted to a share of the cha
racter of the Sapientes which in this respect the bishops and
barons had engrossed since the Conquest, and the king was
enabled to state with truth, as Edward I did to the pope, that
the custom of England was, that in business affecting the state
of the kingdom the counsel of all whom the matter touched

go Introductory Sketch. [part
should be required. The corresponding variations in the
praemunientes clause summoning the clergy are : — in 1295, * ad
tractandum, ordinandum, et faciendum ;' in 1 299, ' ad faciendum
et consentiendum;' from 1381, only 'ad consentiendum,' a
function adequately discharged by absence.
2. The share of the commons in taxation takes precedence of
their share in legislation. The power of voting money "was
more necessary than that of giving counsel. Of this power, as
it existed up to the date of Magna Carta, enough has been said.
The witenagemot, and its successor the royal council of barons,
could impose the old national taxes ; the ordinary feudal
exactions were matters of common law and custom, and the
amount of them was limited by usage. But the extraordinary
aids which Henry II and his sons substituted for the Danegeld,
and the taxes on the demesne lands of the crown, were arbitrary
in amount and incidence ; the former clearly requiring, and the
latter, on all moral grounds, not less demanding, an act of
consent on the part of the payers. This right was early
recognised ; even John, as we have seen, asked his barons some
times for grants, and treated with the demesne lands and towns
through the Exchequer, with the clergy through the bishops
and archdeacons. Magna Carta enunciates the principle that
the payers shall be called to the common council to vote the
aids which had been previously negotiated separately ; but the
clause was never confirmed by Henry III, nor was it applicable
to the talliaging of demesne. It is as the towns begin to
increase, and at the same time taxation ceases to besbased solely
on land and begins to affect personal as well as real property,
that the difficulties of the king and the hardships of the estates
liable to talliage become important. The steps by which the
king was compelled to give up the right of taking money
without a parliamentary grant, are the same as those which led
to the confirmation of the charters by Edward I. It was virtually
surrendered in the clause then conceded in addition to the
charter, which is commonly known under the form of the
articles, Be Tallagio non concedendo. And this completed the
taxative powers of parliament, The further steps of develop-

J-J Edward I.

5i

ment, the determination of the different proportions in which
the various branches of the three estates voted their supplies,
and the final engrossing of the taxing power by the House of
Commons, the struggles by which the grants were made to
depend on the redress of grievances, and the determination of
the disposal of supplies assumed by the parliament, belong to
later history.
We have thus brought our sketch of Constitutional History
to the point of time at which the nation may be regarded as
reaching its full stature. It has not yet learned its strength,
nor accustomed itself to economise its power. Its first vagaries
are those of a people grown up, but not disciplined. To trace
the process by which it learned the full strength of its organism
— by which it learned to use its powers and forces with dis
crimination and effect — to act easily, effectually, and economi
cally, — or, to use another metaphor, to trace the gradual wear
of the various parts of the machinery, until all roughnesses
were smoothed, and all that was superfluous, entangling, and
confusing was got rid of, and the balance of forces adjusted, and
action made manageable and intelligible, and the power of
adaptation to change of circumstances fully realised, — is the
story of later politics, of a process that is still going on, and
must go on as the age advances, and men are educated into
wider views of government, national unity, and political re
sponsibility. We stop, however, with Edward I, because the
machinery is now completed, the people are at full growth. The
system is raw and untrained and awkward, but it is complete.
The attaining of this point is to be attributed to the defining
genius, the political wisdom, and the honesty of Edward I,
building on the immemorial foundation of national custom ;
fitting together all that Henry I had planned, Henry II organ
ised, and the heroes of the thirteenth century had inspired with
fresh life and energy.

PART II.
EXTEACTS ILLUSTEAT1VE OF THE EAELY
POLITY OF THE ENGLISH.
Exteacts from Caesar.
J_ HE account of the Germans given by Caesar, and drawn by
him more from the reports of their neighbours than from his
own knowledge of them, must not be regarded as more than a
partial glimpse of a small portion of the great family under
special circumstances. It would, then, be wrong to look on it
as a picture of an earlier phase of the life of the people who are
a century later described in detail by Tacitus, or to infer from
the difference of the pictures that the intervening period wit
nessed the transition from one condition to the other. The
features remarked on by Caesar — the perpetual state of war, the
neglect of agriculture for pastoral pursuits and hunting, the
annual migrations of tribes — are, it is true, commonly viewed as
characteristic of the first steps out of barbarism into civilisation ;
but the first two are extremely liable to exaggeration by rumour,
and the prominence of the whole three in this description is
owing to the generally unsettled state of all tribes bordering on
the Roman conquests. It would be unsafe to regard any point
in which the report of Caesar is not confirmed by Tacitus as
certainly characteristic of the life of the Germans at home. Its
interest depends chiefly on the fact, that it is the first attempt
at an account of the life of our forefathers, and that it comes
from the pen of one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived.
C. Jul. Caesaris, Comm. de Bello Gallico, VI. 21. Germani
multum ab hac (sc. Gallorum) consuetudine differunt, nam

Caesar.

53

neque Druides habent, qui rebus divinis praesint, neque sacri-
ficiis student. Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt
et quorum aperte opibus juvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lu-
nam ; reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt. Vita omnis in
venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris consistit ; ab parvulis
labori ac duritiei student 
Ib. c. 22. Agriculturae non student; majorque pars eorum
victus in lacte, caseo, carne consistit ; neque quisquam agri
modum certum aut fines habet proprios ; sed magistratus ac
principes in annos singulos gentibus cogna.tionibusque homi-
num qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est agri
attribuunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt. Ejus rei
multas afferunt causas, ne assidua consuetudine capti studium
belli gerendi agricultura commutent ; ne latos fines parare
studeant, potentioresque humiliores possessionibus expellant, ne
accuratius ad frigora atque aestus vitandos aedificent , ne qua
oriatur pecuniae cupiditas, qua ex re factiones dissensionesque
nascuntur : ut animi aequitate plebem contineant, cum suas
quisque opes cum potentissimis aequari videat.
Ib. c. 23. Civitatibus maxima laus est, quam latissime
circum se vastatis finibus solitudines habere. Hoc proprium
virtutis existimant, expulsos agris finitimos cedere, neque quem-
quam prope audere consistere : simul hoc se fore tutiores
arbitrantur, repentinae incursionis timore sublato. Cum bellum
civitas aut illatum defendit aut infert, magistratus qui ei hello
praesint, ut vitae necisque habeant potestatem, deliguntur. In
pace nullus est communis magistratus, sed principes regionum
atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt, controversiasque minuunt.
Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam, quae extra fines cujusque
civitatis fiunt : atque ea juventutis exercendae ac desidiae minu-
endae causa fieri praedicant. Atque ubi quis ex principibus in
concilio se dixit ducem fore, qui sequi velint, profiteantur, con-
surgunt ii qui et causam et hominem probant, suumque
auxilium pollicentur, atque ab multitudine collaudantur ; qui
ex his secuti non sunt in desertorum ac proditorum numero
ducuntur ; omniumque his rerum postea fides derogatur. Hos-
pites violare fas non putant ; qui quaque de causa ad eos vene-
runt, ab injuria prohibent, sanctosque habent : bisque omnium
domus patent, victusque communicatur.
Lib. IV. c. 1. Sueborum gens est longe maxima et bellico-
sissima Germanorum omnium : hi centum pagos habere dicuntur
ex quibus quotannis singula milia armatorum, bellandi causa,
ex finibus educunt ; reliqui qui domi manserunt se atque illos
alunt. Hi rursus invicem anno post in armis sunt, illi domi

54 Illustrative Extracts. [part
remanent. Sic neque agricultura, nee ratio atque usus belli
intermittitur. Sed privati ac separati agri apud eos nihil est ;
neque longius anno remanere uno in loco incolendi causa licet ;
neque multum frumento sed maximam partem lacte atque pecore
vivunt, multumque sunt in venationibus ; quae res et cibi
genere et cotidiana exercitatione, et libertate vitae, cum a pueris
nullo officio aut disciplina assuefacti nihil omnino contra volun-
tatem faciant, et vires alit et immani corporum magnitudine
homines efficit 
Ib. c. 3. Publico maximam putant esse laudem quam latis-
sime a suis finibus vacare agros ; hac re significari magnum
numerum civitatum suam vim sustinere non potuisse. Itaque
una ex parte a Suebis circiter milia passuum sexcenta agri
vacare dicuntur. Ad alteram partem succedunt Ubii, quorum
fuit civitas ampla atque florens, ut est captus Germanorum, et
paulo sunt ejusdem generis ceteris humaniores, propterea quod
Rhenum attingunt, multique ad eos mercatores ventitant, et
ipsi propter propinquitatem Gallicis sunt moribus assuefacti.
Hos cum Suebi, multis saepe bellis experti, propter amplitudinem
gravitatemque civitatis, finibus expellere non potuissent, tamen
vectigales sibi fecerunt, ac multo humiliores infirmioresque
redegerunt 

Exteacts from Tacitus.

The following extracts contain nearly everything in the
' Germania ' which touches on matters of government and law.
The picture thus drawn must be regarded as a very general
outline of the Teutonic system, as it was known to the Romans,
in those parts of Germany which came more closely under their
view ; and it gives thus an impression of greater political
solidity in the institutions of the Germans at the time than
would probably be warranted by fact. Of its substantial truth
there can be no doubt; its very generality is a proof of the
careful honesty of the writer, and of the great historical insight
which enabled him to catch at a glance the common charac
teristics of a large family of tribes each of which had customs
peculiarly its own. It must however be remembered that
Tacitus was likely to remark with particular force the points
in which primitive German institutions contrasted with the

II-J Tacitus. 55
adventitious and artificial civilisation of Eome ; and although
it would be absurd to regard the general view as drawn
intentionally for the purpose of contrast, such an influence
would necessarily affect the exactness and proportion of the
drawing. In particular it may be remarked that the force of
the tie of kindred appears in our own early English laws more
prominently than in this picture ; but this is a mark of a state
of society less artificially organised than that of the ' Germania.'
As it is not to be supposed that the Germans were in a retro
grade state from the second century to the sixth, we are left to
infer that the completeness of Tacitus's outline applies only to
the most advanced tribes, or owes something to the defining
genius of the historian. It might moreover be difficult to blend
into a single picture all that Tacitus tells us of the use of
royalty and nobility with the conciliar structure of the tribal
polity, or with what we know of the condition of the Saxons
in these respects some centuries later : it is possible that he
has combined into one sketch features characteristic of different
tribes or of different stages of development. But if this be so,
it only renders the outline more readily applicable, and places it
in closer connexion with later history. That is, we have in it
a general view of the ideal of the Teutonic system ; in which
it may be all parts thus described did not exist contempora
neously in this exact proportion, but which is approximately
applicable to it at every stage of its early development.
Corn. Taciti, De Situ, Moribus et P epulis Germaniae,
c. 2. Ipsos Germanos indigenas crediderim, minimeque aliarum
gentium adventibus et hospitiis mixtos. . . .
Ib. c. 3. Celebrant carminibus antiquis quod unum apud illos
memoriae et aunalium genus est, Tuisconem deum terra editum,
et filium Mannum, originem gentis conditoresque. Manno tres
filios assignant, e quorum nominibus proximi Oceano Ingae-
vones, medii Herminones, ceteri Iscaeyones vocentur. . . .
Germaniae vocabulum recens et nuper additum. . . .
Ib c 4. Ipse eorum opinionibus accedo qui Germaniae
populos' nullis aliarum nationum connubiis infectos propriam
et sinceram et tantum sui similem gentem exstitisse arbitrantur.
Unde habitus quoque corporum quanquam in tanto hominum

56 Illustrative Extracts. [part
numero idem omnibus, truces et caerulei oculi, rutilae comae,
magna corpora et tantum ad impetum valida.
Ib. c. 5. Terra . . . satis ferax, frugiferarumque arborum
impatiens, pecoium fecunda sed plerumque improcera. Ne
armentis quidem suus honor aut gloria frontis : numero gaudent,
eaeque solae et gratissimae opes sunt. . . .
Ib. c. 6. ... In universum aestimanti plus penes peditem
roboris; eoque mixti praeliantur, apta et congruente ad equestrem
pugnam velocitate peditum, quos ex omni juventute deleetos
ante aciem locant. Definitur et numerus : centeni ex singulis
pagis sunt; idque ipsum inter suos vocantur, et quod primo
numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor est. . . .
Ib. c. 7. Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute summit.
Nee regibus infinita aut libera potestas ; et duces exemplo
potius quam imperio, si prompti, si conspicui, si ante aciem
agunt, admiratione praesunt. Ceterum neque animadvertere,
neque vincire, ne verberare quidem nisi sacerdotibus permissum,
non quasi in poenam, nee ducis jussu, sed velut deo imperante
quern adesse bellantibus credunt ; effigiesque et signa quaedam
detracta lucis in praelium ferunt. Quodque praecipuum forti-
tudinis incitamentum est, non casus nee fortuita conglobatio
turmam aut cuneum facit, sed familiae et propinquitates. . . .
Ib. c. 8. Inesse (feminis) quinetiam sanctum aliquid et
providum putant, nee aut consilia earum aspernantur aut
responsa negligunt. . . .
Ib. c. 9. Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt, cui certis
diebus humanis quoque hostiis litare fas habent. Herculem ac
Martem concessis animalibus placant. Pars Suevorum et Isidi
sacrificat ; unde causa et origo peregrino sacro parum comperi,
nisi quod signum ipsum in modum liburnae figuratum docet
advectam religionem. Ceterum nee cohibere parietibus deos
neque in ullam humani oris speciem assimulare ex magnitudine
caelestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac nemora consecrant, deorum-
que nominibus appellant secretum illud quod sola reverentia
vident. . . .
Ib. c. n. De minoribus rebus principes consultant, de
majoribus omnes; ita tamen ut ea quoque quorum penes plebem
arbitrium est apud principes pertractentur. Coeunt, nisi quid
fortuitum et subitum inciderit, certis diebus, cum aut inchoatur
luna aut impletur ; nam agendis rebus hoc auspicatissimum
initium credunt. Nee dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium
computant. Sic constituunt, sic condicunt. Nox ducere diem
videtur. Illud ex libertate vitium, quod non simul nee ut jussi
conveniunt, sed et alter et tertius dies cunctatione coeuntium

«•] Tacitus.

57

absumitur. Ut turba placuit, considunt armati. Silentium per
sacerdotes, quibus turn et coercendi jus est, imperatur. Mox rex
vel princeps, prout aetas cuique, prout nobilitas, prout decus bel-
lorum, prout facundia est, audiuntur, auctoritate suadendi magis
quam jubendi potestate. Si displicuit sententia, fremitu asper-
nantur ; sin placuit, frameas concutiunt. Honoratissimum
assensus genus est armis laudare.
Ib. c. 12. Licet apud concilium accusare quoque et discrimen
capitis intendere. Distinctio poenarum ex delicto. Proditores
et transfugas arboribus suspendunt ; ignavos et imbelles et
corpore infames coeno ac palude, injecta insuper crate, mergunt.
Diversitas supplicii illuc respicit, tanquam scelera ostendi
oporteat, dum puniuntur, flagitia abscondi. Sed et levioribus
delictis pro modo poena ; equorum pecorumque numero convicti
multantur. Pars multae regi vel civitati, pars ipsi qui vindicatur
vel propinquis ejus exsolvitur.
Eliguntur in iisdem conciliis et principes, qui jura per pagos
vicosque reddunt. Centeni singulis ex plebe comites, consilium I
simul et auctoritas adsunt. '
Lb. c. 13. Nihil autem neque publicae neque privatae rei
nisi armati agunt. Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris
quam civitas suffecturum probaverit. Turn in ipso concilio vel
principum aliquis vel pater vel propinquus scuto frameaque
juvenem ornant. Haec apud illos toga, hie primus juventae
honos ; ante hoc domus pars videntur, mox reipublicae. Insignis
nobilitas aut magna patrum merita principis dignationem etiam
adolescentulis assignant ; ceteris robustioribus ac jam pridem
probatis adgregantur. Nee rubor inter comites aspici. Gradus
quin etiam et ipse comitatus habet, judicio ejus quern sectantur ;
magnaque et comitum aemulatio, quibus primus apud principem
suum locus, et principum, cui plurimi et acerrimi comites. Haec
dignitas, hae vires, magno semper electorum juvenum globo cir-
cumdari ; in pace decus, in bello praesidium. Nee solum in sua
gente cuique, sed apud finitimas quoque civitates id nomen, ea
gloria est, si numero ac virtute comitatus emineat : expetuntur
etiam legationibus et muneribus ornantur, et ipsa plerumque
fama bellum profligant.
Ib. c. 14. Cum ventum in aciem, turpe principi virtute
vinci, turpe comitatui virtutem principis non adaequare. Jam
vero infame in omnem vitam ac probrosum superstitem principi
suo ex acie recessisse. Ilium defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia
facta gloriae ejus assignare praecipuum sacramentum est. Prin
cipes pro victoria pugnant, comites pro principe. Si civitas in
qua orti sunt longa pace et otio torpeat, plerique nobilium

58 Illustrative Extracts. [part
adolescentium petunt ultro eas nationes quae turn bellum aliquod
gerunt, quia et ingrata genti quies, et facilius inter ancipitia
clarescunt, magnumque comitatum non nisi vi belloque tueare.
Exigunt enim principis sui liberalitate ilium bellatorem equum,
illam cruentam victricemque frameam. Nam epulae et, quanquam
incompti, largi tamen, apparatus pro stipendio cedunt. . .
Ib. c. 15. Mos est civitatibus ultro ac viritim conferre
principibus vel armentorum vel frugum, quod pro honore ac-
ceptum etiam necessitatibus subvenit. . . .
Ib. c. 16. Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari satis
notum est : ne pati quidem inter se junctas sedes. Colunt dis-
creti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. Vicos
locant non in nostrum morem connexis et cohaerentibus aedi-
ficiis : suam quisque domum spatio circumdat, sive adversus
casus ignis remedium, sive inscitia aedificandi. . . .
Ib. c. 18. .... Prope soli barbarorum singulis uxoribus con
tend sunt, exceptis admodum paucis, qui non libidine sed ob
nobilitatem plurimis nuptiis ambiuntur. Dotem non uxor
marito, sed uxori maritus offert. . . . Ne se mulier extra vir-
tutum cogitationes extraque bellorum casus putet, ipsis inci-
pientibus matrimonii auspiciis admonetur venire se laborum
periculorumque sociam, idem in pace, idem in praelio passuram
ausuramque. . . .
Ib. c. 19  plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi
bonae leges. . . .
Ib. c. 20. Heredes . . . successoresque sui cuique liberi, et
nullum testamentum. Si liberi non sunt, proximus gradus in
possessione fratres, patrui, avunculi. Quanto plus propinquorum,
quo major affinium numerus, tanto gratiosior senectus, nee ulla
orbitatis pretia.
Ib. c. 21. Suscipere tarn inimicitias seu patris seu propinqui
quam amicitias necesse est. Nee implacabiles durant : luitur
enim etiam homicidium certo armentorum ac pecorum numero,
recipitque satisfactionem universa domus, utiliter in publicum,
quia periculosiores sunt inimicitiae juxta libertatem. . .
Ib. c. 22. Sed et de reconciliandis invicem inimicis et jun-
gendis affinitatibus et adsciscendis principibus, de pace denique
ac bello plerumque in conviviis consultant, tanquam nullo magis
tempore aut ad simplices cogitationes pateat animus aut ad
magnas incalescat. Gens non astuta nee callida aperit adhuc
secreta pectoris licentia joci. Ergo detecta et nuda omnium mens
postera die retractatur, et salva utriusque temporis ratio est.
Deliberant dum fingere nesciunt; constituunt dum errare non
possunt. . .

"•J Tacitus.

59

lb. c. 24. Aleam, quod mirere, sobrii inter seria exercent,
tanta lucrandi perdendive temeritate ut, cum omnia defecerunt,
extremo ac novissimo jactu de libertate et de corpore conten-
dant. Victus voluntariam servitutem adit: quamvis juvenior,
quamvis robustior, adligari se ac venire patitur. Ea est in re
prava pervicacia, ipsi fidem vocant. Servos conditionis hujus
per commercia tradunt, ut se quoque pudore victoriae ex-
solvant. Ib. c. 25. Ceteris servis non in nostrum morem, descriptis per
familiam ministeriis, utuntur. Suam quisque sedem, suos
penates regit. Frumenti modum dominus aut pecoris aut
vestis, ut colono, injungit, et servus hacteuus paret. Cetera
domus officia uxor ac liberi exsequuntur. Verberare servum
ac vinculis et opere coercere rarum. Occidere solent, non dis-
ciplina et severitate, sed impetu et ira, ut inimicum, nisi quod
impune. Liberti non multum supra servos sunt, raro aliquod
momentum in domo, nunquam in civitate, exceptis duntaxat iis
gentibus quae regnantur. Ibi enim et super ingenuos et super
nobiles ascendunt ; apud ceteros impares libertini libertatis ar-
gumentum sunt.
Ib. c. 26. Fenus agitare, et in usuras extendere ignotum ;
ideoque magis servatur quam si vetitum esset. Agri pro nu
mero cultorum ab universis vicis [al. in vices] occupantur, quos
mox inter se secundum dignationem [al. dignitatem] partiuntur.
Facilitatem partiendi camporum spatia praestant. Arva per
annos mutant, et superest ager. Nee enim cum ubertate et
amplitudine soli labore contendunt ut pomaria conserant,
et prata separent, et hortos rigent; sola terrae seges impera-
tur. . . .
Ib. c. 39. Vetustissimos se nobilissimosque Suevorum Sem-
nones memorant. Fides antiquitatis religione firniatur. Stato
tempore in silvam auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram
omnes ejusdem sanguinis populi legationibus coeunt, caesoque
publico nomine celebrant barbari ritus horrenda primordia. . . .
Baed. Hist. Eccl. v. 10. Non enim habent regem iidem antiqui Saxones,
sed satrapas plurinios suae genti praepositos, qui ingruente belli articulo
mittunt aequaliter sortes, et quemcunque sors ostenderit, hunc tempore
belli ducem omnes sequuntur, huic obtemperant; peracto autem bello
rursum aequalis potentiae omnes fiunt satrapae.

60 Illustrative Extracts. [part

Extracts from the early Laws of the English.
The laws of all nations which have developed steadily and in
their own seats, with little or no intermixture of foreign ele
ments, are generally perpetuated by custom and oral tradition.
Hence the earliest written laws contain amendments of older
unwritten customs, or codifications of those customs when they
are gradually wearing out of popular recollection. Such docu
ments are then generally obscure, requiring for their elucidation
a knowledge of the customs they were intended to amend, which
is not easily attainable ; and where they are clear, they will be
found frequently to contain little more than assessments of fines
for offences and injuries, with very scanty indications of the
process by which the laws are made or the fines exacted. Nor
is the case much better where codification is attempted ; for the
diversity of customs being very great, and the code not intended
to supersede but to perpetuate them, the lawgiver is apt to
become didactic, and to enunciate principles drawn from religion
or morality, rather than legal definitions. The following ex
tracts from the Anglo-Saxon Laws and Institutes may seem a
very small residuum, after the winnowing of a very bulky
Corpus Juris.' But they will be found to contain nearly every
mention that occurs in the Collection of our Laws of such
matters as public assemblies, courts of law, taxation, or the
legal machinery on the carrying out of which the discipline of
self-government is based. The great bulk of the laws concern
chiefly such questions as the practice of compurgation, ordeal,
wergild, sanctity of holy places, persons, or things ; the immu
nity of estates belonging to churches ; and the tables of penalties
for crimes, in their several aspects as offences against the peace,
the family, and the individual. These, as touching Constitu
tional History in a very indirect way, are here excluded.
Of the existing Anglo-Saxon laws, those of Ethelbert, Hlo-
there and Eadric, Wihtred, Ine, Edward the Elder, Athelstan,
Edmund, and Edgar, are mainly of the nature of amendments
of custom. Those of Alfred, Ethelred, Canute, and those de-

n-J Laws of Wessex. 6\
scribed as Edward the Confessor's, aspire to the character of
codes ; but English law, from its first to its latest phase, has
never possessed an authoritative, constructive, systematic, or
approximately exhaustive statement, such as was attempted by
the great compilers of the civil and canon laws, by Alfonso the
Wise or Napoleon Buonaparte. The translation of the following
extracts is that of Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, in the Ancient Laws
and Institutes of tlie Anglo-Saxons.
AD. 600. Kent. Ethelbert ; cap. 2. If the king call his
' leod ' to him and any one there do them evil, let him compen
sate with a twofold ' bot ' and fifty shillings to the king.
A.D. cir. 680. Kent. Hlothaeee and Eadeic ; cap. 8.
If one man make plaint against another in a suit, and he cite .
the man to a ' methel ' or to a ' thing,' let the man always give
1 borh ' to' the other, and do him such right as the Kentish J
judges prescribe to them.
A. D. cir. 700. Kent. Wihtred ; Council of Baccanceld. 1
Illius personae, (sc. regis) et principes, praefectos seu duces
('eorlas and ealdormen, scirerevan and domesmerm,' A .-S.Chron.) I
statuere. A.D. cir. 690. Wessex. Ini ; Preamble to Laws. I, Ini, I
by God's grace king of the West Saxons, with the counsel and '
with the teaching of Cenred my father, and of Hedde my bishop,
and of Eorcenwold my bishop, with all my ealdormen and the
most distinguished ' witan ' of my people, and also with a large
assembly of God's servants, have been considering of the health
of our souls and of the stability of our realm ; so that just law
and just kingly dooms might be settled and established through
out our folk, so that none of the ealdormen nor of our subjects
should hereafter pervert these our dooms.
Cap. 8. If any one demand justice before a ' scirman' or other 1
judge and cannot obtain it, and a man (the defendant) will not
give him ' wedd,' let him make ' bot ' with xxx. shillings, and
within vii. days do him justice.
Cap. 11. If any one seU n^s own countryman, bond or free,
though he be guilty, over sea, let him pay for him according to
his 'wer.'
Cap. 36. Let him who takes a thief, or to whom one taken is
o-iven, and he then lets him go, or conceals the theft, pay for the
thief according to his ' wer.' If he be an ealdorman, let him

62 Illustrative Extracts. [part
forfeit Tiis shire, unless the king is willing to be merciful to
him. Cap. 39. If any one go from his lord without leave, or steal
himself away into another shire, and he be discovered, let him
go where he was before, and pay to his lord lx. shillings.
Cap. 45. ' Bot ' shall be made for the king's ' burg-bryce' and
a bishop's, where his jurisdiction is, with cxx. shillings ; for an
ealdorman's, with Ixxx. shillings ; for a king's thegn's, with lx.
shillings ; for a ' gesithcund ' man's, having land, with xxxv. shil
lings, and according to this make the legal denial.
Cap. 51. If a 'gesithcund' man owning land neglect the
' fyrd,' let him pay cxx. shillings and forfeit his land ; one not
owning land, lx. shillings; a ceorlish man, xxx. shillings, as
' fyrdwite.' A.D. cir. 760. Pontificale Egberti Arch. Ebor. Bene-
dictio super regem noviter electum. — Primum mandatum regis ad
populum hie videre potes. Rectitudo regis est noviter ordinati
et in solium sublimati, haec tria praecepta populo Christiano sibi
subdito praecipere ; in primis ut ecclesia Dei et omnis populus
Christianus veram pacem servent in omni tempore. Amen.
Aliud est, ut rapacitates et omnes iniquitates omnibus gradi-
bus interdicat. Amen.
Tertium est ut in omnibus judiciis aequitatem et misericor-
diam praecipiat, ut per hoc nobis indulgeat misericordiam Suam
clemens et misericors Deus. Amen.
A.D. 787. Conc. Legatin.; cap. XII. Duodecimo sermone
sanximus, ut in ordinatione regum nullus permittat pravorum
praevalere assensum, sed legitime reges a sacerdotibus et senio-
ribus populi eligantur, et non de adulterio vel incestu pro-
creati. . . .
A.D. cir. 890. Wessex. Alfred; Preamble. ... They then
ordained. . . . that secular lords, with their (the bishops and
witan) leave might without sin take for almost every misdeed,
for the first offence the money ' bot ' which they then ordained ;
except in cases of treason against a lord ; to which they dared
not assign any mercy. ... I, then, Alfred, king, gathered these
(laws) together, and commanded many of those to be written
which our forefathers held, those which to me seemed good ;
and many of those which seemed to me not good I rejected
them, by the counsel of my ' witan.' .... I, then, Alfred, king
of the West Saxons, shewed these to all my 'witan,' and they
then said that it seemed good to them all to be holden.
Cap. 4. If any one plot against the king's life, of himself, or

n\| Alfred and Edward. 63
by harbouring of exiles, or of his men ; let him be liable in his
life and in all thai he has. ... He who plots against his lord's
life, let him be liable in his life to him, and in all that he has. . .
Cap. 22. If any one at the folkmote make declaration of a
debt, and afterwards wish to withdraw it, let him charge it on a
righter person, if he can ; if he cannot, let him forfeit his ' an-j
gylde,' and [let the reeve] take possession of the ' wite.'
Cap. 27. If a man, kinless of paternal relatives, fight and slay
a man, and then if he have maternal relatives, let them pay a
third of the ' wer ;' his guild-brethren a third part ; for a third
let him flee. If he have no maternal relatives, let his guild-
brethren pay half, for half let him flee.
Cap. 28. If a man kill a man thus circumstanced, if he have
no relatives, let half be paid to the king, half to his guild-
brethren. Cap. 38. If a man fight before a king's ealdorman in the
' gemot,' let him make ' bot ' with 'wer ' and ' wite,' as it may be
right ; and before this, cxx. shillings to the ealdorman as ' wite.'
If he disturb the folkmote by drawing his weapon, cxx. shillings
to the ealdorman as ' wite.' If aught of this happen before a
king's ealdorman's junior, or a king's priest, xxx. shillings as
' wite.' Cap. 4 1 . The man who has ' boc-land,' and which his kindred
left him, then ordain we that he must not give it from his
' maeg-burg,' if there be writing or witness that it was forbidden
by those men who at first acquired it, and by those who gave it
to him, that he should do so ; and then let that be declared
in the presence of the king and of the bishop before his
kinsmen. A.D. 879. Alfred and Guthrum's Peace. This is the
peace that King Alfred and King Guthrum, and the ' witan' of
all the English nation, and all the people that are in East
Anglia, have all ordained and with oaths confirmed, for them
selves and for their descendants, as well for born as for unborn,
who reck of God's mercy or of ours.
1. Concerning our land boundaries ; Up on the Thames, and
then up on the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, then right
to Bedford, then up on the Ouse unto Watling Street.
2. Then is this : If a man be slain, we estimate all equally
dear, English and Danish, at viii. half marks of pure gold ; ex
cept the ' ceorl' who resides on 'gafol' land and their 'liesings ;'
they also are equally dear, either at cc. shillings.
3. And if a king's thegn be accused of man-slaying, if he dare
to clear himself, let him do that with xii. king's thegns. If any

64 Illustrative Extracts. [part
one accuse that man who is of less degree than the king's thegn,
let him clear himself with xi. of his equals and with one king's
thegn. And so in every suit which may be for more than iv.
mancuses. And if he dare not, let him pay for it threefold, as it
may be valued.
4. And that every man know his warrantor for men, and
for horses, and for oxen.
5. And we all ordained on that day that the oaths were
sworn, that neither bond nor free might go to the host without
leave, no more than any of them to us. But if it happen that
from necessity any of them will have traffic with us or we with
them, with cattle and with goods, that is to be allowed in this
wise : that hostages be given in pledge of peace, and as evidence
whereby it may be known that the party has a clean back.
A.D. cir. 920. Wessex. Edwaed ; cap. 4. King Edward
exhorted his witan, when they were at Exeter, that they should
all search out how their 'frith' might be better than it had
previously been ; for it seemed to him that it was more in
differently observed than it should be, what he had formerly
commanded. He then asked them who would apply to its
amendment, and be in that fellowship that he was, and love that
which he loved, and shun that which he shunned, both on sea
and on land. That is, then, that no man deny justice to
another ; if any one so do, let him make ' bot' as it before is
written : for the first offence, with xxx. shillings ; and for the
second offence, the like ; and for the third, with cxx. shillings
to the king.
Cap. 11. I will that each reeve have a 'gemot' always once
in four weeks, and so do that every man be worthy of folk -right ;
and that every suit have an end, and a term when it shall be
brought forward. If that any one disregard, let him make ' bot'
as we before ordained. Of Oaths.
Thus shall a man swear fealty oaths. By the Lord before
whom this relic is holy, I will be to N. faithful and true, and love
all that he loves, and shun all that he shuns, according to God's
law, and according to the world's principles ; and never, by will
nor by force, by word nor by work, do aught of what is loathful
to him ; on condition that he me keep as I am willing to deserve,
and all that fulfil that our agreement was, when I to him sub
mitted and chose his will.

IX-] Uncertain Bate. . 6$

Of People's Banks and Law.
i. It was whilom, in the laws of the English, that people and
law went by ranks, and then were the counsellors of the nation
of worship worthy, each according to his condition, eorl and
ceorl, thegen and theoden.
2. And if a ceorl throve, so that he had fully five hides of
his own land, church and kitchen, bell-house and burh-gate-seat,
and special duty in the king's hall, then was he thenceforth of
thegn-right worthy.
3. And if a thegn throve, so that he served the king, and on
his summons rode among his household ; if he then had a thegn
who him followed, who to the king's 'utware' five hides had,
and in the king's hall served his lord, and thrice with his errand
went to the king, he might thenceforth with his 'foreoath' his
lord represent at various needs, and his plaint lawfully conduct,
wheresoever he ought.
4. And he who so prosperous a vicegerent had not, swore for
himself according to his right, or it forfeited.
5. And if a thegn throve so that he became an eorl, then was
he thenceforth of eorl-right worthy.
6. And if a merchant throve, so that he fared thrice over the
wide sea by his own means, then was he thenceforth of thegn-
right worthy.
7. And if there a scholar were, who through learning throve,
so that he had holy orders, and served Christ, then was he thence
forth of rank and power so much worthy, as then to those orders
rightfully belonged, if he himself conducted so as he should;
unless he should misdo, so that he those orders' ministry might
not minister.
8. And if it happened that any one a man in orders, or a
stranger, anywhere injured, by word or work, then pertained it
to king and to bishop, that they that should make good as
they soonest might. Of Wergilds.
I. The north people's king's gild is 30,000 thrymsas ; 15,000
are for the wergild, and 15,000 for the cynedom. The wer
belongs to the kindred and the cynebot to the people. ^
2. An archbishop's and an aetheling's wergild is 15,000
thrymeas. 3. A bishop's and ealdorman's, 8000 thrymsas.
4. A hold's and a king's high reeve's, 4000 thrymsas.

66 Illustrative Extracts. [part
5. A mass thegn's and a secular thegn's, 2000 thrymsas.
6. A ceorl's wergild is 266 thrymsas, that is 200 shillings
by Mercian law. . . .
A.D. cir. 930. Athelstan. Cone. Greatanlea.
2. Of lordless men. And we have ordained, respecting those
lordless men of whom no law can be got, that the kindred be
commanded that they domicile him to folk-right, and find him a
lord in the folk-mote ; and if they then will not or cannot pro
duce him at the term, then be he thenceforth a ' flyma,' and let
him slay him for a thief who can come at him ; and whoever
after that shall harbour him, let him pay for him according to
his ' wer,' or by it clear himself.
1 2 . And we have ordained, that no man buy any property
out of port over xx. pence ; but let him buy there within, on the
witness of the port-reeve, or of another unlying man ; or further,
on the witness of the reeves at the folk-mote.
20. If any one [when summoned] fail to attend the gemot
thrice, let him pay the king's ' oferhyrnes,' and let it be an
nounced seven days before the gemot is to be. But if he will
not do right, nor pay the ' oferhyrnes,' then let all the chief men
belonging to the ' burh' ride to him, and take all that he has,
and put him in 'borh.' But if any one will not ride with his
fellows, let him pay the king's ' oferhyrnes.' . . .
Athelstan. Cone. Cant. ; cap. 4. Quartum, ne aliquis
recipiat alterius hominem sine licentia ejus cui ante folgavit, nee
intra mercam nee extra. Et etiam ne dominus libero homini
hlafordsoknam interdicat si eum recte custodierit.
Cap. 7. Septimum, ut omnis homo teneat homines suos in
fidejussione sua contra omne furtum. Si tunc sit aliquis qui
tot homines habeat quod non sufficiat omnes custodire, praeponat
sibi singulis villis praepositum unum, qui credibilis sit ei, et qui
concredat hominibus. Et si praepositus alicui eorum hominum
concredere non audeat, inveniat xii. plegios cognationis suae qui
ei stent in fidejussione. Et si dominus vel praepositus vel ali
quis homo hoc infringat vel abhinc exeat, sit dignus eorum
quae apud Greateleyam dicta sunt, nisi regi magis placeat alia
justitia. Athelstan. Conc.Exon.; cap. 1. And let there be named
in every reeve's ' manung' as many men as are known to be
unlying, that they may be for witness in every suit. And be
the oaths of these unlying men according to the worth of the
property, without election.

n-J Athelstan and Edmund. 67
Athelstan. Judicia Givitatis Lundoniae ; Preamble. This
is the ordinance which the bishops and reeves belonging to
London have ordained and with ' weds' confirmed, among our
' frith-gegildas' as well eorlish as ceorlish, in addition to the
dooms which were fixed at Greatanlea and at Exeter and at
Thunresfeld. Cap. iii. That we count always x. men together, and the chief
should direct the nine in each of those duties which we have all
ordained ; and [count] afterwards their ' hyndens' together, and
one ' hynden man' who shall admonish the x. for our common
benefit ; and let these xi. hold the money of the ' hynden,' and
decide what they shall disburse when aught is to pay, and what
they shall receive, if money should arise to us at our common
suit ; and let them also know that every contribution be forth
coming which we have all ordained for our common benefit,
after the rate of xxx. pence or one ox ; so that all be fulfilled
which we have ordained in our ordinances and which stands in
our agreement.
Cap. viii. 1. That we gather to us once in every month, if wo
can and have leisure, the ' hynden-men' and those who direct the
tithings, as well with ' bytt-fylling' as else it may concern us, and
know what of our agreement has been executed : and let these
xii. men have their refection together, and feed themselves
according as they may deem themselves worthy, and deal the
remains of the meat for love of God.
2. And if it then should happen that any kin be so strong
and so great, within land or without land, whether xii. ' hynde'
or 'twy-hynde;' that they refuse us our right, and stand up in
defence of a thief ; that we all of us ride thereto with the reeve
within whose ' manung' it may be. . . .
A.D. cir. 943. Edmund. Cone. Culinton. Haec est Institutio j
quam Edmundus rex et episcopi sui, cum sapientibus suis, in-f
stituerunt apud Culintonam, de pace et juramento faciendo. h
1. De Sacramento Fidelitatis Regi Edmundo faciendo. In
primis ut omnes jurent in nomine Domini, pro quo sanctum
illud sanctum est, fidelitatem Edmundo regi, sicut homo debet
esse fidelis domino suo, sine omni controversia et seditione, in
manifesto, in occulto, in amando quod amabit, nolendo quod
nolet ¦ et antequam juramentum hoc dabitur, ut nemo concelet
hoc in fratre vel proximo suo plus quam in extraneo.
7. Ut quisque homines suos faciat credibiles, et de infamatis
et haec praecepta negligentibus. Et omnis homo credibiles faciat
homines suos et omnes qui in pace et terra sua sunt. Et omnes
infamati et accusationibus ingravati sub plegio redigantur. Et.
F 2

68 Illustrative Extracts. [part
praepositus vel thaynus, comes vel villanus, qui hoc facere nolit,
aut disperdet, emendet cxx. s. et sit dignus eorum quae supra
dicta sunt.

»A.D. 959-975. Edgar. Ordinance of the Hundred.
It cannot be determined without question what is the his
torical connexion between the system of the Hundred, as
exemplified in the hundred warriors and the hundred counsellors
of the Germania, and the later institution of police organisation
and territorial division known under this name in England.
The existence of a territorial subdivision intermediate between
the, vicus or township and the shire or under-kingdom, such as is
known in various parts of England in the present day as the
hundred, the wapentake, the lathe, or the rape, may be regarded
as proved by numerous passages in Bede and the Chronicles;
and this subdivision may be regarded as answering roughly to
the pagus of Tacitus or the gau of Germany. But it is not equally
clear when, how, or why the name of 'hundred' was first applied
in the majority of the counties to this subdivision. It is some
times stated that the hundred is a primitive subdivision consist
ing of a hundred hides of land, or apportioned to a hundred
families :. the great objection to which theory is the impossi
bility of reconciling the historical hundreds with any such
computation. Another theory regards the use of the term as
much more modern, and as arising from the police arrange
ment exemplified in the following document, and in two much
earlier ones of Childebert and Clothaire, of the year 595,
which exist among the Capitularies of the Frank kings. Upon
this theory the ' hundred ' was originally the association of a
hundred persons for the conservation of peace and execution of
law, parallel with the later institution of the tithing or asso
ciation of ten freemen for a similar purpose. In'process of time,
the name of ' hundred ' would naturally extend to the territory
protected by this association, as the tithing itself became, in later
times and in certain districts, a local division. This theory is

n-] Edgar. 69
more probable than the former, but requires to be adjusted in
point of date and locality. We are not to regard the ordinances
of Childebert and Clothaire, or this of Edgar, as the institution
of an entirely new organisation, and as creating the district as
well as the police system from which it took its name. It
would be as difficult to prove any historical connexion between
the decrees of 595 and the ordinance of Edgar, as it would to
trace either directly to the ' centeni ' of the Germania. But it
is extremely probable that both legislators utilised an existing
machinery which was originally and closely allied to the centeni
of Tacitus. There are thus three points : the existence of the
subdivision of the shire, which is unquestionable ; the existence
of the machinery of the hundred for police purposes, which
emerges in these ordinances, but which may fairly be presumed
to be traceable to the analogy of the primitive usage, and which
may have been customary for ages, during which there is no
direct record of it ; and, thirdly, the application of the personal
name and organisation of the hundred to the already existing
territorial division, which occurs in Germany as well as in
England. The last thus viewed becomes of minor importance ;
as the special names applied to the particular hundreds must
in most cases have existed previous to the application. The
hundred-court was the ordinary court of justice among the
Franks and bore the name of mallus. The law of Childebert
and Clothaire recognises the existence of the territorial hundred
even whilst instituting a new measure of police. The law of
Edgar has a very much wider operation, regulating the practice
of the hundred-court in other respects. The coincidence in the
wording of the two documents is remarkable, rather as ex
hibiting the traces of ancient common institutions than as
proving any direct connexion.
Decretio Childeberti regis ; (Baluz. i. 14V Cap. IX. Si quia centenarium
aut quemlibet judicem noluerit super malefactorem ad prindendum adju-
vare, lx. solidis omnino condemnetur.
X. Et quicunque servum criminosum habuerit et ei judex rogaverit
ipsum praesentare, et noluerit, suum widrigildum omnino componat.
XI. Similiter convenit ut si furtum factum fuerit, capitale de praesenti
centena restituat, et causator centenarium cum centena requirat.

70 Illustrative Extracts. [part
XII. Pari conoitione convenit ut si una centena in alia centena vesti
gium secuta fuerit et invenerit vel in quibuscunque fidelium nostrorum
terrninis vestigium miseiit, et ipsum in aliam centenam minime expellere
potuerit, aut convictus reddat latronem, aut capitale de praesenti restituat,
et cum duodeeim personis se ex hoc Sacramento exuat.
Decretio Clotharii II, A.D. 595. I. Decretum est ut quia in vigilias
constitutas nocturnos fures non caperent, eo quod per diversas intercedente
conludio scelera praetermissa custodias exercerent, centenas fieri. In qua
centena aliquid deperierit, capitale qui perdiderat recipiat et latro insequa-
tur. Vel si in alterius centena appareat et adhuc admoniti si neglexerint,
quinos solidos condemnentur. Capitale tamen qui perdiderit a centena
ilia accipiat absque dubio, hoc est de secunda vel tertia custodia. . . .
A.D. 959-975. Edgar. This is the ordinance how the
Hundred shall be held.
1. First, that they meet always within four weeks; and that
every man do justice to another.
2. That a thief shall be pursued. ... If there be present need,
let it be made known to the lumdredman, and let him make it
known to the tithingmen ; and let all go forth to where God
may direct them to go. Let them do justice on the thief, as it
was formerly the enactment of Edmund. And let the 'ceap-
gild* be paid to him who owns the cattle, and the rest be
divided into two ; half to the hundred, half to the lord, ex
cepting men, and let the lord take possession of the men.
3. And the man who neglects this, and denies the doom of
the hundred, and the same be afterwards proved against him,
let him pay to the hundred xxx. pence ; and for the second
time lx. pence, half to the hundred, half to the lord. If he do
so a third time, let him pay half a pound ; for the fourth time,
let him forfeit all that he owns, and be an outlaw, unless the
king allow him to remain in the country.
4. And we have ordained, concerning unknown cattle, that
no one should possess it without the testimonies of the men of
the hundred, or of the tithingman ; and that he be a well trusty
man; and unless he have either of these, let no vouching to
warranty (team) be allowed him.
5. We have also ordained, if the hundred pursue a track into
another hundred, that notice be given to the hundredman, and
that he then go with them. If he neglect this, let him pay xxx.
shillings to the king.
6. If any one flinch from justice and escape, let him who held
him to answer for the offence pay the ' an-gylde.' And if any
one accuse him of having sent him away, let him clear himself,
as it is established in the country.
7. In the hundred, as in any other ' gemot,' we ordain that

"•] Edgar.

7i

folk -right be pronounced in every suit, and that a term be fixed
when it shall be fulfilled. And he who shall break that term,
unless it be by his lord's decree, let him make ' bot ' with xxx.
shillings, and on the day fixed fulfil that which he ought to
have done before.
8. An ox's bell, and a dog's collar, and a blast-horn — either
of these three shall be worth a shilling, and each is reckoned an
informer. 9. Let the iron that is for the threefold ordeal weigh iii.
pounds ; and for the single, one pound.
A.D. 959-975. Edgar. Ordinance. This is the ordinance
that King Edgar, with the counsel of his witan, ordained, in
praise of God, and in honour to himself, and for the behoof of
all his people.
1. These, then, are first : That God's churches be entitled to
every right ; and that every tithe be rendered to the old minster
to which the district belongs ; and that be then so paid, both
from a thegn's ' in-land ' and from ' geneat ' land, so as the
plough traverses it. . . .
Secular Ordinance ; cap. 1. Now this is the secular ordinance
which I will that it be held. This, then, is first what I will :
that every man be worthy of folk-right, as well poor as rich ;
and that righteous dooms be judged to him ; and let there be
such remission in the ' bot ' as may be becoming before God and
tolerable before the world.
Cap. 2. And let no one apply to the king in any suit, unless '
he at home may not be worthy of law, or cannot obtain law.
If the law be too heavy, let him seek a mitigation of it from the
king ; and for any ' bot '-worthy crime let no man forfeit more
than his ' wer.'
Cap. 5. And let the hundred gemot be attended as it was ]
before fixed ; and thrice in the year let a burh-gemot be held ;
and twice, a shire-gemot ; and let there be present the bishop of/
the shire and the ealdorman, and there both expound as well1
the law of God as the secular law.
Cap. 6. And let every man so order that he have a 'borh;'
and let the ' borh' then bring and hold him to every justice ;
and if any one then do wrong and run away, let the ' borh'
bear that which he ought to bear. But if it be a thief, and
if he can get hold of him within twelve months, let him deliver
him up to justice, and let be rendered unto him what he before
had paid.
Cap. 8. And let one money pass throughout the king's
dominion ; and that let no man refuse ; and let one measure

72 Illustrative Extracts. [part
and one weight pass, such as is observed at London and at
Winchester 
Supplement; cap. 3. This, then, is what I will : that every
man be under ' borh,' both within the ' burhs' and without
the ' burhs ;' and let witness be appointed to every ' burh'
and to every hundred.
Cap. 4. To every 'burh' let there be chosen xxxiii. as witness.
Cap. 5. To small ' burhs' and in every hundred xii. unless ye
desire more.
Cap. 6. And let every man, with their witness, buy and sell
every of the chattels that he may buy or sell, either in a burh or
in a wapontake ; and let every of them, when he is first chosen
as witness, give the oath that he never, neither for money, nor
for love, nor for fear, will deny any of those things of which he
was witness, nor declare any other thing in witness save that
alone which he saw or heard ; and of such sworn men let there
be at every bargain two or three as witness.
A.D. 978-1016. Ethelred. I. This is the ordinance which
King Ethelred and his witan ordained as ' frith-bot' for the whole
nation, at Woodstock, in the land of the Mercians, according to
the law of the English.
Cap. 1. Of'Borhs.' That is, that every freeman have a true
' borh,' that the ' borh' may present him to every justice, if he
should be accused. But if he be ' tyhtbysig,' let him go to the
threefold ordeal. If his lord say that he has failed neither in
oath nor ordeal since the gemot was at Bromdun, let the lord
take with him two true thegns within the hundred, and swear
that never hath oath failed him, nor had he paid ' theof-gyld ; '
unless he have the reeve who is competent to do that. If then
the oath succeed, let the man then who is there accused choose
whichever he will, either single ordeal, or a pound-worth oath,
within the three hundreds, for above thirty pence. If they dare
not take the oath, let him go to the triple ordeal  And let
every lord have his household in his own ' borh.'
II. cap. 6. If the frith-breach be committed within a ' burh,'
let the inhabitants of the ' burh' themselves go and get the mur
derers, living or dead, or their nearest kindred, head for head.
If they will not, let the ealdorman go ; if he will not, let the
king go; if he will not, let the ealdordom lie in 'unfrith.'
III. cap. 3  And that a gemot be held in every
wapontake; and the xii. senior tliegns go out, and the reeve
with them, and swear on the relic that is given them in hand,
that they will accuse no innocent man, nor conceal any guilty

[I-] Ethelred and Canute. 73
Cap. 1 1 . And let no man have any soken over a king's thegn
except the king himself.
V. cap. 2. And the ordinance of our lord and of his witan is,
that Christian men and uncondemned be not sold out of the
country, especially into a heathen nation ; and be it jealously
guarded against, that those souls perish not that Christ bought
with his own life.
Cap. 3. And the ordinance of our lord and of his witan is,
that Christian men for all too little be not condemned to death ;
but in general let mild punishments be decreed, for the people's
need ; and let not, for a little, God's handywork and His own
purchase be destroyed, which He dearly bought.
Cap. 26. But let God's law be henceforth zealously loved, by
word and deed, then will God soon be merciful to this nation :
and let ' frithes-bot' and 'feos-bot' everywhere in the country,
and ' burh-bot ' on every side, and ' bric-bot,' and the armaments
(fyrdung) also be diligently attended to, according to what is
always prescribed when there is need.
Cap. 28. And if any one without leave return from the ' fyrd'
in which the king himself is, let it be at the peril of himself and
all his estate ; and he who else returns from the ' fyrd,' let him
be liable in cxx. shillings.
A.D. 1016-1035. Canute. Secular Dooms ; cap. 17. And
let no one apply to the king unless he may not be entitled
to any justice within his hundred ; and let the hundred gemot
be applied to under penalty of the ' wite,' so as it is riglit to
apply to it.
Cap. 18. And thrice a-year let there be a ' burh-gemot,' and
twice a ' shire-gemot'; under penalty of the ' wite,' as is right,
unless there be need oftener. And let there be present the
bishop of the shire and the ealdorman, and there let both ex
pound as well the law of God as the secular law.
Cap. 19. And let no man take any distress either in the
shire or out of the shire, before he has twice demanded his
right in the hundred. If at the third time he have no justice,
then let him go at the fourth time to the ' shire-gemot,' and
let the shire appoint him a fourth term. If that then fail, let
him take leave either from hence or thence, that he may seize
his own.
Cap. 20. And we will that every free man be brought into a
hundred and into a tithing. . . . And that every one be brought
into a hundred and in 'borh ;' and let the 'borh' hold and lead
him to every plea. . . .

74 Illustrative Extracts. [part
Cap. 21. And we will that every man above xii. years make
oath that he will neither be a thief nor cognisant of theft.
Cap. 70. This then is the alleviation which it is my will
to secure to all the people of that which they before this were
too much oppressed with. That then is first ; that I command
all my reeves that they justly provide on my owu, and maintain
me therewith ; and that no man need give them anything as
' feorm-fultum' unless he himself be willing. And if any one
after that demand a ' wite,' let him be liable in his ' wer' to the
king. Cap. 71. And if any one depart this life intestate, be it
through his neglect, be it through sudden death ; then let not
the lord draw more from his property than his lawful heriot.
And according to his direction, let the property be distributed
very justly to the wife and children and relations, to every one
according to the degree that belongs to him.
Cap. 72. And let the heriots be as it is fitting to the degree.
An eorl's such as thereto belongs, that is, eight horses, four
saddled and four unsaddled, and four helmets and four coats of
mail, and eight spears and as many shields, and four swords and
200 mancuses of gold. And after that, a king's thegn's, of those
who are nearest to him ; four horses, two saddled and two un
saddled, and two swords and four spears and as many shields,
and a helmet and a coat of mail and fifty mancuses of gold.
And of the medial thegns, a horse and his trappings and his
arms ; or his ' healsfang' in Wessex ; and in Mercia two pounds ;
and in East Anglia two pounds. And the heriot of a king's
thegn among the Danes, who has his soken, four pounds. And
if he have further relation to the king, two horses, one saddled
and the other unsaddled, and one sword and two spears and two
shields and fifty mancuses of gold ; and he who is of less means,
two pounds.
Cap. 81. And I will that every man be entitled to his hunting
in wood and in field, on his own possession. And let every one
forego my hunting : take notice where I will have it untres-
passed on, under penalty of the full ' wite.'
Cap. 83. And I will that every man be entitled to • grith'
to the gemot and from the gemot, except he be a notorious
thief.

n.J Canute. 75

Charter of Canute.
The following Charter affords a most important illustration
of the policy of Canute with regard to his English subjects, and
of the general spirit of his legislation after his rule was univer
sally admitted. It probably belongs to the year 1020, in which
the king returned from Denmark, as the earl Thurcyl, to whom
it is addressed, was outlawed the following year. The laws of
Edgar had been chosen by the Danes and English at Oxford in
1018. The document is published for the first time.
Canute, the king, greets his archbishops and his suffragan
bishops, and Thurcyl the earl, and all his earls and all his
people, twelfhynde and twyhynde, clerk and lay, in England,
friendly ; and I do you to wit that I will be kind lord and
unfailing to God's rights and to right secular law. I took to
my remembrance the writing and the word that archbishop
Lyfing brought me from Rome from the pope, that I should
everywhere maintain the glory of God and put down wrong,
and work full peace by the might that God would give me.
Now I shrank not from my cost whilst hostility was in hand
among you ; now I with God's help took away at my cost that
of which men told me that it threatened us with more harm
than well pleased us; and then went I myself into Denmark,
with the men that went with me, from whence most harm came
to you ; and that have I with God's help taken precautions for
that never henceforth should enmity come to you from thence
whilst ye men rightly hold, and my life lasteth. Now I
thank God Almighty for his help and mercy, that I have so
allayed the great harms that threatened us, that we need expect
from thence no harm, but to full peace and to deliverance if
need be. Now I will that we all reverently thank God Almighty
for the mercy that he has done for our help. Now I beseech
my archbishops and all my suffragan bishops that they all be
attentive about God's right, every one in his district which is
committed to him ; and also my ealdormen I command that
they help the bishops to God's right and to my royal authority
and to the behoof of all the people. If any be so bold, clerk or
lay, Dane or English, as to go against God's law and against my
royal authority, or against secular law, and be unwilling to
make amends, and to alter according to my bishops' teaching,
then I pray Thurcyl my earl, and also command him, that he

76 Illustrative Extracts. [part
bend that unrighteous one to right if he can ; if he cannot, then
will I with the strength of us both that he destroy him in the
land or drive him out of the land, be he better, be he worse ;
and also I command all my reeves, by my friendship and by all
that they own, and by their own life, that they everywhere hold
my people rightly and judge right judgments by the shire
bishops' witness, and do such mercy therein as the shire bishop
thinks right, as a man may attain to ; and if any harbour a
thief, or neglect the pursuit, be he answerable to me as the
thief should, unless he can clear himself towards me with full
purgation. And I will that all people, clerk and lay, hold fust
Edgar's law, which all men have chosen and sworn to at Oxford,
for that all the bishops say that it right deeply offends God, that
a man break oaths or pledges ; and likewise they further teach
us that we should with all might and main, alike seek, love, and
worship the eternal merciful God, and eschew all unrighteous
ness ; that is, slaying of kinsmen, and murder, and perjury, and
witchcraft and enchantment, and adultery, and incest ; and also
we charge in the name of God Almighty, and of all his saints,
that no man be so bold as to marry a hallowed nun or mynchen ;
and if any have done so, be he outlaw towards God, and excom
municated from all Christendom, and answerable to the king in
all he has, unless he quickly alter and deeply make amends to
God ; and further still, we admonish that men keep Sunday's
festival with all their might, and observe it from Saturday's
noon to Monday's dawning ; and no man be so bold that he
either go to market or seek any court on that holy day ; and all
men, poor and rich, seek their church, and ask forgiveness for
their sins, and keep earnestly every ordained fast, and earnestly
honour the saints that the mass priests shall bid us, that we
may altogether through the mercy of the everlasting God and
the intercession of his saints come to the joy of the kingdom of
heaven, and dwell with Him who liveth and reigneth for ever
without end. Amen. [York Gospel Book, MS.]

\j A.D. 1043-1066. Edward the Confessor (as recorded
Dy the wise men of the shires under William, and edited by
(T-lgpyill in the next century, with the legal language adapted
to the later period).
IX. Be illis qui judicium faciunt aquae velferri calidi. Adsit
ad judicium minister episcopi cum clericis suis, et Justitia regis

1T-J Edioard the Confessor.

11

cum legalibus hominibus provinciae illius, ut videant et audiant
quod omnia aeque fiant; et quos salvaverit Dominus per miseri-
cordiam Suam et justitia eorum, quieti sint et liberi abseedant ;
et quos iniquitas et injustitia sua condemnaverit, Justitia regis
de ipsis fieri faciat justitiam. Barones autem qui curias suas
habent de hominibus suis, videant ut ita agant de eis quatenus
erga Deum reatum non incurrant, et regem non offendant. Et
si placitum de hominibus aliorum baronum oritur in curiis suis,
adsit ad placitum Justitia regis, quoniam absque eo fieri non
debet. Et si barones sint qui judicia non habeant, in hundredo
ubi placitum habitum fuerit, ad propinquiorem ecclesiam ubi
judicium regis erit, determinandum est, salvis rectitudinibus
baronum ipsorum.
XIII. Divisiones schirarum et hundredorum. Divisiones
scirarum regis proprie cum judicio iiii. chiminorum regalium
sunt. Divisiones hundredorum et wapentagiorum, comitibus et
vicecomitibus, cum judicio comitatus.
XX. De Frithborgis. Alia pax maxima est, per quam omnes
firmiori statu sustentantur • scilicet fidejussionis stabilitate,
quam Angli vocant frithborgas, praeter Eboracenses qui vocant
earn tenmanne tale, hoc est, numerum x. hominum. Et hoc est,
quod de omnibus villis totius regni sub decennali fidejussione
debeant omnes esse, ita quod si unus ex decern forisfecerit,
novem eum haberent ad rectum. Quod si aufugeret, et dicerent
quod non possent eum habere ad rectum, daretur eis ad minus
a Justitia regis spatium xx. dierum et unius diei ; et si possent
eum iuvenire, adducerent eum ad Justitiam. Ipse quidem de
suo restauret damnum quod fecerat, et de corpore suo flat
justitia, si ad hoc forisfecerit. Si autem infra supradictum ter-
minum inveniri non poterit, quia in omni frith borge unus erat
capitalis quern ipsi vocabant frithborge heved, ipse capitalis
acciperet duos de melioribus in suo frithborge, et de tribus
frithborgis propinquioribus vicinis suis accipiat de unoquoque
capitalem ; et similiter duos de melioribus, si poterit eos habere,
et se duodecimo expurget se et frithborgum suum si facere poterit,
de forisfacto et fuga supradicti malefactoris. Quod si facere non
poterit, restauraret damnum quod ipse fecerat de proprio foris-
factoris quantum duraverit, et de suo ; et erga Justitiam emen-
dent secundum quod legaliter judicatum fuerit eis. Et tamen
sacramentum quod non potuerunt complere per vicinos, per se
ipsos novem jurent se esse immunes. Et si aliquem potuerint
recuperare, adducent eum ad Justitiam, si potuerint, aut dicent
Justitiae ubi sit.

78 Illustrative Extracts.
XXI. Descriptio libertatum diversarum. Archiepiscopi, epi
scopi, comites, barones et milites suos et proprios servientes suos,
scilicet dapiferos, pincernas, camerarios, coquos, pistores, sub
suo frithborgo habebant; et ipsi suos armigeros vel alios
servientes suos sub suo frithborgo; quod si ipsi forisfacerent,
et clamor vicinorum insurgeret de eis, ipsi haberent eos ad
rectum in curia sua, si haberent sacham et socham, tol et theam,
et infangenethef .
XXII. Quid sit Soche, et Sache, et Tol, et Theam, et Infan-
genthef. Soche est, quod si aliquis quaerit aliquid in terra sua,
etiam furtum, sua est justitia si inventum fuerit an non.
Sacha, quod si aliquis aliquem nominatim de aliquo calumni-
atus fuerit, et ipse negaverit, forisfactura probationis vel nega-
tionis, si evenerit, sua erit. Tol, quod nos vocamus theloneum,
scilicet libertatem emendi et vendendi in terra sua. Theam,
quod si aliquis aliquid interciebatur super aliquem, et ipse non
poterat warantum suum habere, erit forisfactura, et justitia
similiter de calumniatore si deficiebat, sua erit. De Infangene
thef : — Justitia cognoscentis latronis sua est de homine suo, si
captus fuerit super terrain suam. Et illi qui non habent con-
suetudines quas supradiximus, ante Justitiam regis faciant
rectum etiam in hundredo, vel in wapentagiis, vel in schiris.
XXVIII. Quare Frithborgi constituti sunt. Cum autem
viderunt quod aliqui stulti libenter forisfaciebant erga vicinos
suos, sapientiores ceperunt consilium inter se, quomodo eos
reprimerent, et sic imposuerunt justitiarios super quosque x.
frithborgos, quos decanos possumus dicere, Anglice autem
tyenthe-heved vocati sunt ; hoc est caput x. Isti autem inter
villas, inter vicinos tractabant causas, et secundum quod foris-
facturae erant, emendationes et ordinationes faciebant, videlicet
de pascuis, de pratis, de messibus, de certationibus inter vicinos,
et de multis hujusmodi quae frequenter insurgunt.
XXIX. Cum autem majores causae insurgebant, referebant eas
ad alios majores justitiarios quos sapientes supradicti super eos
constituerant, scilicet, super x. decanos, quos possumus vocare
centenarios quia super centum frithborgos judicabant.

PART III.
SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS ; Norman Period.
A.D. 1066-1087. WILLIAM I.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Stigand, 105 2-1070; Lanfranc, 1070-
1089.
Justices. Odo of Bayeux and William Fitz-Osbern, 1067; William de
Warenne and Richard Fitz-Gilbert, 1073 ; Lanfranc of Canterbury,
Geoffrey Bishop of Coutances, and Robert Count of Mortain, 1078.
Chancellors. Herfast, afterwards Bishop of Elmham, 1068 ; Osbern,
afterwards Bishop of Exeter, 1070-1074 ; Osmund, afterwards Bishop
of Salisbury, 1074-1078 ; Maurice, afterwards Bishop of London,
1078-1083 ; William de Beaufeu, afterwards Bishop of Thetford, 1083-
1085 ; William Giffard, 1086-1087.
W ILLIAM the Conqueror having, at the battle of Hastings,
wrested the kingdom of England from Harold, was elected by
the witan, and crowned after making the usual compact with the
nation. He showed himself prepared to rule as the West Saxon
line of kings before him had done, and found the forfeited
demesnes and jurisdictions of the family of Godwin sufficient to
satisfy for the moment the demands of his servants and allies.
But the tyranny of Odo of Bayeux and William Fitz-Osbern,
who were left behind as justices regent on the occasion of his
first visit to Normandy, produced a resistance which was not
extinguished until a very large portion of the native landowners
had suffered forfeiture, and a very large substitution of Norman
nobles in both lands and jurisdictions followed. This substitu
tion had the twofold effect of producing a gradual change in the
institutions of the country, from the highest to the lowest,
towards the Norman or properly feudal type, and of thus

8o Illustrative Extracts. [part
raising up a nobility covetous of extensive estates and hereditary
jurisdictions, which must in the long run cripple the ancient
power of the king and the system of self-government which still
subsisted among the people. The struggles of the English
against their conquerors were after a short interval succeeded
by a series of struggles between the Crown and the Barons,
which began in the conspiracy of Ralph Guader and Roger son
of William Fitz-Osbern, and continued until the nobility of the
Conquest was nearly extinct. The reign of the Conqueror
witnessed only the opening of this long contest, which had the
effect in its turn of compelling the kings to foster every remnant
of local independence amongst the English as a check on the
rebellious and tyrannical policy of the great feudatories. But
this did not prevent the rapid assimilation of the government, in
its highest range, to the feudal model ; which was the most pro
minent result of the Conquest, regarded in its constitutional
aspect.

Excerpts.
A.D. 1066. Will. Pictav., Gesta Willelmi, ed. Maseres,
p. 145. Die ordinationi decreto, elocutus ad Anglos condecenti
sermone Eboracensis archiepiscopus, aequitatem valde amans,
aevo maturus, sapiens, bonus, eloquens, an consentirent eum
(Willelmum) sibi dominum coronari, inquisivit. Protestati sunt
hilarem consensum universi minime haesitantes, ac si coelitus
una mente data unaque voce. Anglorum voluntati quam facil-
lime Normanni consonuerunt ; sermocinato ad eos ac sententiam
percunctato Constantini praesule. . . . Sic electum consecravit
idem archiepiscopus, aeque sancta vita carus et inviolata fama,
imposuit ei regium diadema ipsumque regio solio favente mul-
torum praesentia praesulum et abbatum. . . .
Flor. Wigoen. Consecratus est honorifice, prius, ut idem
archipraesul ab eo exigebat, ante altare Sancti Petri Apostoli,
coram clero et populo jurejurando promittens se velle sanctas
Dei ecclesias ac rectores illarum defendere, necnon et cunctum
populum sibi subjectum juste et regali providentia regere,
rectam legem statuere et tenere, rapinas injustaque judicia
penitus interdicere.

1JI-] Excerpts. 81
Cheon. Sax. And he came to Westminster and Archbishop
Ealdred consecrated him king, and men paid him tribute, and
delivered him hostages, and afterwards bought their land.
Will. Malmesb., Gesta Regum, lib. iii. § 279. Convivia in
praecipuis festivitatibus sumptuosa et magnifica inibat ; Natale
Domini apud Gloecestram, Pascha apud Wintoniam, Pentecosten
apud Westmonasterium agens quotannis quibus in Anglia
morari liceret : omnes eo cujuscunque professionis magnates
regium edictum accersiebat, ut exterarum gentium legati speciem
multitudinis apparatumque deliciarum mirarentur. . . . Quern
morem convivandi primus successor obstinate tenuit, secundus
omisit. Chron. Sax., A.D. 1087. Thrice he wore his crown every
year, as often as he was in England ; at Easter he wore it at
Winchester; at Whitsuntide at Westminster; at Midwinter at
Gloucester ; and then were with him all the rich men over all
England, archbishops and suffragan bishops, abbots and earls,
thegns and knights.
R. Hoveden, Chronica, ii. 218. A.D. 1070. Willelmus
rex, quarto anno regni sui, consilio baronum suorum, fecit
summoneri per universos consulatus Angliae Anglos nobiles et
sapientes et sua lege eruditos, ut eorum et jura et consuetudines
ab ipsis audiret. Electi igitur de singulis totius patriae
comitatibus viri duodecim jurejurando confirmaverunt primo
ut quoad possent recto tramite, neque ad dextram neque ad
sinistram partem devertentes, legum suarum consuetudinem et
sancita patefacerent, nil praetermittentes, nil addentes, nil
praevaricando mutantes.
Flor. Wigorn., A.D. 1084. Rex Anglorum Willelmus de
unaquaque hida per Angliam sex solidos accepit.
Flor Wigorn, A.D. 1086. Willelmus rex fecit describi
omnem Angliam, quantum terrae quisque baronum suorum pos-
sidebat, quot feudatos milites, quot carrucas, quot villanos, quot
animalia, immo quantum vivae pecuniae quisque possidebat in
omni regno suo, a maximo usque ad minimum ; et quantum
redditus quaeque possessio red dere poterat : et vexata est terra
multis cladibus inde procedentibus. Et in hebdomada Pente-
costes suum filium Heinricum apud Westmonasterium, ubi cu
riam suam tenuit, armis militaribus honoravit. Nee multo post
mandavit ut archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, comites, barones,
vicecomites, cum suis militibus, die Kalendarum Augustarum
G

82 William I. [part
sibi occurrerent Searesbyriae : quo cum venissent, milites illorum
sibi fidelitatem contra omnes homines jurare coegit.
Chron. Sax., A.D. 1086. After that he went about so that
he came at Lammas to Salisbury, and there came to him his
witan, and all the landowning men of property there were over
all England, whose soever men they were, and all bowed down
to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him
that they would be faithful to him against all other men.
Oederic. Vital., lib. iv. c. 7. Ipsi vero regi, ut fertur,
mille et sexaginta librae sterilensis monetae, solidique triginta
et tres oboli, ex justis redditibus Angliae per singulos dies
redduntur : exceptis muneribus regiis et reatuum redemption-
ibus, aliisque multiplicibus negotiis quae regis aerarium quotidie
adaugent ; rex Willelmus omne regnum suum diligenter investi-
gavit, et omnes fiscos ejus, sicut tempore Edwardi regis fuerunt,
veraciter describi fecit. Terras autem militibus ita distribuit, et
eorum ordines ita disposuit, ut Angliae regnum LX millia mili-
tum indesinenter habe.ret, ac ad imperium regis, prout ratio
poposcerit, celeriter exhiberet.
Eadmee, Hist. Nov., i. p. 6. Quaedam de eis quae nova per
Angliam servari [Willelmus] constituit ponam . . .
1. Non ergo pati volebat quenquam in omni dominatione sua
constitutum Romanae urbis pontificem pro apostolico, nisi se
jubente, recipere, aut ejus litteras si primitus sibi ostensae non
fuissent ullo pacto suscipere.
2. Primatem quoque regni sui, archiepiscopum dico Cantuari
ensem seu Dorobernensem, si coacto generali episcoporum con-
cilio praesideret, non sinebat quicquam statuere aut prohi-
bere nisi quae suae voluntati accommoda et a se primo essent
ordinata. 3. Nulli nihilo minus episcoporum suorum concessum iri per-
mittebat, ut aliquem de baronibus suis seu ministris, sive incesto
sive adulterio sive aliquo capitali crimine denotatum, publice
nisi ejus praecepto implacitaret, aut excommunicaret aut ulla
ecclesiastici rigoris poena constringeret.

Charter of William I to the City of London.
Will'm kyng gret Will'm bisceop and Gosfreg^ portirefan
and ealle ba burhwaru binnan Londone Frencisce and Englisce
freondlice. and ic kyde eow hat ic wylle bat get beon eallra bsera

m.] Statutes. 83
laga weorSe be gyt waeran on Eadwerdes dsege kynges. and ic
wylle bset selc cyld beo bis feeder yrfnume. setter his faederdsege.
and ic nelle gebolian bat senig man eow senig wrang beode.
God eow gehealde. Translation.
William, king, greets William, bishop, and Gosfrith, port
reeve, and all the burghers within London, French and English,
friendly ; and I do you to wit that I will that ye two be worthy
of all the laws that ye were worthy of in King Edward's day.
And I will that every child be his father's heir, after his father's
day. And I will not endure that any man offer any wrong to
you. God keep you. — (Liber Custumarum.)

Statutes of William the Conqueror.
The following short record, which is found in this, its earliest
form, in the ' Textus Roffensis,' a manuscript written during
the reign of Henry I, contains what is probably the sum and
substance of all the legal enactments actually made by the Con
queror, independent of his confirmations of the earlier laws ;
they are probably the alterations or emendations referred to by
Henry I in his charter, as made by his father in the laws of
King Edward. The charter which follows is the important Act
by which William divided the ecclesiastical from the secular
jurisdiction over the clergy, in matters not strictly spiritual,
which had of course always been treated, as they continued to
be, by the bishops, in their own courts and councils.
Hie intimatur quid Willelmus Bex Angtorum cum principibus
suis constituit post Conquisilionem Angliae.
1. In primis quod super omnia unum vellet Deum per totum
regnum suum venerari, unam fidem Christi semper inviolatam
custodiri, pacem et securitatem inter Anglos et Normannos
servari. 2. Statuimus etiam ut omnis liber homo foedere et sacramento
affirmet, quod infra et extra Angliam Willelmo regi fideles
G 2

84 William I. [part
esse volunt, terras et honorem illius omni fidelitate cum eo ser-
vare, et ante eum contra inimicos defendere.
3. Volo autem ut omnes homines quos mecum adduxi aut
post me venerunt sint in pace mea et quiete. Et si quis de illis
occisus fuerit, dominus ejus habeat infra quinque dies homicidam
ejus si potuerit ; sin autem, incipiat persolvere mihi xlvi. marcas
argenti quamdiu substantia illius domini perduraverit. Ubi
vero substantia defecerit, totus hundredus in quo occisio facta
est communiter persolvat quod remanet.
4. Et omnis Francigena qui tempore regis Edwardi propinqui
mei fuit in Anglia particeps consuetudinum Anglorum, quod
ipsi dicunt onhlote et anscote, persolvatur secundum legem
Anglorum. Hoc decretum sancitum est in civitate Claudia.
5. Interdicimus etiam ut nulla viva pecunia vendatur aut
ematur nisi infra civitates, et hoc ante tres fideles testes ; nee
aliquam rem vetustam sine fidejussore et waranto. Quod si
aliter fecerit, solvat et persolvat, et postea forisfacturam.
6. Decretum est etiam ibi, ut, si Francigena appellaverit
Anglum de perjurio aut murdro, furto, homicidio, ran, quod
Angli dicunt apertam rapinam quae negari non potest, Anglus
se defendat per quod melius voluerit, aut judicio ferri aut
duello. Si autem Anglus infirmus fuerit, inveniat alium qui
pro eo faciat. Si quis eorum victus fuerit, emendet xl. solidos
regi. Si Anglus Francigenam appellaverit et probare noluerit
judicio aut duello, volo tamen Francigenam purgare se Sacra
mento non fracto.
7. Hoc quoque praecipio et volo, ut omnes habeant et teneant
legem Edwardi regis in terris et in omnibus rebus, adauctis iis
quae constitui ad utilitatem populi Anglorum.
8. Omnis homo qui voluerit se teneri pro libero sit in plegio,
ut plegius teneat et habeat ilium ad justitiam si quid offenderit.
Et si quisquam talium evaserit, videant plegii ut simpliciter
solvant quod calumniatum est, et purgent se quia in evaso
nullam fraudem noverint. Requiratur hundredus et comitatus,
sicut antecessores nostri statuerunt. Et qui juste venire deberent
et venire noluerint, semel summoneantur ; et si secundo venire
noluerint, accipiatur unus bos, et summoneantur tertio. Et si
non tertio venerint, accipiatur alius bos : quarta autem vice si
non venerint, reddatur de rebus hominis illius qui venire nolu
erit quod calumniatum est, quod dicitur ceapgeld; et insuper
forisfactura regis.
9. iEgo prohibeo ut nullus vendat hominem extra patriam
super plenam forisfacturam meam.
10. Interdico etiam ne quis occidatur aut suspendatur pro

m-] Customs from Domesday. 85
ahqua culpa, sed eruantur oculi, et testiculi abscidantur. Et
hoc praeceptum non sit violatum super forisfacturam meam
plenam. — (MS. Bodl. Rawlinson, C. 641.)
Ordinance of William I, separating the Spiritual
and Temporal Courts.
Willelmus gratia Dei Rex Anglorum, R. Bainardo et G. de
Magnavilla, et P. de Valoines, ceterisque meis fidelibus de Essex
et de Hertfordschire et de Middelsex, salutem. Sciatis vos
omnes et ceteri mei fideles qui in Anglia manent, quod episco
pates leges, quae non bene nee secundum sanctorum canonum
praecepta usque ad mea tempora ih regno Anglorum fuerunt,
communi concilio et consilio archiepiscoporum et episcoporum et
abbatum et omnium principum regni mei emendandas judicavi.
Propterea mando et regia auctoritate praecipio, ut nullus episco-
pus vel archidiaconus de legibus episcopalibus amplius in hundret
placita teneant, nee causam quae ad regimen animarum pertinet
ad judicium secularium hominum adducant, sed quicunque se
cundum episcopales leges, de quacunque causa vel culpa inter
pellate fuerit, ad locum quem ad hoc episcopus elegerit vel'
nominaverit veniat, ibique de causa vel culpa sua respondeat, et
non secundum hundret, sed secundum canones et episcopales
leges, rectum Deo et episcopo suo faciat. Si vero aliquis per
superbiam elatus ad justitiam episcopalem venire contempserit
vel noluerit, vocetur semel, secundo et tertio ; quod si nee sic ad
emendationem venerit, excommunicetur, et si opus fuerit ad hoc
vindicandum, fortitudo et justitia regis vel vicecomitis adhibe-
atur. Hie autem qui vocatus ad justitiam episcopi venire nolu
erit pro unaquaque vocatione legem episcopalem emendabit.
Hoc etiam defendo, et mea auctoritate interdico, ne ullus vice-
comes aut praepositus seu minister regis, nee aliquis laicus
homo, de legibus quae ad episcopum pertinent se intromittat,
nee aliquis laicus homo alium hominem sine justitia episcopi ad
judicium adducat. Judicium vero in nullo loco portetur, nisi in
episcopali sede aut in illo loco quem ad hoc episcopus constitu
ent. — (Ancient Laws and Institutes, p. 213.)

A.D. 1086. EXTRACTS FROM DOMESDAY BOOK.
Next to the laws and charters of the early kings, the record
of local customs in Domesday-book is the source of the most

86 William I. [part
certain information as to the common law of England before the
Conquest. It is probable that everything in the so-called laws
of Edward the Confessor (above, p. 76), which has any sort of
authenticity, is derived from these memoranda. The following
extracts are given here as illustrating — 1 . The aristocratic
character of the municipal government in the towns which
contained the germs of an organisation of their own ; 2. The
financial system of the counties previous to its organisation
under the Court of Exchequer, and whilst still administered by
ealdormen or earls, superior to the sheriffs who take their place
under the Norman system, although the earl retains ' the third
penny' of the county ; 3. The ' consuetudines' or financial and
legal customary settlement which it was the object of the
municipal charters of the next century to conserve or amend ;
4. The method of raising and supporting the customary military
force of the fyrd or expeditio ; and 5. The early application of
the method of inquest by jury for the ascertaining of these legal
and financial ' consuetudines,' exemplified in the heading of the
Ely Survey. Title of the Domesday Inquest for Ely.
Hie subscribitur Inquisitio Terrarum quomodo barones regis
inquirunt, videlicet, per sacramentum Vicecomitis scirae et om
nium baronum et eorum Francigenarum et totius centuriatus,
presbiteri, praepositi, vi. villanorum uniuscujusque villae. De-
inde quomodo vocatur mansio, quis tenuit earn tempore Regis
Eadwardi ; quis modo tenet ; quot hidae ; quot carrucae in
dominio, quot hominum ; quot villani ; quot cotarii ; quot
servi ; quot liberi homines ; quot sochemani ; quantum silvae ;
quantum prati ; quot pascuorum ; quot molendina ; quot pis
cinae ; quantum est additum vel ablatum ; quantum valebat
totum simul ; et quantum modo ; quantum ibi quisque liber
homo, vel sochemannus habuit vel habet. Hoc totum tripliciter ;
scilicet tempore Regis Aeduardi, et quando Rex Willelmus dedit ;
et quomodo sit modo; et si potest plus haberi quam habeatur. —
(Inquisitio Bliensis, Domesday, iii. 497.)

TU0 Customs from Domesday. 87

Customs of Chester.
_ Civitas de Cestre tempore Regis Edwardi geldabat pro 1.
hidis. Tres hidae et dimidia quae sunt extra civitatem. Hoc
est, una hida et dimidia ultra pontem, et ii. hidae in Neutone et
Redeclive et in burgo episcopi ; hae geldabant cum civitate.
Tempore Regis Edwardi erant in ipsa civitate cccc. et xxxi.
domus geldantes. Et praeter has habebat episcopus lvi. domus
geldantes. Tunc reddebat haec civitas x. markas argenti et
dimidiam. Duae partes erant regis et tertia comitis; et hae
leges erant ibi ;
Pax data manu regis vel suo brevi vel per suum legatum, si
ab aliquo fuisset infracta, inde rex c. solidos habebat. Quod si
ipsa pax regis jussu ejus a comite data fuisset infracta, de
centum solidis qui pro hoc dabantur tertium denarium comes
habebat. Si vero a praeposito regis aut ministro comitis eadem
pax data infringeretur, per xl. solidos emendabatur, et comitis
erat tertius denarius.
Si quis liber homo regis pacem datam infringens in domo
hominem occidisset, terra ejus et pecunia tota regis erat, et ipse
utlagh fiebat. Hoc idem habebat comes de suo tantum homine
hanc forisfacturam faciente. Cuilibet autem utlagh nullus
poterat reddere pacem nisi per regem.
Qui sanguinem faciebat a mane secundae feriae usque ad
nonam sabbati, x. solidis emendabat. A nona vero sabbati usque
ad mane secundae feriae sanguis effusus xx. solidis emendabatur.
Similiter xx. solidos solvebat qui hoc faciebat in xii. diebus
Nativitatis, et in die Purificationis Sanctae Mariae, et primo
die Paschae, et primo die Pentecostes, et die Ascensionis, et
in Assumptione vel Nativitate Sanctae Mariae, et in die festo
Omnium Sanctorum.
Qui in istis Sanctis diebus hominem interficiebat iiii. libris
emendabat ; in aliis autem diebus xl. solidis. Similiter Heim-
faram vel forestel in his festis diebus et die Dominico qui
faciebat, iiii. libras exsolvebat. In aliis diebus xl. solidos.
Hangewitham faciens in civitate x. solidos dabat. Praepositus
autem regis vel comitis hanc forisfacturam faciens xx. solidis
emendabat. Qui revelach faciebat vel latrocinium vel violentiam feminae
in domo inferebat, unumquodque horum xl. solidis emenda
batur. Vidua si alicui se non legitime commiscebat xx. solidis emen
dabat ; puella vero x. solidis pro simili causa.

88 William I. [part
Qui in civitate terram alterius saisibat et non poterat dira-
tiocinare suam esse, xl. solidis emendabat. Similiter et ille
qui clamorem inde faciebat, si suam esse debere non posset
diratiocinare. Qui terram suam vel propinqui sui relevare volebat x. solidos
dabat. Quod si non poterat vel nolebat, terram ejus in manu regis
praepositus accipiebat.
Qui ad terminum quod debebat gablum non reddebat, x.
solidis emendabat.
Si ignis civitatem comburebat, de cujus domo exibat emen
dabat per iii. oras denariorum, et suo propinquiori vicino dabat
ii. solidos. Omnium harum forisfacturarum ii. partes erant regis
et tertia comitis.
Si sine licentia regis ad portum civitatis naves venirent vel a
portu recederent, de unoquoque homine qui navibus esset, xl.
solidos habebat rex et comes. Si contra pacem regis et super
ejus prohibitionem navis adveniret, tarn ipsam quam homines
cum omnibus qui ibi erant habebat rex et comes.
Si vero cum pace et licentia regis venisset, qui in ea erant
quiete vendebant quae habebant : sed cum discederet, iiii. dena-
rios de unoquoque lesth habebat rex et comes. Si habentibus
martrinas pelles juberet praepositus regis ut nulli venderent
donee sibi prius ostensas compararet, qui hoc non observabat xl.
solidis emendabat.
Vir sive mulier falsam mensuram in civitate faciens, depre-
hensus, iiii. solidis emendabat. Similiter malam cervisiam
faciens, aut in cathedra ponebatur stercoris, aut iiii. solidos
dabat praepositis. Hanc forisfacturam accipiebat minister regis
et comitis in civitate, in cujuscunque terra fuisset, sive episcopi
sive alterius hominis. Similiter et theloneum, si quis illud
detinebat ultra tres noctes, xl. solidis emendabat.
Tempore regis Edwardi erant in civitate hae vii. monetarii,
qui dabant vii. libras regi et comiti extra nrmam quando moneta
vertebatur. Tunc erant xii. judices civitatis, et hi erant de hominibus
regis et episcopi et comitis : horum si quis de hundret remane-
bat die quo sedebat, sine excusatione manifesta, x. solidis emen
dabat inter regem et comitem.
Ad murum civitatis et pontem reaedificandum de unaquaque
hida comitatus unum hominem venire praepositus edicebat.
Cujus homo non veniebat, dominus ejus xl. solidis emendabat
regi et comiti. Haec forisfactura extra firmam erat.
Haec civitas tunc reddebat de firma xiv. libras et iii. timbres
pellium martrinium. Tertia pars erat comitis et duae regis.

EII-J Customs from Domesday. 89
Quando Hugo comes recepit non valebat nisi xxx. libris :
valde enim erat vastata : ducentae et v. domus minus ibi erant
quam tempore regis Edwardi fuerant. Modo totidem sunt ibi
quot invenit.
Hanc civitatem Mundret tenuit de cornite pro Ixx. libris et
una marka auri. Ipse habuit ad firmam pro 1. libris et i. marka
auri, omnia placita comitis in comitatu et hundretis praeter
Inglefeld. Terra in qua est templum Sancti Petri, quam Robertus de
Rodelend clamabat ad teinland, sicut diratiocinavit comitatus,
nunquam pertinuit ad manerium extra civitatem sed ad burgum
pertinet ; et semper fuit in consuetudine regis et comitis sicut
aliorum burgensium. — (Domesday, i. 262, b.)

Customs of Lincoln.
In civitate Lincolia erant tempore regis Edwardi novies cen
tum et lxx. mansiones hospitatae. Hie numerus Anglice com-
putatur i. centum pro cxx. In ipsa civitate erant xii. lageman,
id est habentes sacam et socam ; Hardecnut, Suartin filius
Grimboldi, Ulf filius Suertebrand, qui habuit thol et theim,
Walraven, Alwold, Britric, Guret, Ulbert, Godric filius Eddevae,
Siward presbyter, Lewine presbyter, Aldene presbyter. Modo
sunt ibi totidem habentes similiter sacam et socam: (1) Suar-
dinc loco Hardecnut patris sui ; (2) Suartinc ; (3) Sortebrand
loco Ulf patris sui; (4) Agemund loco Walraven patris sui;
(5) Alwold; (6) Goduinus filius Brictric; (7) Normannus crassus
loco Guret; (8) Ulbert frater Ulf adhuc vivit ; (9) Petrus de
Valonges loco Godric filii Eddevae ; (10) Ulnodus presbyter
loco Siward presbyteri ; (11) Buruolt loco patris sui Lewine
qui modo est monachus ; (12) Ledwinus filius Revene loco
Aldene presbyteri. ...
Tempore regis Edwardi reddebat civitas Lincolia regi xx.
libras, et comiti x. libras. Modo reddit c. libras ad numerum
inter regem et comitem. Moneta vero reddit Ixxv. libras.
Consuetudines regis et comitis in Sudlincolia reddunt xxviii.
libras. In Norttreding consuetudines regis et comitis reddunt xxiv.
libras. In Westreding consuetudines regis et comitis reddunt xii.
libras. In Sudtreding consuetudines regis et comitis reddunt xv.
libras.

90 William I. [part
Pax manu regis vel sigillo ejus data, si fuerit infracta emen-
datur per xviii. hundrez. Unumquodque hundredum solvit viii.
libras. Duodecim hundreda emendant regi et vi. comiti.
Si quis pro aliquo reatu exulatus fuerit a rege et a comite
et ab hominibus vicecomitatus, nullus nisi rex sibi dare pacem
poterit. — (Domesday, i. 336.)
Customs of Oxford and Oxfordshire.
Oxenefordscire. — Tempore regis Edwardi reddebat Oxene-
ford pro theloneo et gablo et omnibus aliis consuetudinibus per
annum regi quidem xx. libras et vi. sextarios mellis ; comiti
vero Algaro x. libras, adjuncto molino quem infra civitatem
habebat. Quando rex ibat in expeditionem, burgenses xx. ibant
cum eo pro omnibus aliis, vel xx. libras dabant regi ut omnes
essent liberi. Modo reddit Oxeneford lx. libras ad numerum
de xxa in ora. In ipsa villa tarn intra murum quam extra sunt
cc. et xliii. domus reddentes geldum, et exceptis his sunt ibi
quingentae domus xxii. minus ita vastae et destructae quod
geldum non possunt reddere.
(After the names of the tenants.)
Hi omues praescripti tenent has praedictas mansiones liberas
propter reparationem muri. Omnes mansiones quae vocantur
murales tempore regis Edwardi liberae erant ab omni consuetu
dine excepta expeditione et muri reparatione. . . .
Omnes burgenses Oxeneford habent communiter extra murum
pasturam reddentem vi. solidos et viii. denarios. . .
Comitatus Oxeneford reddit firmam trium noctium hoc est
cl. libras : de augmento xxv. libras ad pondus : de burgo xx.
libras ad pondus : de moneta xx. libras denariorum de xxS in
ora : ad arma iiii. solidos : de gersumna reginae c. solidos ad
numerum : pro accipitre, x. libras : pro summario, xx. solidos :
pro canibus, xxiii. libras denariorum de xxn in ora, et vi.
sextarios mellis et xv. denarios de consuetudine. . . .
Pax regis manu vel sigillo data si quis infregerit ita ut homi
nem cui pax ipsa data fuerit occidat, et membra et vita ejus in
arbitrio regis erunt si captus fuerit. Et, si capi non potuerit, ab
omnibus exul habebitur, et si quis eum occidere praevaluerit
spolia ejus licenter habebit.
Si quis extraneus in Oxeneford manere deligens et domum
habeus sine parentibus ibi vitam finierit, rex habebit quicquid
reliquerit.

ni.] William II.

91

Si quis alicujus curiam vel domum violenter effregerit vel
intraverit, ut hominem occidat, vel vulneret, vel assaliat, c.
solidis regi emendat.
Similiter qui monitus ire in expeditionem non vadit, c. solidos
regi dabit.
Si quis aliquem interfecerit intra curiam vel domum suam,
corpus ejus et omnis substantia sunt in potestate regis praeter
dotem uxoris ejus si dotatam habuerit. — (Domesday, i. 154.)
Customs of Berkshire.
Quando geldum dabatur tempore regis Edwardi communiter
per totam Bercheschiram dabat hida iii. denarios et obolum ante
Natale Domini et tantundem ad Pentecosten.
Si rex mittebat alicubi exercitum, de quinque hidis tantum
unus miles ibat et ad ejus victum vel stipendium de unaquaque
hida dabantur ei iiii. solidi ad duos menses. Hos vero denarios
regi non mittebantur sed militibus dabantur. Si quis in expe
ditionem summonitus non ibat, totam terram suam erga regem
forisfaciebat. Quod si quis reman endi habens alium pro se
mittere promitteret, et tamen qui mittendus erat remaneret, pro
1. solidis quietus erat dominus ejus.
Tainus vel miles regis dominicus moriens pro relevamento
dimittebat regi omnia arma sua et equum unum cum sella, alium
sine sella. Quod si essent ei canes vel accipitres praesentaban-
tur regi, ut, si vellet, acciperet.
Si quis occideret hominem pacem regis hahentem, et corpus
suum et omnem substantiam forisfaciebat erga regem.
Qui per noctem effringebat civitatem c. solidis emendabat regi
non vicecomiti.
Qui monitus ad stabilitionem venationis non ibat, 1. solidis
regi emendabat. — (Domesday, i. 56.)

A.D. 1087-1100. WILLIAM II.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Lanfranc, 1070-1089; Anselm, 1093-
1109.
Justices. Odo of Bayeux, 1087-1088 ; William de S. Carilepho, 1088 ;
Ranulf Flambard, 1094-1100.
Chancellors. William Giffard, 1087-1090; Robert Bloett, 1090;
Waldric, 1093 ; William Giffard, 1094-1100.
The reign of William Rufus contains no great constitutional
landmark, but it witnessed the ripening of the causes which

92 William II. [part
were producing the death-struggle of the royal and feudal
powers, and affords a few slight indications of the continuity of
the national institutions, which were enabled by that contest to
take breath between the successive strokes of their tyrants, or
were even occasionally utilised by the king, as possessing in
terests for the moment in unison with his own. On three
occasions William found it necessary or advisable to issue con
stitutional manifestoes or promises, but the text of none of these
is extant ; and none of them was observed. The rest of the
history of the reign is a picture of profligate exaction and extra
vagant expenditure, lying outside the sphere of constitutional
history. A.D. 1087. Eadmer, Hist. Novorum, lib. i. p. 13. Defuncto
itaque Rege Willelmo, successit ei in regnum Willelmus filius
ejus, qui cum regni fastigia fratri suo Roberto praeripere ges-
tiret, et Lanfrancum, sine cujus assensu in regnum ascisci nulla-
tenus poterat, sibi in hoc ad expletionem desiderii sui non
omnino consentaneum inveniret ; vereus ne dilatio suae conse-
crationis inferret ei dispendium cupiti honoris, coepit tarn per
se, quam per omnes quos poterat, fide sacramentoque Lanfranco
promittere, justitiam, aequitatem et misericordiam se per totum
regnum, si rex foret, in omni negotio servaturum ; pacem, liber-
tateru, securitatem ecclesiarum contra omnes defensurum, nec-
non praeceptis atque consiliis ejus per omnia et in omnibus
obtemperaturum. A.D. 1088. Will. Malmesb., Gesta Begum, lib. iv. § 306.
[Rex] videns Normannos pene omnes in una rabie conspiratos,
Anglos probos et fortes viros, qui adhuc residui erant, invitatoriis
scriptis accersiit; quibus super injuriis suis querimoniam faciens,
bonasque leges, et tributorum levamen, liberasque venationes
pollicens, fidelitati suae obligavit  Anglos suos appellat,
jubet ut compatriotas advocent ad obsidionem (Rovecestrae)
venire, nisi si qui velint sub nomine Nithing, quod nequam
sonat, remanere. Angli qui nihil miserius putarent quam hujusce
vocabuli dedecore aduri, catervatim ad regem confluunt et
invincibilem exercitum faciunt.
A.D. 1093. Eadmer, Hist. Nov. i. p. 16. . . . Valida in-
firmitas corripuit [regem]. . . . Adquiescit ipse [rex] et corde
compunctus, cuncta quae viri [Anselmi] sententia tulit se factu-
rum, necnon totam vitam suam in mansuetudine et justitia am-

rlI-J Henry I.

93

plius servaturum pollicetur. Spondet in hoc fidem suam, et
vades inter se et Deum facit episcopos suos, mittens qui hoc
votum suum Deo super altare sua vice promittant. Scribitur
edictum regioque sigillo firmatur, quatenus captivi quicunque
sunt in omni dominatione sua relaxentur, omnia debita irrevoca-
biliter remittantur, omnes offensiones antehaec perpetratae,
indulta remissione perpetuae oblivioni tradantur. Promittuntur
insuper omni populo bonae et sanctae leges, inviolabilis obser-
vatio juris, injuriarum gravis et quae terreat ceteros exami-
natio. . . .
Flor. Wigorn., A.D. 1094. Quod cum regi innotuerit (sc.
obsessio castelli de Holm), nuntiis in Angliam missis, xx millia
pedonum in Normanniam jussit sibi in auxilium mitti. Quibus
ut mare transirent Heastingae congregatis, pecuniam quae data
fuerat eis ad victum, Rannulfus Passeflambardus praecepto regis
abstulit, scilicet unicuique decern solidos, et eos domum repedare
mandavit ; pecuniam vero regi transmisit.
Will. Malmesb., Gesta Begum, lib. iv. § 319. Nihilo secius
in homines grassabantur [curiales] primo pecuniam deinde terras
auferentes. Non pauperem tenuitas, non opulentum copia tue-
batur : venationes quas rex primo indulserat, adeo prohibuit, ut
capitale esset supplicium prendisse cervum.

A.D. 1100-1135. HENRY I.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Anselm, 1093-1109; Ralph of Escures,
1114-1122; William of Corbeil, 1123-1135.
Justices. Robert Bloett, 1 100-1107 ; Roger le Poor, Bishop of Salisbury,
1107-1135.
Chancellors. William Giffard, iioo-iioi; Roger le Poor, 1101-1103 ;
William Giffard, 1103-1104; Waldric, 1104; Ranulf, 1108-1123;
Geoffrey Rufus, 1124-1135.
Although the reign of Henry I was a period of irresponsible
despotism on the king's part, and of great suffering, from several
causes, on the part of the English, it is to it that we trace back
the exact lines of the process by which the reviving liberties of
the nation were to assert themselves. This is due, first, to the
fact of the necessary alliance between the king and the people,
which resulted from his questionable title to the throne, the com
petition of his brother Robert, the existence of the powerful

94 Henry I. [part
baronage under Robert of Belesme, which was anxious to take
advantage of the weakness of the king to Secure its own prac
tical independence, and the unity of the interest of the king and
people against their common enemy. This alliance was osten
sibly secured by the careful legality of Henry's election and
coronation, by his charter of liberties, and by his marriage with
an English lady who inherited a share of the claims of the West
Saxon Kings ; and the practical results appeared in the steady
support given by the native population to Henry against his
competitors and assailants, and in the promises of good govern
ment by which that support was requited.
But not less important, constitutionally, is the result of
Henry's complete triumph ; which not only made him one of the
most influential princes in Europe, but placed in his hands, by
the forfeiture and degradation of his most powerful vassals, an
amount of territory and completeness of jurisdiction in England
greater than had fallen to the lot of his father. Thus strength
ened, — and this is especially apparent after the fall of Robert of
Belesme, — Henry followed out his father's principles of avoid
ing the redistribution of territory and jurisdiction on a large
scale, and attempted, by centralisation and systematic machinery.
to unite the kingdom under a strong royal administration.
Whilst, with this intention, he organised the financial system of
the Exchequer and facilitated access to the Curia Regis, on
the one hand, on the other he restored or strengthened the
county courts, granted charters to the boroughs, and authorised
the foundation of trade guilds in the towns. By judicial journeys
of the Justiciar and Barons of the Exchequer he brought the
supreme jurisdiction into contact with the provincial organisa
tion, and reduced the hereditary franchises of the nobles to com
parative harmlessness. In these measures he led the way for
the great reforms of his grandson. But we are not to suppose
that under Henry I the security of life and property which
resulted from these measures was based on anything more per
manent than royal will or routine. Henry I was not a lawgiver,
nor did he entrust the national council with any freedom of
legislative action. His relation with the barons, the clergy, and

in0 Restoration of Order. 95
the people rendered this impossible. His charter of liberties,
then, remains the sole legislative act of his reign, for the
Custumal known as ' The Laws of Henry I ' is a compilation of
later date. But there are considerable evidences of judicial and
administrative activity in the numerous charters of the reign,
and in the valuable record of Exchequer proceedings known as
the Pipe Roll of the 31st of Henry I.
A third influential characteristic of the period was the stand,
mainly successful, made by S. Anselm on behalf of ecclesiastical
liberties, which, although it had no immediate hearing on the
framework of the constitution, secured the existence of a limit
on royal irresponsibility in one direction at least, taught the
nation the possibility of vindicating freedom, and created a class
of politicians springing from the people, trusted by the sovereign,
and sincerely interested in the maintenance of law and peace.
How largely this was the case appears from the fact, that it is
from the clergy only that any real check upon the royal power
proceeds for more than a century. They only resist arbitrary
taxation ; and, whether struggling for the national good, or, as
in some instances, for their class privileges, maintain the recollec
tion and idea of freedom.
Notwithstanding the existence of these influences, which were
now only germinating, the condition of England under Henry I
was very unhappy. Although he kept good peace, and by his
strong administrative system secured justice between man and
man, class and class, his foreign wars and domestic expenses
necessitated frequent taxation, against which no class of his sub
jects could even remonstrate, and the pressure of which, owing
to a singularly long succession of bad seasons, was especially
heavy on the country. It is no small praise to Henry, as a
ruler that while the Chronicles are full of lamentations over the
miseries of the reign, he is recognised as the Lion of Justice or
Righteousness of Merlin's prophecy, and looked upon more or
less as a national or English king, whose laws, or rather customs,
like those of Edward the Confessor, become the text of the liber
ties which, when the nation has become strong and thoroughly
consolidated, are to be vindicated against his successors.

96 Henry I. [part

Excerpts.
A.D. 1 100. Will. Malmesb., Gesta Begum, v. § 393. Occiso
vero rege Willelmo, . . . (Henricus) in regem electus est, aliquantis
tamen ante controversiis inter proceres agitatis atque sopitis ;
annitente maxime comite Warwicensi Henrico, viro integro et
sancto, cujus familiari jamdudum usus fuerat contubernio. Itaque
edicto statim per Angliam misso, injustitias a fratre et Rannulfo
institutas prohibuit, pensionum et vinculorum gratiam fecit ;
effeminatos curia propellens, lucernarum usum noctibus in curia
restituit qui fuerat tempore fratris intermissus ; antiquarum
moderationem legum revocavit in solidum, Sacramento suo et
omnium procerum, ne luderentur corroborans.
Eadmer, Hist. Nov. iii. p. 55. Henricus qui tunc noviter
fratri defuncto in regnum successerat, in ipso suae consecrationis
die bonas et sanctas omni populo leges se servaturum et omnes
oppressiones et iniquitates, quae sub fratre suo emerserant in
omni sua dominatione, tarn in ecclesiis quam in saecularibus
negotiis, prohibiturum et subversurum spoponderat ; et haec
omnia jurisjurandi interjectione firmata, sub monimento litte-
rarum sigilli sui testimonio roboratarum, per totum regnum
divulgatum iri praeceperat.
Floe. Wig., A.D. nco. Legem regis Eadwardi omnibus
in commune reddidit, cum illis emendationibus quibus pater
suus illam emendavit ; sed fbrestas quas ille constituit et habuit
in manu sua retinuit.
Will. Malmesb., Gesta Begum, v. § 394. Robertus interea,
Normanniam veniens comitatum suum obsistente nullo recepit ;
quo audito omnes pene hujus terrae optimates fidei regi juratae
transfugae fuere ; quidam nullis exstantibus causis, quidam
levibus occasiunculis emendicatis, quod nollet iis terras quas
vellent ultro pro libito eorum impertiri. Soli Robertus Filius
Hamonis, et Ricardus de Retvers, et Rogerius Bigot, et Robertus
Comes de Mellento, cum fratre Henrico, justas partes fovebant.
Ceterum omnes vel clam pro Roberto ut rex fieret mittere, vel
palam contumeliis dominum inurere ; Godricum eum et com-
parem Godgivam appellantes.
A.D. noi. Ib. § 395. Licet principibus deficientibus partes
ejus solidae manebant, quas Anselmi archi episcopi, cum episcopis
suis, simul et omnium Anglorum tutabatur favor. Quapropter
ipse provincialium fidei gratus et saluti providus, plerumque

ui-] Excerpts. 97
cuneos circuiens docebat quomodo militum ferociam eludentes,
clypeos objectarent et ictus remitterent, quo effecit ut ultroneis
votis pugnam deposcerent in nullo Normannos metuentes.
A.D. 1 104. Flor. Wig. ad ann. Willelmus comes de More-
teon exhaeredatus est de tota terra sua quam habuit in Anglia.
Non facile potest narrari miseria quam sustinuit isto tempore
terra Anglorum propter exactiones regias.
A.D. 1 107. Flor. Wig. ad ann. Annuit rex et statuit, ut ab
eo tempore in reliquum, nunquam per dationem baculi pastoralis
vel annuli quisquam de episcopatu aut abbatia per regem vel
quamlibet laicam manum in Anglia investiretur ; concedente
quoque Anselmo ut nullus in praelationem electus, pro hominio
quod regi faceret, consecratione suscepti honoris privaretur.
A.D. 1 108. Flor. Wig. ad ann. Rex Anglorum Henricus
pacem firmam legemque talem constituit, ut si quis in furto vel
latrocinio deprehensus fuisset suspenderetur. Monetam quoque
corruptam et falsam sub tanta animadversione corrigi statuit, ut
nullus qui posset deprehendi falsos denarios facere, aliqua re-
demptione quin oculos et inferiores corporis partes perderet
juvari valeret. Et quoniam saepissime dum denarii eligebantur,
flectebantur, rumpebantur, respuebantur, statuit ut nullus
denarius vel obolus, quos et rotundos esse instituit, aut etiam
quadrans, [si] integer esset, [respueretur]. Ex quo facto mag
num bonum toti regno creatum est, quia ipse rex haec in
saecularibus ad relevandas terrae aerumnas agebat.
Will. Malmesb., Gesta Begum, v. 408. Habebat .... Rex
Henricus episcopum Salesbiriensem Rogerium a secretis, cujus
maxime nitebatur consilio, nam et ante regnum omnibus suis
praefecerat rex ; primum cancellarium, mox episcopum constitu
ent, prudentiam viri expertus. Sollerter administrati episco-
patus officium spem infudit, quod majori dignus haberetur
munere, itaque totius regni moderamen illius delegavit justitiae,
sive ipse adesset Angliae sive moraretur Normanniae. Refugit
episcopus tantis se curis involvere nisi tres Archiepiscopi Cantua-
rienses, Anselmus, Radulfus, Willelmus, et postremo papa
injunxissent ei munus obedientiae.
Ord. Vit., Eccl. Hist. lib. xi. c. 2. . . . Plerosque illustres pro
temeritate sua de sublimi potestatis culmine praecipitavit, et
haereditario jure irrecuperabiliter spoliatos condemnavit. Alios
contra favorabiliter illi obsequentes de ignobili stirpe illustravit,
de pulvere, ut ita dicam, extulit, dataque multiplici facultate
super consules et illustres oppidanos exaltavit. Inde Goiffredus
de Clintona, Radulfus Basset, et Hugo de Bocalanda, Guillegrip,

98 Henry I. [part
et Rainerius de Bada, Guillelmus Trossebot, et Haimon de
Falesia, Guigan Algazo, et Rodbertus de Bostare, aliique plures,
mihi testes sunt, opibus aggregatis et aedibus constructis, super
omnia quae patres eorum habuerunt ; ipsi quoque, qui ab eisdem
saepe falsis vel injustis occasionibus oppressi sunt. Illos nimi-
rum aliosque plures quos singillatim nominare taedio est, rex
cum de infimo genere essent nobilitavit, regali auctoritate de imo
erexit, in fastigio potestatum constituit, ipsis etiam spectabilibus
regni principibus formidabiles effecit. . . .
Lib. xi. c. 3. Rex itaque totum honorem Rodberti (de
Belismo) et hominum ejus, qui cum illo in rebellione persti-
terant, possedit, ipsumque cum equis et armis incolumem abire
permisit, salvumque per Angliam usque ad mare conductum por-
rexit. Omnis Anglia, exulante crudeli tyranno, exultavit, mul-
torumque congratulatio regi Henrico tunc adulando dixit,
' Gaude rex Henrice, Dominoque Deo gratias age quia tu libere
coepisti regnare ex quo Rodbertum de Belismo vicisti et de
finibus regni tui expulisti.' Fugato itaque Rodberto regnum
Albionis in pace siluit et rex Henricus xxxiii. annis prospere
regnavit, quibus in Anglia nullus postea rebellare contra eum
ausus fuit, nee munitionem aliquam contra eum tenuit.
Hene. Huntingd., Hist. lib. vii. Anno igitur sequent!
(A.D. 1 109) data est filia regis imperatori, ut breviter dicam,
sicut decuit ; Rex itaque cepit de unaquaque hida Angliae tres
solidos. Cheon. Ang. S., ad ann. n 24. . . . Between Christmas and
Candlemas the acre seed of wheat, that is two seedlips, was sold
for six shillings, and the acre seed of oats, that is four seedlips,
for four shillings. ... In the same year, after S. Andrew's
mass, before Christmas, Ralph Basset and the king's thegns held
a ' gewitenemot ' at Hundehoge in Leicestershire, and there
hanged so many thieves as never were before, that was in that
little while, altogether four-and-forty men ; and six men were
deprived of their eyes and emasculated.
Cheon. Ang. S., ad ann. n 35. The king died on the follow
ing day after S. Andrew's mass day, in Normandy : then there
was tribulation soon in the land, for every man that could forth
with robbed another. Then his son and his friends took his
body and brought it to England and buried it at Reading. A
good man he was, and there was great awe of him. No man
durst misdo against another in his time. He made peace for
man and beast. Whoso bare his burden of gold and silver, no
man durst say to him aught but good. . . .

H.J Charter of Liberties. 99

A.D. 1 100. Chart ee of Libeeties issued by Heney I.
This charter was published by Henry I at his coronation, and
probably reissued from time to time as he found it necessary to
appeal to the sympathies of his people against their common
enemies. It is in form an amplification of his Coronation Oath,
the exact words of which are still preserved, and agree with the
ancient form used at the coronation of Ethelred : —
' In Christi nomine promitto haec tria populo Christiano mihi
subdito. In primis me praecepturum et opem pro viribus im-
pensurum ut ecclesia Dei et omnis populus Christianus veram
pacem nostro arbitrio in omni tempore servet ; aliud ut rapaci-
tates et omnes iniquitates omnibus gradibus interdicam ; tertium
ut in omnibus judieiis aequitatem et misericordiam praecipiam,
ut mihi et vobis indulgeat Suam misericordiam clemens et
misericors Deus.' 1
It is thus a deliberate expression of the articles of the
covenant made by the king with his people, in consideration
of which he receives the threefold sanction of election by the
nation, unction and coronation by the Church, and homage
from the feudal vassals. Further, it is a deliberate limitation
of the power which had been exercised by William the Con
queror and William Rufus, a renunciation of the evil customs
introduced by the latter, and a restoration of the ancient
customs of the nation ; and in this aspect, it is a recognition of
the lawful freedom of the nation, which those evil customs had
infringed, and which was regarded as symbolised by the laws of
Edward the Confessor. Further, it is an exemplification of the
evil customs themselves ; and historically marks the amount of
departure from free and national government which had pre
vailed in the late reign. These are the oppressions of the Church
by the exaction of the regale in the case of vacancies, and the
consequent delay of elections ; and those of the feudal baronage
and their tenants, by the excessive exactions in the way of reliefs,
marriages, and wardships, debts to the crown and forfeiture. In
1 Maskell, Mon. Rit. iii. 5, 6.
H 2

ioo Henry I. [part
the place of unlimited demands on these heads the charter pro
mises not indeed fixed amercements, but a return to ancient
equitable custom. The forests are retained in the king's hands.
But the claims of the hody of the people are recognised in the
proclamation of peace, in the restoration of the national laws,
and in the provision that the promises made by the crown to its
vassals shall be regarded as regulating the proceedings of those
vassals with their feudal dependents : a most important article,
securing the rights of the lower landowners, on the same basis
as those of the higher, and binding the latter to do justice as
they would have justice done to them. In every point, either
by likeness or by contrast, this charter has important bearings
on the constitutional programme drawn out of it by the barons
in their demands on John.
Anno Incarnationis Dominicae M°C°I°. Heneicus filius
Willelmi regis post obitum fratris sui Willelmi, Dei gratia rex
Anglorum, omnibus fidelibus salutem.
i. Sciatis me Dei misericordia et communi consilio baronum
totius regni Angliae ejusdem regni regem coronatum esse ; et
quia regnum oppressum erat injustis exactionibus, ego, Dei
respectu et amore quem erga vos habeo, sanctam Dei ecclesiam
imprimis liberam facio, ita quod nee vendam nee ad firmam
ponam, nee mortuo archiepiscopo sive episcopo sive abbate
aliquid accipiam de dominico ecclesiae vel de hominibus ejus
donee successor in earn ingrediatur. Et omnes malas consuetu
dines quibus regnum Angliae injuste opprimebatur inde aufero ;
quas malas consuetudines ex parte hie pono :
2. Si quis baronum, comitum meorum sive aliorum qui de
me tenent, mortuus fuerit, haeres suus non redimet terram
suam sicut faciebat tempore fratris mei, sed justa et legitima
relevatione relevabit earn. Similiter et homines baronum
meorum justa et legitima relevatione relevabunt terras suas
de dominis suis.
3. Et si quis baronum vel aliorum hominum meorum filiam
suam nuptum tradere voluerit sive sororem sive neptim sive
cognatam, mecum inde loquatur ; sed neque ego aliquid de suo
pro hae licentia accipiam neque defendam ei quin earn det, ex-
cepto si earn vellet jungere inimico meo. Et si mortuo barone
sive alio homine meo filia haeres remanserit, illam dabo consilio
baronum meorum cum terra sua. Et si mortuo viro uxor ejus

m"J Charter of Liberties. 101
remanserit et sine liberis fuerit, dotem suam et maritationem
habebit, et earn non dabo marito nisi secundum velle suum.
4. Si vero uxor cum liberis remanserit, dotem quidem et
maritationem habebit, dum corpus suum legitime servaverit, et
earn non dabo nisi secundum velle suum. Et terrae et liberorum
custos erit sive uxor sive alius propinquorum qui justius esse
debebit. Et praecipio quod barones mei similiter se contineant
erga filios vel filias vel uxores hominum suorum.
5. Monetagium commune quod capiebatur per civitates et
comitatus quod non fuit tempore regis Edwardi, hoc ne amodo
fiat omnino defendo. Si quis captus fuerit sive monetarius sive
alius cum falsa moneta, justitia recta inde fiat.
6. Omnia placita et omnia debita quae fratri meo debebantur
condono, exceptis rectis firmis meis et exceptis illis quae pacta
erant pro aliorum haereditatibus vel pro eis rebus quae justius
aliis contingebant. Et si quis pro haereditate sua aliquid
pepigerat, illud condono, et omnes relevationes quae pro rectis
haereditatibus pactae fuerant.
7. Et si quis baronum vel hominum meorum infirmabitur,
sicut ipse dabit vel dare disponet pecuniam suam, ita datam
esse concedo. Quod si ipse praeventus armis vel infirmitate,
pecuniam suam non dederit vel dare disposuerit, uxor sua sive
liberi aut parentes, et legitimi homines ejus, earn pro anima ejus
dividant, sicut eis melius visum fuerit.
8. Si quis baronum sive hominum meorum forisfecerit, non
dabit vadium in misericordia pecuniae suae, sicut faciebat tem
pore patris mei vel fratris mei, sed secundum modum forisfacti,
ita emendabit sicut emendasset retro a tempore patris mei, in
tempore aliorum antecessorum meorum. Quod si perfidiae vel
sceleris convictus fuerit, sicut justum fuerit, sic emendet.
9. Murdra etiam retro ab ilia die qua in regem coronatus
fui omnia condono : et ea quae amodo facta fuerint, juste
emendentur secundum lagam regis Edwardi.
10. Forestas communi consensu baronum meorum in manu
mea retinui, sicut pater meus eas habuit.
11. Militibus qui per loricas terras suas defendunt, terras
dominicarum carrucarum suarum quietas ab omnibus gildis,
et omni opere, proprio dono meo concedo, ut sicut tarn magno
allevamine alleviati sint, ita se equis et armis bene instruant ad
servitium meum et ad defensionem regni mei.
12. Pacem firmam in toto regno meo pono et teneri amodo
praecipio. 13. Lagam Edwardi regis vobis reddo cum illis emenda-
tionibus quibus pater meus earn emendavit consilio baronum
suorum.

ioa Henry I. [part
i 4. Si quis aliquid de rebus meis vel de rebus alicujus post
obitum Willelmi regis fratris mei ceperit, totum cito sine emen-
datione reddatur, et si quis inde aliquid retinuerit, ille super
quem inventum fuerit mihi graviter emendabit.
Testibus Mauricio Lundoniae episcopo et Gundulfo episcopo
et Willelmo electo episcopo et Henrico comite et Simone comite
et Waltero Giffardo et Rodberto de Monfort et Rogero Bigoto
et Henrico de Portu, apud Lundoniam quando fui coronatus. —
(Ancient Laws and Institutes, p. 215.)

A. D. 1 100. Letter of Henry I to Anselm.
Anselm was absent from England at the time of the death
of William Rufus, and Henry I wrote the following letter by
way of an apology for having hurried on the coronation without
waiting for him. The letter is of extreme interest, as showing
the importance which Henry attached to his formal election,
and as illustrating the constitutional position of the archbishop
as the first adviser of the crown. It illustrates further the
operation of the principle that the king's peace died with him,
so that law was in abeyance until the peace of the new king was
proclaimed at his coronation.
Heneicus, Dei gratia rex Anglorum, piissimo patri suo
spirituali Ansel mo, Cantuariensi episcopo, salutem et omnis
amicitiae exhibitionem.
Scias, pater carissime, quod frater meus rex Willelmus mor-
tuus est, et ego nutu Dei, a clero et a populo Angliae electus,
et quamvis invitus propter absentiam tui rex jam consecratus,
requiro te sicut patrem cum omni populo Angliae, quatenus mihi
filio tuo et eidem populo cujus tibi animarum cura commissa
est, quam citius poteris, venias ad consulendum. Meipsum
quidem ac totius regni Angliae populum tuo eorumque consilio
qui tecum mihi consulere debent committo ; et precor ne tibi
displiceat quod regiam benedictionem absque te suscepi ; de
quo si fieri posset libentius earn susciperem quam de alio aliquo.
Sed necessitas fuit talis quia inimici insurgere volebant contra
me et populum quem habeo ad gubernandum, et ideo barones
mei et idem populus noluerunt amplius earn protelari ; hae
itaque occasione a tuis vicariis illam suscepi. Misissem quidem
ad te a meo latere aliquos per quos tibi etiam de mea pecunia

m0 County Courts. 103
destinassem, sed pro morte fratris mei circa regnum Angliae ita
totus orbis concussus est, ut nullatenus ad te salubriter per-
venire potuissent. Laudo ergo et mando ne per Northmanniam
venias sed per Witsand, et ego Doveram obviam habebo tibi
barones meos, et pecuniam ad te recipiendum ; et invenies, Deo
juvante, unde bene persolvere poteris quidquid mutuo accepisti.
Festina igitur, pater, venire, ne mater nostra Cantuariensis
ecclesia diu fluctuans et desolata causa tui ampttus sustineat
animarum desolationem. Teste Girardo episcopo, et Willelmo
Wintoniensi electo episcopo, et Willelmo Warelwast, et comite
Henrico, et Roberto filio Haimonis, et Haimone dapifero et aliis
tarn episcopis quam baronibus meis. Vale. (Epist. Anselmi,
III. xii.)

Order for the holding of the Courts of the Hundred
and the Shiee.
This charter was issued between A. D. 1 108 and 1 1 12 : — it is
addressed, in the ancient form, to the bishop of the diocese and
the sheriff of the county, and is a remarkable relic of Henry's
national policy. Whether the feudal barons had attempted to
get rid of the national courts of the shire and hundred, as might
be inferred from the reference to King Edward's days, or had
introduced novelties of process into them, as might seem likely
from the fact that Bishop Sampson was a Norman baron, and
that Urso d'Abitot was hereditary sheriff of Worcestershire, does
not appear ; nor is it clear that this is not an isolated case.
It would seem certain that the shire administration existed in
full order under William the Conqueror, and for some purposes
undoubtedly under William Rufus ; but it may have been
perverted to oppression, or even disregarded altogether by a
perpetual or hereditary sheriff. It would appear, from the
words of the writ, not improbable that the sheriff had in the
king's name used these courts for the purpose of extraordinary
exactions, such as the chroniclers loudly complain of at this
period : for the future, when the king has need of such, he will
summon the courts specially for the purpose : a promise which
seems to throw no small amount of light on the way in which
national taxation was negotiated.

104

Henry I. [past

Henricus rex Angloeum Samsoni episcopo et Ursoni
de Abetot et omnibus baronibus suis Francis et Anglis, de
Wirecestrescira salutem.
Sciatis quod concedo et praecipio ut amodo comitatus mei et
hundreda in illis locis et eisdem terminis sedeant, sicut sederunt
in tempore regis Eadwardi et non aliter. Ego enim, quando
voluero, faciam ea satis summonere propter mea dominica ne-
cessaria ad voluntatem meam. Et si amodo exsurgat placitum
de divisione terrarum, si est inter barones meos dominicos trac-
tetur placitum in curia mea : et si est inter vavassores duorum
dominorum tractetur in comitatu. Et hoc duello fiat, nisi in eis
remanserit. Et volo et praecipio ut omnes de comitatu eant ad
comitatus et hundreda sicut fecerunt in tempore regis Eadwardi,
nee remorent propter aliquam causam pacem meam vel quietu-
dinem, qui non sequuntur placita mea et judicia mea, sicut tunc
temporis fecissent.
Teste R. episcopo Lundoniae et Rogero episcopo et Ranulfo
cancellario et R. comite de Mellent ; apud Rading.— (Foedera,
i. 12.)

Exteacts feom the ' Leges Henrici Peimi.'
The compilation from which the following extracts are taken,
is a collection of legal memoranda and records of custom, illus
trated by reference to the civil and canon laws, but containing
very many vestiges of ancient English jurisprudence. The date
of the compilation has been a matter of much question, but, after
a most careful analysis of the sources made by Dr. Liebermann,
it is now definitely referred to the period intervening between
1108 and 1 n 8. It would appear to give probable but not
authoritative illustrations of the amount of national custom
existing in the country in the first half of the twelfth century,
but cannot be appealed to with any confidence, except where it
is borne out by other testimony. Among the known sources
of information, the laws of Canute and the customs declared in
Domesday Book are the most valuable.
VI. 1. Regnum Angliae trifariam dividitur in regno Britan-
niae, in Westsexiam et Mircenos et Danorum provinciam.

IIT-J Ancient Customs. 105
Habet archiepiscopatus duos, episcopatus xv. comitatus xxxii.
Ipsi vero comitatus in centurias et sibessocna distinguuntur,
Centuriae vel hundreta in decanias vel decimas et dominorum
plegios. 2. Legis etiam Anglicae trina est partitio, ad supe-
riorem modum, alia enim Westsexiae, alia Mircena, alia Dene-
laga est. . . .
VII. 1. Sicut antiqua fuerat institutione formatum, salutari
regis imperio, vera nuper est recordatione firmatum, generalia
comitatuum placita certis locis et vicibus et diffinito tempore,
per singulas Angliae provincias convenire debere, nee ullis ultra
fatigationibus agitari, nisi propria regis necessitas vel commune
regni commodum saepius adjiciat. 2. Intersint autem episcopi,
comites, vicedomini, vicarii, centenarii, aldermanni, praefecti,
praepositi, barones, vavasores, tungrevii et ceteri terrarum
domini, diligenter intendentes ne malorum impunitas aut gra-
viorum pravitas vel judicum subversio solita miseros laceratione
confidant. 3. Agantur itaque primo debita verae Christianitatis
jura : secundo regis placita ; postremo causae singulorum dignis
satisfactionibus expleantur ; et quoscunque scyresmot discor-
dantes inveniet, vel amore congreget vel sequestret judicio.
4. Debet autem scyresmot et burgemot bis, hundreta vel
wapentagia duodecies in anno congregari, et sex diebus antea
submoniri, nisi publicum commodum vel regis dominica neces
sitas terminum praeveniat. 5. Et si aliquid in hundretis
agendorum penuria judicum vel casu aliquo transferendum sit
in duas vel tres vel amplius hundretas, respectetur justo fine
claudendum. 6. Et si quisquam violenta recti destitutione vel
detentione, in hundretis vel congruis agendorum locis causam
suam ita turbaverit, ut ad comitatus audientiam pertrahatur,
perdat earn, et de cetero componat sicut rectum sit. 7. Si quis
baronum regis vel aliorum comitatui secundum legem interfu-
erit, totam terram quam illic in dominio suo habet, acquietare
poterit. Eodem modo est si dapifer ejus legitime fuerit. Si
uterque necessario desit, praepositus et sacerdos et quatuor de
melioribus villae assint pro omnibus qui nominatim non erunt
ad placitum submoniti. 8. Idem in hundreto decrevimus ob-
servandum de locis et vicibus et judicum observantiis, de causis
singulorum justis examinationibus audiendis, de domini et
dapiferi, vel sacerdotis et praepositi et meliorum hominum
praesentia. VIII. 1. Speciali tamen plenitudine, si opus est, bis in anno
conveniant in hundretum suum quicunque liberi, tarn heorthfest
quam folgarii, ad dinoscendum scilicet inter cetera si decaniae

io6 Henry I. [part
plenae sint vel qui quomodo qua ratione recesserint vel super-
aecreverint. Praesit autem singulis hominum novenis decimus, et
toti simul hundreto unus de melioribus et vocetur aldremannus,
qui Dei leges et hominum jura vigilanti studeat observantia pro
mo vere. 2. Communis quippe commodi provida dispensatione
statutum est, ut a duodecimo aetatis suae anno et in hundreto
sit et decima, vel plegio liberali, quisquis were, vel wite, vel
jure liberi, dignus curat aestimaii. Conductitii, vel solidarii, vel
stipendiarii dominorum plegio teneantur. 3. Et omnis dominus
secum tales habeat qui ei justitiabiles sint, tanquam eos si
peccaverint ad rectum habiturus, vel pro eis forsitan rationem
redditurus. 4. Dictum est de illis qui terram non habent, si
in alio comitatu serviant et cognationem suam visitent, qui eos
inter agendum firmabit, eos ad publicum rectum ducat, si ibi
forisfaciant, vel propter eos emendet. . . .
IX. 4. Et omnis causa terminetur vel hundreto vel comitatu
vel halimoto socam habentium, vel dominorum curiis, vel divisis
parium, vel certis agendorum locis adjacentibus. . . .
XV. Denagildum quod aliquando thingemannis dabatur, id
est xii. denarii de unaquaque hyda per annum, si ad terminos
non reddatur, wita emendetur.
XXIX. Regis judices sunt barones comitatus qui liberas in
eis terras habent, per quos debent causae singulorum alterna
prosecutione tractari : villani vero vel cotseti, vel ferdingi, vel
qui sunt viles vel inopes personae, non sunt inter legum judices
numerandi. . . .
XXXI. 3. Interesse comitatui debent episcopi, comites, et
ceterae potestates, quae Dei leges et saeculi negotia justa con-
sideratione diffmiant  7. Unusquisque per pares
suos judicandus est, et ejusdem provinciae. . .
LV. 1. Omni domino licet submonire hominem suum, ut
ei sit ad rectum in curia sua : et si residens est ad remotius
manerium ejusdem honoris unde tenet, ibit ad placitum, si
dominus suus submoneat eum. Si dominus ejus diversos feodos
teneat, non cogitur per legem homo unius honoris in alium ire
placitum, nisi de alterius causa sit, ad quem dominus suus sub-
monuerit eum. 2. Si homo de pluribus dominis et honoribus
teneat, quantumcunque de aliis habeat, ei plus debet et ejus
residens per judicium erit, cujus homo ligius erit. 3. Omnis
homo fidem debet domino suo de vita et membris suis et terreno
honore et observatione consilii sui, per honestum et utile, fide
Dei et terrae principis salva. Furtum vero et proditio et mur-

TI1-] Charter of London. 107
drum et quae contra Dominum sunt et fidem catholicam, nulli
praecipienda vel peragenda sunt; sed fides habeatur dominis
omnibus, salva fide praecedentium, et magis ei cujus ligius est :
et ejus licentia sit, si quis hominum ejus alium sibi dominum
faciat. LXVT. 6. Si quis burcbotam vel brigbotam vel fierdfare
supersederit, emendet hoc erga regem cxx. solidis in Anglorum
laga : in Denelaga sicut stetit antea, vel ita se allegiet, nominen-
tur ei xiiii. et acquirat ex eis xi. — (Ancient Laws and Institutes,
pp. 216-266.)

Charter of Heney I to the Citizens of London.
The privileges of the citizens of London are not to be re
garded as a fair specimen of the liberties of ordinary towns ;
but as a sort of type and standard of the amount of municipal
independence and self-government at which the other towns of
the country might be expected to aim. At a period at which
the other towns were just struggling out of the condition of
demesne, the Londoners were put in possession of the ferm or
farm of Middlesex, with the right of appointing the sheriff :
they were freed from the immediate jurisdiction of any tribunal
except of their own appointment, from several universal imposts,
from the obligation to accept trial by battle, from liability to
misericordia or entire forfeiture, as well as from tolls and local
exactions such as ordinary charters specify. They have also
their separate franchises secured, and their weekly courts. But
they have not yet the character of a perpetual corporation
or communa, and thus, although possessing by virtue of their
associations in guilds, of their several franchises, of their feudal
courts, and of their shire organisation under the sheriff, many
elements of strength, consolidation, and independence, they have
not a compact organisation as a municipal body. The city is an
accumulation of distinct and different corporate bodies, but not
yet a perfect municipality, nor, although it was recognised in
the reign of Stephen as a communio, did it gain the legal status
before the reign of Richard I.

io8 Henry I. [part

Carta Civibus Londoniarum.
Henricus Dei gratia rex Angliae, archiepiscopo Cantuariae
et episcopis et abbatibus, et comitibus et baronibus et justitiariis
et vicecornitibus et omnibus fidelibus suis, Francis et Anglicis,
totius Angliae, salutem. Sciatis me concessisse civibus meis
Londoniarum, tenendum Middlesex ad firmam pro ccc. libris ad
compotum, ipsis et haeredibus suis, de me et haeredibus meis, ita
quod ipsi cives ponent vicecomitem qualem voluerint de se ipsis,
et justitiarium qualem voluerint de seipsis, ad custodiendum
placita coronae meae et eadem placitanda ; et nullus alius erit
justitiarius super ipsos homines Londoniarum. Et cives non
plaeitabunt extra muros civitatis pro ullo placito ; et sint quieti
de schot et de loth, de Danegildo et de murdro, et nullus eorum
faciat bellum. Et si quis civium de placitis coronae implacitatus
fuerit, per sacramentum quod judieatum fuerit in civitate, se
disrationet homo Londoniarum. Et infra muros civitatis nullus
hospitetur, neque de mea familia neque de alia, nisi alicui hos-
pitium liberetur. Et omnes homines Londoniarum sint quieti
et liberi, et omnes res eorum, et per totam Angliam et per
portus maris, de theolonio et passagio et lestagio et omnibus
aliis consuetudinibus. Et ecclesiae et barones et cives teneant
et habeant bene et in pace socnas suas cum omnibus consuetu
dinibus, ita quod hospites qui in soccis suis hospitantur nulli
dent consuetudines suas, nisi illi cujus socca fuerit, vel ministro
suo quem ibi posuerit. Et homo Londoniarum non judicetur
in misericordia pecuniae, nisi ad suam were, scilicet ad c. solidos;
dico de placito quod ad pecuniam pertineat. Et amplius non
sit miskenninga in hustenge neque in folkesmote neque in aliis
placitis infra civitatem.^ Et husting sedeat semel in hebdomada,
videlicet die Lunae. Et terras suas et wardemotum et debita
civibus meis habere faciam infra civitatem et extra. Et de terris
de quibus ad me clamaverint rectum eis tenebo lege civitatis.
Et si quis thelonium vel consuetudinem a civibus Londoniarum
ceperit, cives Londoniarum capiant de burgo vel de villa ubi
thelonium vel consuetudo capta fuit, quantum homo Londoni
arum pro thelonio dedit, et proinde de damno ceperit. Et omnes
debitores qui civibus debita debent eis reddant, vel in Londoniis
se disrationent quod non debent. Quod si reddere noluerint
neque ad disrationandum venire, tunc cives quibus debita sua
debent capiant intra civitatem namia sua, vel de comitatu in
quo manet qui debitum debet. Et cives habeant fugationes suas
ad fugandum sicut melius et plenius habuerunt antecessores
eorum, scilicet Ciltre et Middlesex et Sureie. Testibus episcopo

iii. J Charter of Beverley. 109
Winton., Roberto filio Richer., et Hugone Bigot, et Aluredo
de Toteneis, et Willelmo Albini, et Huberto regis Camerario,
et Willelmo de Montfichet, et Hagulfo de Tani, et Johanne
Belet, et Rob. fil. Siwardi. Datum apud Westmonasterium. —
(Foedera, i. 11.)

The Chaeter granted by Archbishop Thuestan
to Beverley.
The scarcity of original charters granted to towns by Henry I,
or during his reign, is probably to be accounted for by the fact
that such early grants of privileges were regarded as superseded
by the later and larger ones, and were less carefully preserved.
Those of Beverley perhaps owe their preservation to the fact
that the adjustment of the rights of the archbishop, the canons,
and the burghers, necessitated a constant reference to them.
The following charter is of great value, as illustrating the
privileges which had been conferred by the king upon York.
The Hans-hws of the north is the Guildhall of the south ; the
statuta are the by-laws or written customs of the borough.
The archbishop, by virtue no doubt of the king's authority,
frees the burghers from toll not only in his own demesnes, but
throughout the shire. The ferm rent is fixed at eighteen marks
per annum. Further than this the charter does not go ; nor
perhaps did the charter of York, upon the model of which it
was drawn up. The number of towns and cities which were
in the demesne of the bishops and barons at this time was very
large ; and it is not to be supposed that even when the lord was
prevailed upon to grant a charter, he had either the power or
the will to confer so large privileges as the king, or a great
prince, like the archbishop of York, with the king's authorisa
tion, could bestow.
Tuestinus, Dei gratia Eboracensis Archiepiscopus, cunctis
Christi fidelibus tarn praesentibus quam futuris, salutem et Dei
benedictionem et suam.
Notum sit vobis me dedisse et concessisse, et consilio capituli
Eboracensis et Beverlacensis et consilio meorum baronum mea

no Henry I. [part
carta confirmasse, hominibus de Beverlaco omnes libertates eis
dem legibus quibus illi de Eboraco habent in sua civitate. Prae-
terea non lateat vos quod dominus Henricus rex noster nobis
concessit potestatem faciendi hoc de bona voluntate sua, et sua
carta confirm'avit statuta nostra et leges nostras juxta formam
legum burgensium de Eboraco, salva dignitate et honore Dei
et Sancti Johannis et nostri et canonicorum, ut ita scilicet
honorem eleemosynarum praedecessorum suorum exaltaret et
promoveret cum omnibus his liberis consuetudinibus.
Volo ut burgenses mei de Beverlaco habeant suam hans-hus,
quam eis do, et concedo ut ibi sua statuta pertractent ad
honorem Dei et Sancti Johannis et canonicorum et ad totius vil-
latus emendationem, eadem liberatam lege sicut illi de Eboraco
habent in sua hans-hus. Concedo etiam eis thelonium in per-
petuum pro xviii. marcis annuatim ; praeterquam in iis festis in
quibus theloneum ad nos et ad canonicos spectat, in festo scilicet
Sancti Johannis Confessoris in Maio, et in festo Translationis
Sancti Johannis, et in Nativitate Sancti Johannis Baptistae ; in
his vero tribus festis omnes burgenses de Beverlaco ab omni
teloneo liberos et quietos dimisi. Hujus etiam cartae testimonio
eisdem burgensibus liberos introitus et exitus concessi in villa
et extra villain, in piano et bosco et marisco, in viis et in semi-
tis, et ceteris convenientiis, excepto in pratis et bladis, sicut
unquam melius liberius et largius aliquis possit concedere et
confirmare ; et sciatis quod sint liberi et quieti ab omni telonio
per totam schiram Eboraci sicut illi de Eboraco. Et volo ut
quicunque hoc disfecerit, anathema sit, sicut ipsius ecclesiae
Sancti Johannis asserit consuetudo et sicut statutum est in
ecclesia Sancti Johannis.
Hii sunt testes ; Galfridus Murdac, Nigellus Fossard, Alanus
de Perci, Walterus Espec, Eustachius filius Johannis, Tomas
praepositus, Turstinus archidiaconus, Herebertus camerarius,
Willelmus filius Tole, Willelmus Baiocensis ; coram tota familia
archiepiscopi, clericis et laicis, in Eboraco. — (Foedera i. 10.)

The Customs of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The consuetudines mentioned so constantly in the charters of
boroughs were the common or customary laws which had existed
in them immemorially, and were amended from time to time,
as by-laws. These are not rehearsed in the charters, perhaps

ITi-] Customs of Newcastle. in
because of the difficulty of enumerating them perfectly, and the
danger of creating a spirit of rivalry amongst similar bodies ;
nor would it be well, whilst giving power to alter and amend
them, to place them in solemn record in a charter, which might
be regarded as infringed by any such attempt at alteration.
The perpetuation of such customs by oral tradition only would
involve no risk, at a period at which the whole law of the land
was customary ; nor is it at all clear that the customary law
had not a position in the constitution strong enough to resist,
and even, as in the case of weights and measures, successfully
to defy, statutory enactments. The customs of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne are taken from a report, drawn up in the reign of Henry II,
as to their character under Henry I. It will be seen that they
chiefly concern internal arrangements, and show very little ten
dency towards independent organisation. They are, in fact, the
statuta which the burghers were empowered to deal with in their
own assemblies ; and the body which treated them was doubt
less of the nature of the homage of a manor under its reeve or
praepositus assisted by the leet jury — such a body as continues
to make and enforce such regulations, with a very much
diminished sphere of action, to the present day.
Hae sunt leges et consuetudines quas Burgenses Novi Castelli
super Tinam habuerunt tempore Henrici Regis Angliae et
habere debent.
Burgenses possunt namiare foris habitantes infra suum forum
et extra et infra suam domum et extra, et infra suum burgum
et extra, sine licentia praepositi, nisi comitia teneantur in burgo,
et nisi in exercitu sint vel custodia castelli.
Super burgensem non potest burgensis namum capere sine
licentia praepositi.
Si burgensis foris habitantibus aliquid accommodaverit in
burgo, ipse debitor si concedat reddat debitum, vel in burgo
faciat rectum.
Placita quae in burgo surgunt ibidem teneantur et fmiantur,
praeter ilia quae sunt coronae regis.
Si aliquis burgensis de aliqua loquela appelletur, non placitabit
extra burgum nisi ex defectu curiae. Nee debet respondere sine

112 Henry I. [part
die et termino, nisi prius in stultam responsionem incident, nisi
de rebus quae ad coronam pertinent.
Si navis apud Tinemue applicuerit quae velit discedere, licet
burgensibus emere quod voluerint.
Inter burgensem et mercatorem si placitum oriatur, finiatur
ante tertiam refluxioneni maris.
Quicquid mercaturae navis per mare advexerit ad terram
debet ferri praeter sal; et allec debet vendi in navim.
Si quis terram in burgagio uno anno et una die juste et sine
calumnia tenuerit, non respondeat calumnianti, nisi calumnians
extra regnum Angliae fuerit, vel ubi sit puer non habens potes
tatem loquendi.
Si burgensis habeat filium in domo sua ad mensam suam,
filius ejus eandem habeat libertatem quam et pater suus.
Si rusticus in burgo veniat manere, et ibi per annum unum
et diem sicut burgensis maneat in burgo, ex toto remaneat,
nisi prius ab ipso vel domino suo praelocutum sit ad terminum
remanere. Si quis burgensis de re aliqua appellaverit, non potest super
burgensem pugnare, sed per legem se defendat burgensis, nisi
sit de proditione, unde debeat se defendere bello. Nee burgensis
contra villanum poterit pugnare nisi prius de burgagio exierit.
Mercator aliquis, nisi burgensis, non potest extra villam emere
nee lanam nee coria nee mercatoria alia nee infra burgum nisi
burgensibus. Si forisfactum contigerit burgensi, dabit vi. oras praeposito.
In burgo non est merchet, nee heriet, nee blodwit, nee
stengesdint. Unusquisque burgensis potest habere suum furnum et molam
manualem si velit, salvo jure furni regis.
Si femina sit in suo forisfacto de pane vel de cervisia, nullus
debet intromittere nisi praepositus. Si bis forisfecerit, castigetur
per . . forisfactum. Si tertio forisfecerit justitia de ea fiat.
Nullus nisi burgensis poterit emere telas ad tingendas nee
facere nee secare.
Burgensis potest dare terram suam et vendere et ire quo
voluerit libere et quiete, nisi sit in calumnia. — (Acts of Par
liament of Scotland, i. 33, 34.)

in.] Stephen.

^3

A. D. 1135-1154. STEPHEN.
Archbishops of Canterbury. William of Corbeuil, 11 23- 1136; Theo
bald, 1 1 39-1 16 1.
Chief Justice. Roger Bishop of Salisbury, n 35-1 1 39.
Chancellors. Roger le Poor, 1135-1139; Philip, 1139.
The aversion of the Normans to an Angevin ruler, the
unpopularity of the Empress, and the uncertainty about Henry's
final determination as to a successor, facilitated the accession of
Stephen, although he had no strong party nor any claim to
the throne. The opportunity was seized by his promptness ;
and the election, grudgingly and informally transacted, was con
firmed by the body of the barons and bishops in spite of their
oaths, and subsequently approved by the pope. But the con
tinuance of the support at first afforded had to be purchased by
large gifts and larger promises, which Stephen, who was facile
rather than false, too readily bestowed. The charters which he
issued went indeed no further than was just and fair, but the
weakness of his hold on the royal authority was shown con
spicuously by his extravagant grants of the crown lands and by
his inability to secure the execution of the laws. As soon as
his power of purchasing support was exhausted, he was defied
by the barons, and a general paralysis of government followed.
Those barons and bishops who had not already formed uncon
stitutional designs, were compelled, in self-defence, to fortify
their castles and prepare for civil war. Stephen, conscious of
the weakness of his position, attempted, by the arrest of bishops
Roger and Alexander, to strike terror into the feudalists.
Instead of doing this, the measure had the effect of throwing the
whole administration of the country into the utmost disorder,
and alienating the clergy at the same time. Nor could the
struggle with the Empress have lasted so long as it did, or have
had such an issue, if the baronage as a body had been deter
mined to put an end to it in her favour. Neither she nor
Stephen had any real hold on the country: the feudal party
fought rather for its own advantage than for theirs ; and the

ii4 Stephen. [part
stoppage of the administrative machinery deprived the nation
at large of any chance of united action. Both parties fought
with mercenary forces, and the people suffered. After a long
struggle, the bishops negotiated a peace which gave the crown
to Stephen for the remainder of his life, and the succession to
Henry of Anjou : and advantage was taken of this compromise
to force on both parties the reforms and restoration of good
government, the carrying out of which marks so strongly and
clearly the reign of Henry II. After the arrest of the bishops
by Stephen in 1139, the constitutional history of the reign is in
abeyance until the treaty of Wallingford in 1153.
Excerpts.
Will. Malmesb., Hist. Nov. i. § 11. Hie (sc. Stephanus) ubi
a Londoniensibus et Wintoniensibus in regem exceptus est, etiam
Rogerum Salesberiensem episcopum et Willelmum de Ponte
arcus, custodes thesaurorum regalium, ad se transduxit. Ne
tamen Veritas celetur posteris, omnes ejus conatus irriti fuissent
nisi Henricus frater ejus Wintoniensis episcopus, qui modo
Apostolicae sedis legatus est in Anglia, placidum ei commo-
dasset assensum : spe scilicet captus amplissima, quod Stephanus
avi sui Willelmi in regni moderamine mores servaret praecipue-
que in Ecclesiastici vigoris disciplina. Quapropter districto
sacramento quod a Stephano Willelmus Cantuariensis Archiepis
copus exegit de libertate reddenda Ecclesiae et conservanda,
Episcopus Wintoniensis se mediatorem et vadem apposuit. . . .
Coronatus est ergo in regem Angliae Stephanus XI0 kalendap
Januarii, Dominica, XXaIIa die post excessum avunculi, anno
Dominicae Incarnationis M0C°XXX°V0 tribus episcopis prae-
sentibus, archiepiscopo, Wintoniensi, Salesberiensi, nullis ahbat-
ibus, paucissimis optimatihus.
Cont. Fl. Wig., App. Volente igitur Gaufrido comite cum
uxore sua, quae haeres erat, in regnum succedere, primores
terrae, juramenti sui male recordantes, regem eum suscipere
noluerunt, dicentes ' Alienigena non regnabit super nos :' initoque
consilio, Stephano comiti . . . coronam regni imposuerunt.
Gesta Stephani, p. 3. Cumque . . . cum paucissimo comitatu
applicuisset, ad ipsam totius regionis reginam metropolim, ma-
turato itinere, Londonias devenit. Concussa protenus in ad-
ventu viri civitas ilia cum laeto strepitu obviam ei occurrit. . . .

iii. J Excerpts. . 115
Majores igitur natu, consultuque quique provectiores, concilium
coegere, deque regni statu pro arbitrio suo utilia in commune
providentes, ad regem eligendum unanimiter conspiravere.
Dicebant enim omne regnum sinistrae fortunae casibus sub-
jacere, ubi ipsa totius regiminis praesentia, justitiaeque caput,
defuerit. Idcirco operae pretium eis esse regem quam mature
constituere, qui ad communis utilitatis pacem reformandam et
rebellibus regni armatus occurreret et legum instituta juste dis-
poneret. Id quoque sui esse juris, suique specialiter privilegii,
ut si rex ipsorum quoquo modo obiret, alius suo provisu in regno
substituendus e vestigio succederet. . . . His igitur auditis et ab
omnibus gratiose, nulloque aperte contradicente, receptis, de
regno suscipiendo eum in commune consultum conscivere, regem-
que, omnium ad hoc concordante favore, constituere : firmata
prius utrimque pactione, peractoque, ut vulgus asserebat, mutuo
juramento, ut eum cives quoad viveret opibus sustentarent,
viribus tutarentur, ipse autem ad regnum pacificandum ad
omnium eorundem suffragium toto sese conatu accingeret.
Will. Newb. i. 4. Cum . . . rex Henricus obiisset, idem
Stephanus sacramenti quod filiae ejus de conservanda fidelitate
praestiterat praevaricator, regnum arripuit, annitentibus prae-
sulibus atque principibus eodem Sacramento astrictis. . . .
Stephanus ergo ut contra jus humanum pariter et Divinum ;
humanum scilicet quia legitimus haeres non erat ; et Divinum,
id est violata jurisjurandi religione; sublimaretur in regnum,
pactus est quaecunque praesules et proceres exigere voluerunt,
quae postea per ejus perfidiam in irritum cuncta cesserunt.
Hen. Hunt. lib. viii. Inde perrexit rex Stephanus apud
Oxineforde, ubi recordatus est et confirmavit pacta quae Deo et
populo et sanctae Ecclesiae concesserat in die coronationis suae ;
quae sunt haec ; primo vovit quod defunctis episcopis nunquam
retineret ecclesias in manu sua, sed statim electioni canonicae
consentiens episcopis eas investiret. Secundo vovit quod nullius
clerici vel laici silvas in manu sua retineret, sicut rex Henricus
fecerat, qui singulis annis implacitaverat eos, si vel venationem
cepissent in silvis propriis, vel si eas ad necessitates suas exstir-
parent vel diminuerent. . . Tertio vovit quod Danegeldum, id
est, duos solidos ad hidam, quos antecessores sui accipere sole-
bant singulis annis, in aeternum condonaret. Haec principaliter
Deo vovit et alia, sed nihil horum tenuit.
Will. Malmesb., Hist. Nov. i. § 18. Anno Incarnationis
Dominicae M°C°XXX0VIII°, intestinis dissidiis Anglia quati-
ebatur ; multi siquidem quos nobilitas generis vel magnitudo
1 2

n6 Stephen. [part
animi vel potius viridioris aetatis audacia ad illicita praecipita-
bat, a rege hi praedia, hi castella, postremo quaecunque semei
collibuisset, petere non verebantur ; quae cum ille dare differ-
ret . . . illi continuo ira commoti castella contra eum obfirma-
bant. . . . Denique multos etiam comites, qui ante non fu erant,
instituit, applicitis possessionibus et redditibus quae proprio
jure regi competebant. . . .
Ib. ii. § 34. Sub Stephano plures ex Flandria et Britannia,
rapto vivere assueti, spe magnarum praedarum Angliam in-
volabant. Hen. Hunt. lib. viii. Quinto anno regni sui fugavit rex
Stephanus Nigellum episcopum Elyensem. . . . Ubi autem ad
natale vel ad Pascha fuerit dicere non attinet. Jam quippe
curiae solemnes et ornatus regii schematis ab antiqua serie
descendens prorsus evanuerant. Ingens thesauri copia jam
deperierat, pax in regno nulla, caedibus, incendiis, rapinis
omnia exterminabantur.
Will. Newb., Hist. Angl. i. 22. Anglia intestinis malis ex-
sanguis et saucia tabescebat. Et quidem de quodam tempore
plebis antiquae scriptum est, 'in diebus illis non erat rex in
Israel, sed unusquisque quod rectum sibi videbatur faciebat.'
At in Anglia sub rege Stephano pejus fiebat. Nam quia tunc
impotens erat rex, et per regis impotentiam languida lex, qui-
busdam quod rectum sibi videbatur agentibus, multi quod in-
sita ratione malum esse sciebant, sublato regis et legis metu
proclivius faciebant. Et primo quidem videbatur regnum
Angliae scissum esse in duo ; quibusdam regi, quibusdam im-
peratrici faventibus. Non quod vel rex vel imperatrix suae
parti potenter imperaret, sed quod suorum bellicis quisque
studiis pro tempore niteretur. Neuter enim in suos imperiose
agere et disciplinae vigorem exercere poterat, sed uterque suos,
ne a se deficerent, nihil negando mulcebant. Sane inter par
tes, . . . diu multumque certatum est, alternante fortuna.
Processu vero temporis inter eas jam saepius fortunae infideli-
tatem expertas, remissiores motus esse coepere ; quod tamen
Angliae non cessit in bonum. Illis quippe diutinae concerta-
tionis pertaesis, et mollius agentibus, provinciales discordantium
procerum motus efferbuere. Castella quoque per singulas pro
vincias studio partium erebra surrexerant, erantque in Anglia
quodammodo tot reges vel potius tyranni, quot domini castel-
lorum, habentes singuli percussuram proprii numismatis, et
potestatem subditis regio more dicendi juris. Cumque ita
singuli excellere quaererent ut quidam superiorem, quidam

m0 Excerpts. 117
vel parem sustinere non possent, feralibus inter se odiis dis-
ceptantes, rapinis atque incendiis regiones clarissimas corru-
perunt, et, in fertilissima olim patria, fere omne robur panis
absumpserunt. Aquilonalis vero regio quae in potestatem
David regis Scottorum usque ad flumen Tesiam cesserat, per
ejusdem regis industriam in pace agebat.
Will. Malmesb., Hist. Nov. iii. 43. A.D. 1141. Feria
secunda post octavas Paschae concilium archiepiscopi Cantuariae
Theobaldi et omnium episcoporum Angliae multorumque ab-
batum, legato praesidente, Wintoniae ingenti apparatu inceptum.
.... Ipsa die post recitata scripta excusatoria quibus absentiam
suam quidam tutati sunt sevocavit in partem legatus episcopos
habuitque cum eis arcanum consilii sui ; post mox abbates, post
remo archidiaconi convocati. Ex consilio nihil processit in
publicum, volutabatur tamen per omnium mentes et ora quid
foret agendum.
§ 44. Feria tertia hoc fere sensu legati cucurrit oratio ;'....
Itaque quia Deus judicium Suum de fratre meo exercuit, ut eum
me nesciente in potestatem potentium incidere permitteret ; ne
regnum vacillet si regnante careat, omnes vos pro jure legationis
meae hue convenire invitavi. Ventilata est hesterno die causa
secreto coram majori parte cleri Angliae, ad cujus jus potissimum
spectat principem eligere simulque ordinare. Invocata itaque
primo, ut par est, in auxilium Divinitate, filiam pacifici regis,
gloriosi regis, divitis regis, boni regis, et nostro tempore in-
comparabilis, in Angliae Normanniaeque dominam eligimus, et
ei fidem et manutenementum promittimus.'
§ 45. Cumque omnes praesentes vel modeste acclamassent
sententiae vel silentes non contradixissent, subjecit legatus,
' Londonienses, qui sunt quasi optimates, pro magnitudine civi
tatis, in Anglia, nunciis nostris convenimus, et conductum ut tuto
veniant misimus, eosque confido non ultra hunc diem moraturos ;
bona venia usque eras sustineamus.'
§ 46. Feria quarta venerunt Londonienses et in concilium
introducti, causam suam eatenus egerunt ut dicerent missos se a
communione quam vocant Londoniarum, non certamina sed
preces offerre ut dominus suus rex de captione liberaretur. . . .
S 47  Feria quinta solutum est concilium excommuni-
catis ante multis qui regiarum erant partium. . . .
Henr. Huntingd. lib. viii. Anno decimo septimo rex Ste
phanus filium suum Eustachium regio diadem ate voluit insignire.
Postulans igitur ab archiepiscopo Cantuariensi Theobaldo, et

n8 Stephen. [part
caeteris episcopis quos ibidem congregaverat, ut eum in regem
ungerent et benedictione sua confirmarent, repulsam passus est.
Papa siquidem litteris suis Archiepiscopo prohibuerat ne filium
regis in regem sublimarent, videlicet quia rex Stephanus regnum
contra jusjurandum praeripuisse videbatur.
Matt. Paeis, Hist.Angl. (ed. Wats), p. 86. A.D. 1153. Jus
titia de caelo prospiciente et diligentia Theobaldi Cantuariensis
archiepiscopi et episcoporum regni intercedente, rex Anglorum
Stephanus et dux Normannorum Henricus, apud Walingeford
in talem concordiam convenerunt. Rex Stephanus omni haerede
viduatus praeter solummodo ducem Henricum, recognovit in
conventu episcoporum et aliorum regni optimatum, quod jus
haereditarium dux Henricus in regnum Angliae habebat ; et
dux benigne concessit, ut Rex Stephanus tota vita sua, si vellet,
regnum pacifice possideret. Ita tamen confirmata est pax, quod
ipse rex et episcopi tunc praesentes cum ceteris optimatibus
regni jurarent, quod dux post mortem regis, si ilium super-
viveret, regnum sine contradictione aliqua obtineret. Et si
illud propheticum Merlini attendatur, quod dicit, ' Nocebit
possidenti ex impiis pietas, donee sese genitore induerit ;'
manifestum est regem Stephanum Henricum instituisse hae-
redem, quem non genuit, dum ipsum adoptavit in filium et
regni participem et postmodum successorem. In rege quoque
ducem €t in duce omnes venerabuntur regem. Regalia passim
a proceribus usurpata, rex in sua recipiet. Possessiones quae ab
invasoribus direptae erant, ad legitimos possessores, quorum
fuerant regis Henrici tempore, revertentur. Castella adulterina
quae tempore regis a quocunque constructa sint, diruentur ;
quorum numerus ad undecies centum et quindecim excrevit.*
Rex colonos praediis assignabit, aedificia eombusta renovabit,
replebit pascua armentis, decorabit ovibus montana. Clericus
debitam tranquillitatem se habere gaudebit, exactionibus in-
debitis non gravabitur. Vicecomites in locis ponentur consuetis,
et neminem ex odio persequentur ; non gratificabuntur amicis,
non indulgentiis crimina sublevabunt, suum cuique ex integrq
reservabunt : metu poenarum afiicient nocentes. Fures et prae-
dones terrebuntur in furca et sententia capitali. Milites, juxta
Isaiam, gladios convertent in vomeres, et lanceas in ligones;
a castris ad aratra, a tentoriis ad ergasteria redibunt, clientes t
* Possibly the number of castles may be IIICXV, not MCXV — but the
above is the reading of the MSS.
f R. de Diceto, who relates these matters in nearly the same words, has
here, ' a tentoriis ad ergasteria Flandrensium plurimi revocabuntur, et, quas
nostratibus operas indixerunt, dominis suis ex necessitate persolvent.' c. 528.

in-] Charter of Liberties. 119
ab excubiis fatigati, in communi laetitia respirabunt. Releva-
bitur rusticitas otio innocens et quieta : negotiatores commer-
cium ditabit celebrius ; et publica moneta una et eadem erit
in regno ex argento percussa. Werra igitur quae septemdecim
annis saevierat, hoc fine quievit.

The First Charter of Stephen.
This is probably the charter issued by Stephen at his corona
tion, and is of the most formal description, specifying nothing ;
and although of great import had it been the act of a strong
or resolutely just sovereign, meaning very little under the hand
of one too weak to enforce it.
Stephanus Dei gratia rex Anglorum, Justitiis, Vicecomiti-
bus, Baronibus et omnibus ministris et fidelibus suis Francis et
Anglicis salutem.
Sciatis me concessisse et praesenti carta mea confirmasse om
nibus baronibus et hominibus meis de Anglia omnes libertates
et bonas leges quas Henricus rex Anglorum avunculus meus eis
dedit et concessit, et omnes bonas leges et bonas consuetudines
eis concedo quas habuerunt tempore Regis Edwardi.
Quare volo et firmiter praecipio quod habeant et teneant
omnes illas bonas leges et libertates de me et haeredibus meis
ipsi et haeredes sui libere quiete et plenarie, et prohibeo ne quis
eis super hiis molestiam vel impedimentum, vel diininutionem
faciat super forisfacturam meam.
Teste Willelmo Martel apud Londonias. — (Statutes of the Realm
— Charters of Liberties, p. 4.)

The Second Charter of Stephen.
This document, which is of a character far more definite and
more binding than the preceding, was issued by Stephen at the
first great council of his reign, at the moment when all parties
seemed to acquiesce in his accession. His rehearsal of his title
is curious and important ; it is worth while to compare it with
that of Henry I, but it need not necessarily be interpreted as

1 20 Stephen. [part
showing a consciousness of weakness. The provisions are based
on those of Henry's charter. Neither of the charters of Stephen
will be found to agree with the account given by Henry of
Huntingdon of his promises to the people of the abolition of
Danegeld, or to the clergy of entire freedom of election.

Carta Stephani Regis de libertatibus Bcclesiae Anglicanae
et regni.
Ego Stephanus Dei gratia assensu cleri et populi in regem
Anglorum electus, et a Willelmo Cantuariensi archiepiscopo et
sanctae Romanae ecclesiae legato consecratus, et ab Innocentio
sanctae Romanae sedis pontifice confirmatus, respectu et amore
Dei sanctam ecclesiam liberam esse concedo et debitam reveren-
tiam illi confirmo.
Nihil me in ecclesia vel rebus ecclesiasticis Simoniace acturum
vel permissurum esse promitto. Ecclesiasticarum personarum
et omnium clericorum et rerum eorum justitiam et potestatem
et distributionem bonorum ecclesiasticorum in manu episco
porum esse perhibeo et confirmo. Dignitates ecclesiarum pri
vileges earum confirmatas, et consuetudines earum antiquo
tenore habitas, inviolate manere statuo et concedo. Omnes
ecclesiarum possessiones et tenuras quas die ilia habuerunt
qua Willelmus rex avus meus fuit vivus et mortuus, sine omni
calumniantium reclamatione, eis liberas et absolutas esse con
cedo. Si quid vero de habitis vel possessis ante mortem ejus
dem regis, quibus modo careat ecclesia, deinceps repetierit, in-
dulgentiae et dispensation! meae, vel restituendi vel discutiendi,
reservo. Quaecunque vero post mortem ipsius regis liberalitate
regum vel largitione principum, oblatione vel comparatione, vel
qualibet transmutatione fidelium eis collata sunt, confirmo.
Pacem et justitiam me in omnibus facturum, et pro posse meo
conservaturum eis promitto.
Forestas quas Willelmus avus meus et Willelmus avunculus
meus instituerunt et habuerunt, mihi reservo. Ceteras omnes
quas rex Henricus superaddidit ecclesiis et regno quietas reddo
et concedo.
Si quis episcopus vel abbas vel alia ecclesiastica persona ante
mortem suam rationabiliter sua distribuerit vel distribuenda
statuerit, firmum manere concedo. Si vero morte praeoccupatus
fuerit, pro salute animae ejus ecclesiae consilio eadem fiat dis-
tributio. Dum vero sedes propriis pastoribus vacuae fuerint,

in. J Charter of Liberties. 121
ipsas et earum possessiones omnes in manu et custodia clerico-
rum vel proborum hominum ejusdem ecclesiae committam, donee
pastor canonice substituatur.
Omnes exactiones et injustitias et mescheningas, sive per
vicecomites vel per alios quoslibet male inductas, funditus
exstirpo. Bonas leges et antiquas et justas consuetudines, in murdris
et placitis et aliis causis, observabo, et observari praecipio, et
constituo. Haec omnia concedo et confirmo salva regia et justa
dignitate mea.
Testibus W. Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, et Hugone Rotho-
magensi archiepiscopo, et Henrico Wintoniensi episcopo, et
Rogero Sarisbiriensi episcopo, et A. Lincolniensi episcopo, et
Nigello Eliensi episcopo, et Evrardo Norwicensi episcopo, et
Simone Wigornensi episcopo, et Bernardo episcopo de Sancto
David, et Audoeno Ebroicensi episcopo, et Ricardo Abrincensi
episcopo, et Roberto Herefordensi episcopo, et Johanne Roue-
cestrensi episcopo, et Athelulfb Carlolensi episcopo ; et Rogero
cancellario; et Henrico nepote regis; et Roberto comite Gloe-
cestriae, et Willelmo comite de Warenna, et Rannulfb comite
Cestriae, et Roberto comite de Warewic ; et Roberto de Ver, et
Milone de Gloecestria, et Brientio filio Comitis, et Roberto de
Oilli, conestabulis ; et Willelmo Martel, et Hugone Bigot, et
Hunfrido de Buhun, et Simone de Belcamp, dapiferis ; et Wil
lelmo de Albiniaco, et Eudone Martel pincernis ; et Roberto de
Ferreriis, et Willelmo Peverel de Notingeham ; et Simone de
Saintliz ; et Willelmo de Albamarla, et Pagano filio Johannis, et
Hamone de Sancto Claro, et Ilberto de Laceio.
Apud Oxeneforde, anno ab Incarnatione Domini M°C°-
XXX°VI°, sed regni mei primo. — {Statutes of the Bealm —
Charters of Liberties, p. 3. Will. Malmesb., Hist. Nov. i.)

PART IV.
SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS ; Henry II.
A.D. 1154-1189.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Theobald, 1139-1161 ; Thomas Becket,
1162-1170; Richard, 1174-1184; Baldwin, 1185-1190.
Chief Justices. Robert, Earl of Leicester, 1154-1167 ; Richard de Lucy,
1154-1179; Ranulf Glanvill, 11 80-1 189.
Chancellors. Thomas Becket, 1154-1162; Ralph de Warneville, 1173-
1181 ; Geoffrey, the king's son, 1181-1189.
J. HE reign of Henry II was the period of amalgamation of the
English and Normans so far as concerned their legal and con
stitutional status. All vestiges of distinction between the two
races before the law disappear, and although further changes
are required before a perfect union of interest and ideas is com
pleted by a perfect fusion of blood, they are now on an equality,
and even the nominal distinction is sunk in the common name
of English. Henry himself ascended the throne without any
shadow of opposition to his title, and free from any obligations
to the factions which had struggled for their own ends under
the pretence of supporting Stephen and Matilda. He was fitted
for the position of a national sovereign, not only by this freedom
from party connexion, but by the training of his earlier years,
which had been so changeful and unsettled as to prevent him,
although he was heir of Normandy and Anjou, and by his mar
riage lord of all the south-west of France, from being moulded
into the prevalent type of any of the races which he represented.
He was not a Norman nor an Angevin nor a Poitevin by policy
any more than by character, and came to England unfettered

Reign of Henry II. 123
by any prepossessions that would make him anti-English. His
position in this respect was strengthened by the development
of his personal character, which, although in many points excep
tionable, was singularly well suited to the condition and age of
the nation that received him. His great sagacity enabled him
to see the true interest of England, and his ability for business
to keep in hand the strings of an intricate policy without falling
under the sway of any minister whose designs might be more
warped by national or party inclinations than his own ; even
that clearsighted selfishness, which kept him during the whole
of his life free from complicity in the struggles of foreign na
tions, and intent on the security and completeness of his own
dominion, was a characteristic which brought much good to the
reviving spirit of England. His policy was to govern England
as an English king, to utilise and train all the elements of life
by new organisation, and, by asserting his royal rights and those
of his people, to keep the feudal system in its proper subordina
tion to the national interests.
His reign falls naturally into four epochs : the first, extend
ing from his accession to his quarrel with Thomas Becket ; the
second, from that point to th<S* death of the archbishop ; the
third, until the death of the younger Henry in 1183; and the
fourth, to his own death in 1189.
I. The first ten years of the reign were singularly happy and
prosperous. Henry's first ministers were the men whose ex
ertions had secured his succession : Theobald, Archbishop of
Canterbury; Thomas, the Chancellor; and the Earl of Leicester,
whose support he had obtained whilst he was Duke of Nor
mandy. With their co-operation he proceeded at once to carry
out the plan of reform dictated by the Peace of Wallingford,
recalled the Bishop of Ely to the Exchequer, and resumed, after
consultation with his assembled barons, the estates of the Crown,
which had been alienated by Stephen and Matilda. He then
ordered the demolition of the illegal castles which had been the
strongholds of baronial tyranny, and enforced by arms the entire
submission of the few who, like Roger of Gloucester, Hugh
Mortimer, William of Aumale, and Hugh Bigot, attempted to

124 Henry II. [tart
defeat the measure. In all this he seems to have acted on the
plan of his grandfather, whose magnificence he rivalled in his
court, and whose customs he as well as his subjects, regarding
them through the hazy atmosphere of the intervening reign,
looked on as the ideal of good government. The war of this
epoch is that of Toulouse, which affects English history only
as the occasion of the great Scutage. The restoration of the
northern counties by the Scots, the reformation of the coinage,
the careful securing of the title to the crown to his eldest son,
and the formation of the design of Irish conquest, fill up the list.
of English transactions of the period. In default of more distinct
and elaborate history, the writings of John of Salisbury and
the letters of Gilbert Foliot are the best sources of information
for the time. In them we can see how many other influences,
besides the break-up of feudal government throughout Europe,
were at work towards the improvement of society. The revived
study of the Roman law which had reached Oxford in Stephen's
time, although it never had the effect of Romanising the English
common law, had, as an instrument of education, a great bearing
on the spread of orderly and equitable ideas of jurisprudence ;
the rapid growth of the universities of Paris and Oxford, which
were the outward expression of the life of early scholasticism,
conduced to the maintenance in the educated class of an ideal of
free government, drawn from ancient Greek and Roman history,
which, although never likely to be realised in detail, tended to
make tyranny such as that of William Rufus impossible ; and
the result of this was to give to the court of Henry II during
these years a show of refinement as well as of magnificence which
promised well for the future. All such omens were unfortunately
belied by the outbreak of the great quarrel.
II. Whatever may have been the positive influence of Thomas
Becket as the king's confidant and chancellor — and there is
nothing to show that it was ever strong enough to control or
guide the purposes of his master. — the removal of it, which
followed shortly after his consecration as archbishop, coincides
in time with the origin of Henry's legal reforms. In the eccle
siastical portion of these reforms there is no reason to suppose

iv.J Sketch of the Reign. 125
that Henry was actuated by any motives of hostility to the clergy,
or even by a desire to increase the royal power ; the abuses
against which they were aimed were glaring, and the mechanism
by which they might be carried out was easy, and likely to be
effective. The lines on which the project of reform was drawn
were the ' avitae consuetudines,' the state of Church law which
had prevailed under Henry I, and the ministers by whom it
was to be carried out were men of pure and religious character.
But, on the other hand, there were certain difficulties of detail
caused by the jealousies which had already arisen between the
archbishop and the court; and there was a strong party amongst
the clergy, especially the monastic body, which was conscious
of the great reformation begun by Hildebrand and carried out
by S. Bernard, and saw in the future a further improvement,
working in the same groove, and not to be, as men like the
king and even such partisans as John of Salisbury saw, a re
sultant from other forces of progress besides their own. The
struggle with Becket had the worst effect on Henry's character,
making him reckless of religious and moral obligation, fierce
and irritable. But it did not entirely stop his designs for the
reformation of the law. Although he was absent from England
during the larger part of the period, it is marked certainly by
the expansion of the provincial judicature, in the mission of
itinerant justices, and by the Assize of Clarendon. Possibly
it witnessed several of the other reforms, the effect of which
we see in the work of Ranulf Glanvill, and which form a step
in constitutional progress the importance of which cannot be
exaggerated. The Becket struggle itself only indirectly affects
the constitution, and that in ways which belong chiefly to other
principles now being worked out.
III. The coronation of the younger Henry is the link which
connects the second and third epochs of the political history
of the rei°-n. It was the most important of the series of events
which led to the archbishop's death, and also of those which led
to that unhappy estrangement between the king and his sons
in which the age saw Becket's death avenged. The design
of securing the succession of England for his family appears to

126 Henry II. [part
have had in Henry's mind a greater importance than is easily
realised, seeing that practically there was no competitor. It is
probable that, like Canute and William the Conqueror, he saw
the hopelessness of attempting to found an empire on the union
of his territories, and had an early purpose of dividing them.
The practice of securing for the heir-apparent the confirmation
of his title by the homage of the barons was natural enough,
although the effect of it was, as he had seen in his own case,
very uncertain. This was, however, very early negotiated, and
both the child William and the child Henry received the
recognition. But the history of France suggested a stronger
and safer expedient : in that country, since the accession of the
reigning dynasty, it had become a custom for the son to be
crowned before his father's death, in accordance with many, and
those calamitous, precedents in the Empires East and West.
This plan was adopted by Henry II in the case of his eldest
surviving son : after being contemplated for some years, it was
carried out under the most unfortunate circumstances, and had
the most unfortunate results. The young king became a centre
of disaffection among the barons whom the great quarrel be
tween his father and the archbishop had unsettled and roused
to an attempt to regain their power : he himself found that his
coronation involved the burdens without the powers or plea
sures of royalty, and was unable to see in his father's design of
separating his estates, the most certain pledge of a secure title
to the English kingdom and a happy reign.
Under the malignant influence of Eleanor and Lewis VII,
the sons rose against the father, the great earls whose territories
covered the middle of England took advantage of the distraction,
and the Scots moved down upon the north. Henry's great
ability was tasked to the utmost, but the English people stood
by him, and he was victorious ; the northern people and barons,
with the single exception of the Mowbrays, were faithful, and
by them the Scottish invasion was repelled ; the rebellion of the
midland earls collapsed at the appearance of the king, and the
towns received him as a deliverer. The continental struggle
outlasted the English one but a short time ; the undutiful sons

IV-] Excerpts. 127
submitted, and Henry personally was stronger than ever. But
his character again declines, the children for whom he has been
working remain undutiful, his wife is a prisoner, and his own
life sadly changed from its first promise. Notwithstanding this,
he laboured hard for England, and after the submission of the
rebels took measures of the most effective sort, constructive
rather than destructive, for security against a reaction. It is to
this period that the Assize of Northampton and the completion
of the organisation of both the Curia Regis and the itinerant
tribunals belong ; as well as the Assize of Arms, and other minor
but significant reforms, which owe their origination perhaps to
the great justiciar Ranulf Glanvill. The death of the young
king, whom his father had never ceased attempting to draw to
his side by the gift of as much power as could be safely in
trusted to him, but who had never stopped in his course of
treachery and ingratitude, closes this eventful epoch.
IV. The remaining years of the reign were occupied with the
accidental results of the events that had gone before : there were
a few reforms at home, such as the Assize of the Forest, and
there were considerable preparations for a crusade, but the
chief work was the maintenance of peace in France against the
machinations of Philip, and against the rebellion of the re
maining children of Eleanor. By this last the king's power and
prestige in Europe were seriously impaired and his heart broken.
Exceepts.
Will. Newb. ii. c. 1. Anno a partu Virginis MCLIV.
Henricus Henrici majoris ex filia olim imperatrice nepos, post
mortem regis Stephani a Normannia in Angliam veniens, haere-
ditarium regnum suscepit, eoriclamatus ab omnibus ; et con-
secratus mystica unctione in regem, concrepantibus per Angliam
turbis, Vivat Bex. Prioris quippe regni, sub quo tot mala
pullulaverant, infelicitatem experti, de novo principe meliora
sperabant, praesertim cum praeclara illi prudentia atque con-
stantia cum zelo justitiae inesse viderentur, et magni principis
jam in ipsis suis primordiis praeferret imaginem. Denique
edicto praecepit ut illi qui ex gentibus exteris in Angliam sub
rege Stephano praedarum gratia tanquam ad militandum con-

128 Henry II. [part
fluxerant, et maxime Flandrenses, quorum magna tunc Angliae
incubabat multitudo, propriis regionibus redderentur, fatalem eis
diem constituens, quem in Anglia sustinere certi foret discri-
minis. Quo edicto pavefacti, ita in brevi dilapsi sunt ut quasi
phantasmata in momento disparuisse viderentur, stupentibus
plurimis quomodo repente evanuissent. Mox castella nova quae
in diebus avi sui nequaquam exstiterant, complanari praecepit,
praeter pauca in locis opportunis sita quae vel ipse retinere vel a
pacificis ad regni munimen retineri voluit. Publicae quoque
disciplinae in primis sollicitudinem habuit ; et ut legum vigor in
Anglia revivisceret qui sub Rege Stephano extinctus sepultus-
que videbatur, cura propensiore sategit. Ordinatisque in cunctis
regni finibus juris et legum ministris qui vel improborum auda-
ciam coercerent, vel interpellantibus secundum causarum merita
justitiam exhiberent, ipse vel in deliciis erat, vel majoribus
negotiis regiam operam impendebat. Quoties autem judicibus
mollius indigniusve agentibus, provincialium querimoniis pulsa-
batur, provisionis regiae remedium adhibebat : illorum compe-
tenter corrigens vel negligentiam vel excessum. Talia novi
principis initia fuere, gratulantibus quidem et laudantibus
pacificis, mussitantibus vero et contremiscentibus improbis.
Fugiebant lupi rapaces vel mutabantur in oves ; aut, si non vere
mutabautur, metu tamen legum innoxii cum ovibus morabantur.
Conflabantur gladii in vomeres et lanceae in falces, nullusque jam
exercebatur ad praelium, sed omnes olim optatae et nunc Deo pro-
pitio indultae pacis, vel fovebantur otiis vel intendebant negotiis.
c. 2. Considerans autem rex, quod regii redditus breves essent,
qui avito tempore uberes fuerant, eo quod regia dominica per mol-
litiem regis Stephani ad alios multosque dominos majori ex parte
migrassent, praecepit ea cum omni integritate a quibuscunque
detentoribus resignari, et in jus statumque pristinum revocari.
A.D. 1 154. Gervas. c. 1377. In Nativitate Domini tenuit
rex curiam suam apud Beremundeseiam, ubi cum principibus
suis de statu regni et pace reforrnanda tractans, proposuit animo
alienigenas gentes de regno propellere et munitiunculas pessimas
per totam Angliam solo tenus dissipare.
A.D. 1 155. Rob. de Monte. Rex Henricus coepit revocare
in jus proprium urbes, castella, villas, quae ad coronam regni
pertinebant, castella noviter facta destruendo, et expellendo de
regno maxime Flandrenses, et deponendo quosdam imaginarios
et pseudocomites quibus rex Stephanus omnia pene ad fiscum
pertiuentia minus caute distribuerat.

iT- J Excerpts. 129
Cheon. de Bello, p. 72. (Mense Martio) ; tenuit generale
concilium apud Londoniam et renovavit pacem et leges et con
suetudines per Angliam ab antiquis temporibus constitutas.
A.D. 1 159. Rob. de Monte. Rex igitur Henricus, iturus
in expeditionem praedictam et considerans longitudinem et diffi-
cultatem viae, nolens vexare agrarios milites nee burgensem nee
rusticorum multitudinem, sumptis lx. solidis Andegavensibus in
Normannia de feudo uniuscujusque loricae, et de reliquis omni
bus tam in Normannia quam in Anglia, sive etiam aliis terris
suis, secundum hoc quod ei visum fuit, capitales barones suos
cum paucis secum duxit, solidarios vero milites innumeros.
Geevas. c. 1381. Hoc anno rex Henricus scotagium sive
scutagium de Anglia accepit, cujus summa fuit centum millia et
quater viginti millia librarum argenti.
A.D. 1 163. Rad. de Diceto, c. 536. Malcolmus rex Scot-
torum, Resus Australium princeps Walensium, Audoenus Aqui-
lonarium, et quique majores de Cambria, fecerunt homagium regi
Anglorum et Henrico filio suo kalendis Julii apud Wdestoke.
V. S. Thomae, auct. Grim, pp. 21, 22. Commorante rege in
praedio suo apud Wodestoke, praesente archiepiscopo et primis
patriae, inter alia movetur quaestio de consuetudine quadam quae
in Anglia tenebatur. Dabantur de hida bini solidi ministris
regis qui vicecomitum loco comitatus servabant, quos voluit rex
conscribere fisco et reditibus propriis associare. Cui archiepi
scopus in faciem restitit, dicens non debere eos exigi pro redi
tibus, ' nee pro reditu,' inquit, ' dabimus eos, domine rex, salvo
beneplacito vestro : sed si digne nobis servierint vicecomites, et
servientes vel ministri provinciarum, et homines nostros manu-
tenuerint, nequaquam eis deerimus in auxilium.' Rex autem
aegre ferens archiepiscopi responsionem, 'Per oculos Dei' ait
' dabuntur pro reditu, et in scriptura regis scribentur ; nee
dignum est ut contradicas, cum nemo tuos contra voluntatem
tuam gravare velit.' Praevidens archiepiscopus et praecavens
ne per ipsius patientiam consuetudo induceretur unde posteri
gravarentur, ' per reverentiam oculorum quos jurasti, domine mi
rex, non dabuntur de tota terra mea, et de jure ecclesiae ne unius
quidem denarius.'
Gervas. c. 1384 [Mense Octobri]. Convocatis episcopis apud
Westmonasterium simul cum archiepiscopo, de criminosis clericis
contra canonum libertatem male tractandis, usque in vesperam
germo pertinacior est protractus. K

130 Henry II. [part
A.D. 1 164. Rad. de Diceto, c. 536. Ex mandato regis
concurrentibus episcopis et proceribus apud Clarendune, VIII.
kalendas Februarii post immensos tractatus rex tandem ad hoc
animos praelatorum inflexit, ut regni consuetudines archiepisco-
porum et episcoporum auctoritate firmarentur et scriptis. . . .
Apud Norhamtunam III. idus Octobris: convenerunt illuc epi
scopi, comites, barones totius regni mandato regis urgente. (Omnes
qui de rege tenerent in capite. Grim, V. S. Thomae, p. 39.)
W. F. Steph., V. S. Thomae, p. 220. Et aliam diem . . . rex
. . . praefixit, litteris suis ad vicecomitem Cantiae de archiepi
scopo citando emissis . . . nee aliam per litteras sibi directas_
solemnem et primam, ut antiqui moris erat, habuerat archi
episcopus ad concilium citationem.
A.D. 1 1 70. Bened. Abb. i. 4. Peracta igitur sollemnitate
Paschali, perrexit inde Lundonias, et ibi magnum celebravit con
cilium de coronatione Henrici filii sui majoris, et de statutis
regni sui, et ibidem deposuit fere omnes vicecomites Angliae et
ballivos eorum, pro eo quod male tractaverant homines regni sui.
A.D. 1 176. Ben. Abb. i. 107. . . . Circa festum Conversionis
Sancti Pauli, venit dominus rex usque Norhamtoniam, et mag
num ibi celebravit concilium de statutis regni sui, coram epi
scopis et comitibus et baronibus terrae suae, et coram eis per
consilium regis Henrici filii sui, et per consilium comitum et
baronum et militum et hominum suorum, hanc subscriptam
assisam fecit, et earn teneri praecepit ; scilicet quod regnum
suum divisit in sex partes per quarum singulas tres Justitias
constituit. . . .
Ib. p. 116. (Legati regis Siciliae) . . . invento domino rege
apud Lundonias petierunt ab eo Johannam filiam suam donari
in uxorem domino suo Willelmo regi Siciliae. Ipse vero con-
gregatis in urbe Lundoniarum archipraesulibus et episcopis et
comitibus et sapientioribus regni sui, consuluit eos quid tam
magni regis nunciis responderet. Et accepto ab eis consilio misit
eos Wintoniam ut praefatam puellam viderent, si eis placeret.
A.D. 1177. Ib. pp. 143-151. (Mense Martio.) Et cum dominus
rex audissetistud chirographum (sc. regum Castellae et Navarrae)
et nunciorum utriusque regis allegationes hinc inde audisset et
intellexisset, praecepit eis coram episcopis, comitibus et baronibus
suis, ut omni occasione remota, essent ad eum apud Lundonias
Dominica proxima sequenti, recepturi ibidem judicium suum. . . .
Ibidem ad eum venerunt sicut mandaverat [omnes fere episcopi
regni]. Venerunt etiam illuc tot abbates, tot decani, tot arehi-

xv-] Excerpts. 131
diaconi quot sub numero non cadebant: venerunt etiam illuc
comites et barones regni quorum non est numerus. . . . Tunc
archiepiscopus Cantuariensis et episcopi Angliae qui aderant et
comites et barones regni plenariam utrique parti supradictorum
quae in jure petita erant fieri restitutionem adjudicaverunt.
Ib. p. 160. (Mense Maio) . . transtulit se rex usque Windes-
hoveres et Rogerus Eboracensis archiepiscopus et praenomi-
nati episcopi cum eo. Venerunt autem ibi ad eum fere omnes
comites et barones et milites regni, parati equis et armis ad
eundum quo rex praeciperet. Cumque ibidem diu de pace et
stabilitate regni tractassent, per consilium episcoporum et comi-
tum et baronum suorum removit custodes castellorum An.aliae,
et tradidit ea ad custodiendum militibus qui ' erant de privata
familia sua.
A.D. 1 178. Ben. Abb. i. 207. Itaque dominus rex moram
faciens in Anglia quaesivit de Justitiis quos in Anglia constitu-
erat, si bene et modeste tractaverunt homines regni ; et cum
didicisset quod terra et homines terrae nimis gravati essent ex
tanta Justitiarum multitudine, quia octodecim erant numero ;
per consilium sapientium regni sui quinque tantum elegit, duos
scilicet clericos et tres laicos, et erant omnes de privata familia
sua. Et statuit quod illi quinque audirent omnes clamores
regni, et rectum facerent, et quod a curia regis non recederent,
sed ibi ad audiendum clamores hominum remanerent ; ita ut si
aliqua quaestio inter eos veniret, quae per eos ad finem duci
non posset, auditui regio praesentaretur, et sicut ei et sapien-
tioribus regni placeret terminaretur.
A.D. 1 179. Ben. Abb. i. 238. Tunc rex congregatis epi
scopis et comitibus et proceribus regni apud Windesovers,
communi eorum consilio, coram rege filio suo, divisit in quatuor
partes Angliam et unicuique parti praefecit viros sapientes de
regno ; et postea misit eos per partes regni eis assignatas, ut
justitiam exercerent in populo.
R. de Diceto, c. 605. Rex pater Anglorum his plurimum
quaerens prodesse qui minimum possunt, vicecomites publicis
functionibus et ratiociniis involutos commodis propriis invigi-
lantes invenit. Quare de communi salute magis et magis sol-
licitus, certis in locis jurisdictiones aliis fidelibus suis in regno
commisit, ut cognitus per provincias publicae potestatis ad-
ventus terrorem incuteret delinquentibus ; fiscalia supprimentes,
et quae principis laederent majestatem, regiam indignationem
incurrerent ; ferarum cubilia temerariis ausibus incursantes, vel
mulcta reprimeret vel carceralis custodia maceraret diutius ;
k 2

132 Henry II. . [part
metus poenae profugos absterreret, animadversio gravis per-
celleret interceptos ; homicidae suspendio punirentur, proditores
damnarentur exilio, levioribus in flagitiis deprehensi truncatione
membrorum notabiles redderentur ; invasores locorum vigor
compesceret judiciarius, enormitatem damni satisfactio maturata
sarciret. Rursus aliquot temporum labente curriculo, rex in-
tentissimus ad justitiam singulis exhibendam, ut arctius subditis
provideret, fidem voluit experiri multorum. In variis namque
professionibus amatores justitiae sollicitius investigans, quem
munera non corrumperent inter hominum millia requirebat, et
sic animum a proposito non immutans, circa personas mutabiles
immutabilem sajaiper saepe mutavit sententiam. Quantum
itaque claustralil*professio querelas pauperum relevaverit, quan
tum cinguli militaris auctoritas restiterit potentioribus et vivere
jure_ communi coegerit, novit calamitas oppressorum. Nam
abbates modo, comites modo, capitaneos modo, domesticos modo,
familiarissimos modo, causis audiendis et examinandis prae-
posuit. Rex denique cum tot fideles suos conditionibus tam
diversis obnoxios publicis utilitatibus praefecisset, nee alicujus
publice retractasset sententiam, suffiagium aliud commodis pri-
vatorum utiiius non inveniens, oculos erexit ad caelum, et de
terrestribus cogitans et aliquid mutuans a caelestibus, sic homi
nibus providere curavit, ut homines ab hominum generalitate
secerneret, qui licet viverent inter homines superintendentes
hominibus, aliquid haberent, aliquid sentirent, aliquid auderent
plus homine. Transcerisis igitur omnibus quae mutabilitati
poterant subjacere de facili, rex ad sanctuarium Dei recurrens,
Wintoniensem, Elyensem, Norwicensem episcopos archijusti-
tiarios regni, sed certis in locis, ea forsan consideratione consti-
tuit, ut si ceteri quos longe prius praemiserat ipsum regnantem
in terra minus reveriti fuerint, isti saltern Deum Regem regum,
hominum Creatorem, Judicem conscientiarum, operum Re-
tributorem, revererentur attentius et ardentius, ut nee ad sinis-
tram declinantes vel ad dexteram, nee opprimerent in judicio
pauperem, nee causam divitis ob acceptionem muneris colorare
praesumerent. Itaque si se negotiis saecularibus contra cano-
num instituta praesules immiscuerint et ob hoc trahantur in
causam, regis instantiam, regis intentionem piam, suam ac
tionem Deo placendam, plurimis profuturam, ab hominibus
collaudandam, rigori canonum instanter opponant ; sic reatum
culpae fraternae caritatis intuitus poterit mitigare. Consilium
tamen est ut ad Rogeri bonae memoriae quondam episcopi
Saresberiensis opus laudabile frequenter recurrant, qui siniili
devotione constrictus non se prius professus est regni justi-

IT-3 Excerpts. 1 33
tiarium, quam ab ecclesia Romana, quam ab Anselmo, Radulfo,
Willelmo Cantuariensibus archiepiscopis, juxta temporum suc-
cessionem cum obedientiae virtute sibi fuerit hoc onus imposi-
tum. Ab episcopis igitur supradictis et a conjudicibus eorundem
querelis justitia mediante decisis, reservatis quibusdam ad prin
cipis audientiam, regi ratio redditur administrationis, VI. kalen
das Septembris, apud Westmonasterium. . . . Gratia caelestis
hoc anno terrenas potestates in earn erga subditos affectionem
induxit, ut singulis querelas habentibus tam in foro civili quam
ecclesiastico sancta consideratione prospectum esse non dubites.
Eo namque decursum est, ut in comitiis sicut supradiximus rege
procurante praesideant praesules et disceptationibus quaestionum
forensium quae sanguinis poenam non irrogant, audientiam suam
accommodent. Rursus ad consistorinm archiepiscopi Cantua
riensis, si Veritas tibi comes fuerit, cum animi tranquillitate
potes securus accedere pro merito causae calculum reportaturus.
Ne sui siquidem assessores, quos in dandis consiliis et litibus
dirimendis habet assiduos, a via veritatis exorbitent, et in
pecuniae corruptelam partium studia litigantium universi negotii
spem universam reponant, cur et quando terribiles in medium
proponi scripturas civiliter introductum sit memoriter tenuerunt.
Nam omnes communi sponsione devincti tactis sacrosanctis evan-
geliis publice juraverunt, nemine deferente, se conservaturos in
posterum modis omnibus suas manus immunes a munere.
Promisit illud idem archiepiscopus in verbo veritatis apud
Pageham. A.D. 1 180. Ben. Abb. i. 263. Henricus rex Angliae fecit
in Anglia novam monetam fieri, et praecepit quod a festo Sancti
Martini non caperetur alia moneta in Anglia quam ilia nova : vetus
namque moneta corrupta fuit, et rex monetarios suos redemit, id
est, ad redemptionem coegit.
A. D. 1 181. Ben. Abb. i. 278. Rex Angliae fecit. . . . assisam
de armis habendis in Anglia.
A.D. 1 184. Ben. Abb. i. 311. Interim papa Lucius misit
nuncios suos ad regem Angliae postulans ab eo et ab clericatu
Angliae auxilium ad defensionem patrimonii Beati Petri contra
Romanos. Rex vero in Angliam misit nuncium suum ad epi-
scopos Angliae ut per eorum consilium providentius responderet
nunciis domini papae. Illi vero congregati Lundoniis coram
Ranulfo de Glanvil, justitiario regis, de communi eorum consilio
mandaverunt domino regi, quod in consuetudinem verti posset
ad detrimentum regni si permitteret nuncios domini papae in
Angliam venire ad collectam faciendam ; et ideo de eorum con-

134 Henry II. [part
silio erat, ut dominus rex secundum voluntatem suam et hono
rem, auxilium faceret domino papae. Dicebant enim quod
tolerabilius esset et plus eis placeret, quod dominus rex de eis
acciperet si vellet recompensationem auxilii quod ipse faceret
domino papae. Quorum consilio dominus rex adquievit.
Ib. p. 323. Eodem anno post obitum Thomae filii Bernardi,
qui, post discessum Alani de Novil, fuit magister forestarius et
justitiarius per totam Angliam, dominus rex divisit forestas suas
in Anglia in plures partes et unicuique parti praefecit quatuor
justitiarios, scilicet duos clericos et duos milites : et constituit
in unaquaque parte duos servientes de domo et familia ipsius,
custodes venationis et viridis super omnes forestarios alios tam
regis quam baronum et militum ; et postea fecit praedictos jus
titiarios et servientes jurare, tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, quod
. . . assisas de foresta servarent.
A.D. 1 188. Ben. Abb. ii. 33. Rex consilio fidelium suorum
elegit clericos et laicos de quorum prudentia confidebat, et misit
eos per singulos comitatus ad decimas colligendas secundum
praedictam praeordinationem in terris suis transmarinis consti-
tutam. Sed de singulis urbibus totius Angliae fecit eligere
omnes ditiores, scilicet de Lundonia cc. et de Eboraco c. et de
aliis urbibus secundum numerum et quantitatem eorum, et fecit
omnes sibi praesentari diebus et locis statutis. De quibus cepit
decimam reddituum et mobilium suorum secundum aestima-
tionem virorum fidelium qui redditus et mobilia eorum noverant.
Si quos autem invenisset rebelles, statim fecit eos incarcerari et
in vinculis teneri donee ultimum quadrantem persolverent
Similiter fecit de Judaeis terrae suae, unde inaestimabilem sibi
adquisivit pecuniam.

Charter of Libeeties issued by Henry IL
This charter of Henry II, which, like the similar one of
Stephen, was issued probably at the coronation, is simply a
confirmation of that of his grandfather, but would naturally
be construed to cover any reforms carried out on the principles
set forth in that charter, such as the fixing a reasonable sum for
reliefs, and the administration of justice in the country at large
through visitations of the Curia Regis. The meaning of con-
suetudo, like our word custom, must often be understood with
reference to pecuniary exactions, especially when qualified by the

IV.J Constitutions of Clarendon. 135
word malae. Richard de Luci, who attests the charter, is the
Great Justiciar, and the fact that it is attested by him points to
the date of the charter as being probably earlier than the ap
pointment of Thomas as Chancellor.
Carta Begis Henrici Secundi.
Heneicus Dei gratia Rex Angliae, dux Normanniae et Aqui-
tanniae, et comes Andegaviae, omnibus comitibus, baronibus et
fidelibus suis Francis et Anglicis salutem. Sciatis me ad hono
rem Dei et sanctae ecclesiae et pro communi emendatione totius
regni mei, concessisse et reddidisse et praesenti carta mea con-
firmasse Deo et sanctae ecclesiae et omnibus comitibus et
baronibus et omnibus hominibus meis omnes concessiones et
donationes et libertates et liberas consuetudines quas rex
Henricus avus meus eis dedit et concessit. Similiter etiam
omnes malas consuetudines quas ipse delevit et remisit, ego
remitto et deleri concedo pro me et haeredibus meis. Quare
volo et firmiter praecipio quod sancta ecclesia et omnes comites
et barones et omnes mei homines, omnes illas consuetudines et
donationes et libertates et liberas consuetudines habeant et
teneant, libere et quiete, bene et in pace et integre, de me et
haeredibus meis, sibi et haeredibus suis, adeo libere et quiete
et plenarie in omnibus sicut Rex Henricus avus meus eis dedit
et concessit et carta sua confirmavit. Teste Ricardo de Luci
apud Westmonasterium. — (Statutes of the Realm, — Charters of
Liberties, p. 4.)

A.D. 1 164. Constitutions of Clarendon.
The following copy of the Constitutions of Clarendon is prob
ably the exact form in which they were reported to the king
and confirmed by the bishops and barons. The list of the
barons is especially valuable as showing the composition of the
'Commune Concilium regni' at the period, and may be com
pared with the corresponding lists attached to the confirmations
of the great Charter of John. Besides the importance of the
Constitutions themselves in their bearing on the relations of
Church and State in England, the following points of con
sequence, more immediately touching Constitutional History and
the growth of our legal system, are worthy of attention. 1. The
reservation to the Curia Regis of questions of Presentation and

136 Henry II. [part
Advowson for the decision of which the Assize of Darrein pre
sentment was issued, the only vestiges of which are preserved in
Glanvill. 2. The maintenance of the relations between the
ecclesiastical and civil jurisdictions which had been introduced
into England by William the Conqueror. Under the Anglo-Saxon
system, in which the bishop and archdeacon sat in the shire
moot and hundred-moot, all offences touching the clergy, except
those of a purely spiritual character, which were treated of in
special courts and councils, were decided according to the law of
the land, which provided abundantly for such cases : nor until
the canon law began to be studied, which was after the publica
tion of the Collection of Ivo of Chartres, was much incon
venience found to result from conflicting jurisdictions. The
Decretum of Gratian appeared towards the end of Stephen's
reign, and appeals to Rome multiplied as the influence of the
Italian lawyers increased. The necessity for the restrictive
action of the Constitutions of Clarendon will be learned from
the events which led up to them : although these events are to
be ascribed no doubt largely to the exaggerated influence of the
canon law, it ought not to be forgotten that the source of the
evil was in the Conqueror's measure of division. 3. The notice
of the use of a jury (Art. 6), and of the principle of recognition
by twelve lawful men in case of a dispute as to the tenure of an
estate alleged to be in franc-almoign (Art. 9), is the earliest case
of such mention in anything like statute law. It is not, how
ever, to be supposed that this is the act of the institution of
such recognitions, of which probably many earlier instances
might be found. 4. The direction that elections to the bishoprics
and abbacies shall take place in the royal chapel, subject to the
approval of the king and his council, is in conformity with the
usage of Henry I, and with the practice of the West-Saxon
kings of England. But the right of election had long been
claimed for the clergy of the church whose vacancy was to be sup
plied. As early as the eighth century the letters of Alcuin give
proof that such liberty was possessed by the clergy of York, and
the subsequent restriction was probably owing to the example
set by the emperors in France and Germany. Generally the

IT-J Constitutions of Clarendon. 137
Anglo-Saxon bishops were appointed by the king and witan,
but there are traces, from the date of Theodore to the Con
quest, of free elections occasionally allowed, and constantly
claimed. It was the Peace of Anselm and Henry I that gave
the king an absolute and legal influence in this matter. 5. The
restriction of the liberty of 'rustics' or 'natives' to take holy
orders, is not to be understood as intended to depress a class of
people whom in other matters the king was anxious to raise,
but as a security to the landowners that they should not lose
the services of their villeins. The villeins were in fact labourers
whose wages were paid in land, the tenure of which, having
become settled to villenage, could not be altered or readjusted so
as to idemnify the lord for the loss of the labour consequent on
the ordination of his villein. It is possible also, considering the
similar article of the Assize of Clarendon (below, p. 145), that
orders or religious vows were sometimes used by villeins as an
expedient for escaping from the jurisdiction of their lords, and
thus increased the number of disreputable clerks whose miscon
duct necessitated Henry's measure of reform.
Anno ab Incarnatione Domini M°C0LX°IV°, papatus Alex-
andri anno IVt0, illustrissimi regis Anglorum Henrici secundi
anno decimo, in praesentia ejusdem regis, facta est ista recor-
datio vel recognitio cujusdam partis consuetudinum et libertatum
et dignitatum antecessorum suorum, videlicet regis Henrici avi
sui, et aliorum quae observari et teneri debent in regno. Et
propter dissensiones et discordias quae emerserant inter clerum
et Justitias domini regis et barones regni de consuetudinibus et
dignitatibus, facta est ista recognitio coram archiepiscopis et
episcopis et clero et comitibus et baronibus et proceribus regni.
Et easdem consuetudines recognitas per archiepiscopos et epi-
scopos et comites et barones et per nobiliores et antiquiores
regni, Thomas Cantuariensis archiepiscopus, et Rogerus Ebora
censis archiepiscopus, et GiUebertus Londoniensis episcopus, et
Henricus Wintoniensis episcopus, et Nigellus Eliensis episcopus,
et Willelmus Norwicensis episcopus, et Robertus Lincolniensis
episcopus, et Hilarius Cicestrensis episcopus, et Jocelinus Saris-
beriensis episcopus, et Ricardus Cestrensis episcopus, et Bartholo-
maeus Exoniensis episcopus, et Robertus Herefordensis episcopus,
et David Menevensis episcopus, et Rogerus Wigornensis electus,
concesserunt, et in Verbo Veritatis viva voce firmiter promiserunt

138 Henry II. [part
tenendas et observandas, domino regi et haeredibus suis, bona
fide et absque malo ingenio, praesentibus istis : Roberto comite
Leghestriae, Reginaldo comite Cornubiae, Conano comite Bri-
tanniae, Johanne comite de Augo, Rogero comite de Clara, comite
Gaufredo de Mandevilla, Hugone comite Cestriae, Willelmo
comite de Arundel, comite Patricio, Willelmo comite de Fer-
rariis, Ricardo de Luci, Reginaldo de Sancto Walerico, Rogero
Bigot, Reginaldo de Warennia, Richero de Aquila, Willelmo de
Braiosa, Ricardo de Camvilla, Nigello de Moubrai, Simone de
Bello Campo, Humfrido de Boun, Matthaeo de Herefordia,
Waltero de Meduana, Manassero Biseth dapifero, Willelmo
Malet, Willelmo de Curci, Roberto de Dunestanvilla, Jocelino de
Baillolio, Willelmo de Lanvalis, Willelmo de Caisneto, Gaufrido
de Ver, Willelmo de Hastinges, Hugone de Morevilla, Alano de
Nevilla, Simone filio Petri, Willelmo Malduit camerario, Johanne
Malduit, Johanne Mariscallo, Petro de Mara, et multis aliis
proceribus et nobilibus regni, tam clericis quam laicis.
Consuetudinum vero et dignitatum regni recognitarum quae-
dam pars praesenti scripto continetur. Cujus partis capitula
haec sunt ;
Cap. i. De advocatione et praesentatione ecclesiarum si con-
troversia emerserit inter laicos, vel inter laicos et clericos, vel
inter clericos, in curia domini regis tractetur vel terminetur.
Cap. ii. Ecclesiae de feudo domini regis non possunt in per-
petuum dari absque assensu et concessione ipsius.
Cap. iii. Clerici rectati et accusati de quacunque re, summoniti
a Justitia regis venient in curiam ipsius, responsuri ibidem de
hoc unde videbitur curiae regis quod ibidem sit respondendum ;
et in curia ecclesiastica, unde videbitur quod ibidem sit respon
dendum ; ita quod Justitia regis mittet in curiam sanctae eccle
siae ad videndum qua ratione res ibi tractabitur. Et si clericus
convictus vel confessus fuerit, non debet de cetero eum ecclesia
tueri. Cap. iv. Archiepiscopis, episcopis, et personis regni, non licet
exire de regno absque licentia domini regis. Et si exierint, si
domino regi placuerit, assecurabunt, quod nee in eundo, nee in
moram faciendo, nee in redeundo, perquirent malum vel damnum
regi vel regno.
Cap. v. Excommunicati non debent dare vadium ad remanens,
nee praestare juramentum, sed tantum vadium et plegium standi
judicio ecclesiae ut absolvantur.
Cap. vi. Laici non debent accusari nisi per certos et legales
accusatores et testes in praesentia episcopi, ita quod archidia-
conus non perdat jus suum, nee quicquam quod inde habere

IVJ Constitutions of Clarendon. 139
debeat. Et si tales fuerint qui culpantur, quod non velit vel
non audeat aliquis eos accusare, vicecomes requisitus ab episcopo
faciet jurare duodecim legales homines de vicineto, seu de villa,
coram episcopo, quod inde veritatem secundum conscientiam
suam manifestabunt.
Cap. vii. Nullus qui de rege tenet in capite, nee aliquis
dominicorum ministroruni ejus, excommunicetur, nee terrae
alicujus illorum sub interdicto ponantur, nisi prius dominus rex,
si in terra fuerit, conveniatur, vel Justitia ejus, si fuerit extra
regnum, ut rectum de ipso faciat : et ita ut quod pertinebit ad
curiam regiam ibidem terminetur, et de eo quod spectabit ad
ecclesiasticam curiam, ad eandem mittatur ut ibidem tractetur.
Cap. viii. De appellationibus si emerserint, ab archidiacono
debent procedere ad episcopum, ab episcopo ad archiepiscopum.
Et si archiepiscopus defecerit in justitia exhibenda, ad dominum
regem perveniendum est postremo, ut praecepto ipsius in curia
archiepiscopi controversia terminetur, ita quod non debet ulterius
procedere absque assensu domini regis.
Cap. ix. Si calumnia emerserit inter clericum et laicum, vel
inter laicum et clericum, de ullo tenemento quod clericus ad
eleemosinam velit attrahere, laicus vero ad laicum feudum, recog-
nitione duodecim legalium hominum, per capitalis Justitiae regis
considerationem terminabitur, utrum tenementum sit pertinens
ad eleemosinam sive ad laicum feudum, coram ipso Justitia regis.
Et si recognitum fuerit ad eleemosinam pertinere, placitum erit
in curia ecclesiastica, si vero ad laicum feudum, nisi ambo de
eodem episcopo vel barone advocaverint, erit placitum in curia
regia. Sed si uterque advocaverit de feudo illo ante eundem
episcopum vel baronem, erit placitum in curia ipsius ; ita quod
propter factam recognitionem seisinam non amittat, qui prior
seisitus fuerat, donee per placitum dirationatum fuerit.
Cap. x. Qui de civitate, vel castello, vel burgo, vel dominico
rhanerio domini regis fuerit, si ab archidiacono vel episcopo
super aliquo delicto citatus fuerit, unde debeat eisdem respondere
et ad citationes eorum satisfacere noluerit, bene licet eum sub
interdicto ponere, sed non debet excommunicari priusquam
capitalis minister domini regis villae illius conveniatur, ut justi-
ciet eum ad satisfactionem venire. Et si minister regis inde
defecerit, ipse erit in misericordia domini regis, et exiude poterit
episcopus ipsum accusatum ecclesiastica justitia cohibere.
Cap. xi. Archiepiscopi, episcopi, et universae personae regni,
qui de rege tenent in capite, habent possessiones suas de domino
rege sicut baroniam, et inde respondent Justitiis et ministris
regis, et sequuntur et faciunt omnes rectitudines et consue-

140 Henry II. [part
tudines regias, et sicut barones ceteri, debent interesse judiciis
curiae domini regis cum baronibus, usque dum perveniatur in
judicio ad diminutionem membrorum vel mortem.
Cap. xii. Cum vacaverit archiepiscopatus, vel episcopatus, vel
abbatia, vel prioratus de dominio regis, debet esse in manu ipsius,
et inde percipiet omnes reditus et exitus sicut dominicos. Et
cum ventum fuerit ad consulendum ecclesiae, debet dominus rex
mandare potiores personas ecclesiae, et in capella ipsius domini
regis debet fieri electio assensu domini regis et consilio per-
sonarum regni, quas ad hoc faciendum vocaverit. Et ibidem
faciet electus homagium et fidelitatem domino regi sicut ligio
domino, de vita sua et de membris et de honore suo terreno,
salvo ordine suo, priusquam sit consecratus.
Cap. xiii. Si quisquam de proceribus regni defortiaverit
archiepiscopo, vel episcopo, vel archidiacono, de se vel de suis
justitiam exhibere, dominus rex debet eos justiciare. Et si forte
aliquis defortiaverit domino regi rectitudinem suam, archiepi
scopi et episcopi et archidiaconi debent eum justiciare ut
domino regi satisfaciat.
Cap. xiv. Catalla eorum qui sunt in forisfacto regis non
Jetineat ecclesia vel cimiterium contra justitiam regis, quia
ipsius regis sunt, sive in ecclesiis sive extra fuerint inventa.
Cap. xv. Placita de debitis, quae fide interposita debentur,
vel absque interpositione fidei, sint in justitia regis.
Cap. xvi. Filii rusticorum non debent ordinari absque assensu
domini de cujus terra nati dignoscuntur.
Facta est autem praedictarum consuetudinum et dignitatum
recordatio regiarum a praefatis archiepiscopis et episcopis et
comitibus et baronibus, et nobilioribus, et antiquioribus regni,
apud Clarendonam quarto die ante Purificationem Beatae Mariae
perpetuae Virginis, domino Henrico cum patre suo domino rege
ibidem praesente. Sunt autem et aliae multae et magnae con
suetudines et dignitates sanctae matris ecclesiae et domini regis
et baronum regni, quae in hoc scripto non continentur. Quae
salvae sint sanctae ecclesiae et domino regi et haeredibus suis et
baronibus regni, et in perpetuum inviolabiliter observentur.
(Lyttleton's Life of Henry II, vol. iv. pp. 182-185, from MS.
Cotton, Claudius B. 2.)

A.D. 1 166. Assize of Clarendon.
This Assize was issued by the king early in 11 66, after the
Council of Oxford, in which the heretics mentioned in the

iv.] Assise of Clarendon. 141
21st Article were condemned. It is a document of the greatest
importance to our legal history, and must be regarded as in
troducing changes into the administration of justice which
were to lead the way to self-government at no distant time
(I.) It is clear from the first article that a commission of itinerant
justices was to visit the shires, and that to them and the sheriffs
the several juries of the shire and the hundred were to present
notorious or reputed offenders. Henry II has been regarded
as the inventor of the system of itinerant judges, but the
examination of the Great Roll of the Pipe of 31 Henry I shows
that during his reign the practice was observed both for financial
and judicial purposes. These journeys were the substitute
under the Norman kings for the progresses of the earlier
sovereigns, who, whilst moving from one of their estates to
another, heard the complaints of defect of justice in the lower
courts. The annual courts of William the Conqueror, who wore
bis crown and heard causes at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost,
at Gloucester, Winchester, and Westminster, a custom occasionally
observed by William Rufus and Henry I, only partially answered
the same purpose; and for these towards the end of Henry's
reio-n a visitation of the Curia Regis itself seems to have been
substituted. Everything of the kind ceased under Stephen :
and in the earlier years of Henry II the visitation was ap
parently made only by either the Great Justiciar or some other
great officer of the royal household, as the Constable or the
Chancellor. On this particular occasion the visitation was
carried out by the Great Justiciar Richard de Luci, and Geoffrey
Mandeville Earl of Essex; but in 1168 a deputation of four
barons of the Exchequer traversed the country as itinerant
judges and collectors of revenue, and in 1173 the country was
divided for financial purposes into six circuits. Several modi
fications of the numbers and circuits were introduced during
Henry's reign, and the plan was followed up under Richard and
John, until the anarchy which followed the interdict. By Magna
Carta the king undertook to send itinerant commissions four
times a year (Art. 18), to take assizes of Mort-dancester, Novel
Disseisin, and Darrein Presentment ; but this was altered in

143 Henry II. [part
i 2 17 to one annual visitation for this purpose. Whether the
judges so commissioned were competent to transact other busi
ness is not clear, but it seems that from this period the Iter
of the justices for general business was septennial, and not
annual. And these septennial iters were continued until the
reign of Edward I ; nor even then entirely extinguished by the
appointment of justices of assize. The subject is an intricate
one, and only in its earlier stages connected with constitutional
law ; but it may be observed, that much of the confusion that
prevails concerning it is to be traced to the fact, that attention
has not been paid to the variety of commissions under which
such provincial justice was executed. From the first we have
to distinguish between financial and judicial iters, then between
commissions for taking the assize and for trying criminals, and
so on until we come to the state of things described by Black-
stone, under which the judges at assizes sit in five capacities ;
as justices : — (1) of the Peace, (2) of Oyer and Terminer, (3) of
Gaol Delivery, (4) of Assize, (5) of Nisi Prius. (II.) The
adoption of presentment and ordeal had the effect of abolishing
the practice of compurgation in the shire-moots, which continued
to be used in the boroughs whose charters exempted them from
the jurisdiction of these courts. The ordeal in these circum
stances being a resource following the verdict of a jury ac
quainted with the fact, could only be applied to those who were
to all intents and purposes proved to be guilty. The abolition
of the ordeal by the Lateran Council in 1 2 1 6, and the impossi
bility of securing perfect justice by the machinery of the grand
jury, led the way to the usage of a second or petty jury, to
traverse the decisions of the former. (III.) The directions that
all qualified persons shall attend the county court to serve on
these juries, and that no franchise is to exclude the sheriffs
from preparing for these visitations and enforcing the frank
pledges, are an important attempt to limit the exercise of feudal
courts of justice and feudal privilege. (IV). The traces of
Anglo-Saxon custom in the treatment of strangers, waifs and
wanderers, and the responsibility of their entertainers, may be
regarded as a proof that the country was still in an unsettled

IV-3 Assize of Clarendon. 143
state, and that the old ends had to be secured by the old means.
(V.) The 20th article has relation to the subject of the last
article of the Constitutions of Clarendon: and the 21st is
of great importance touching the treatment of heresy under
Henry II, which was certainly not so severe as that of offences
against the forest laws.
Incipit Assisa de Clarenduna facta a rege Henrico, scilicet
secundo, de assensu, archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, abbatum,
comitum, baronu/m, totius Angliae. .
1. Inprimis statuit praedictus rex Henricus de consilio
omnium baronum suorum, pro pace servanda et justitia tenenda.
,¦ quod per singulos comitatus inquiratur, et per singulos hundredos,
per xii. legaliores homines de hundredo, et per iv. legaliores
homines de qualibet villata, per sacramentum quod illi verum
dicent : si in hundredo suo vel villata sua sit aliquis homo qui
sit rettatus vel publicTOis quod' ipse sit robator vel murdrator
vel latro vel aliquis qui sit receptor robatorum vel murdratorum
vel latronum, postquam dominus rex fuit rex. Et hoc inquirant
V_Justitiae coram se, et vicecomites coram se.
2. Et qui invenietur per sacramentum praedictorum rettatus
vel publicatus quod fuerit robator vel murdrator vel latro vel
receptor eorum, postquam dominus rex fuit rex, capiatur et eat
ad juisam aquae, et juret quod ipse non fuit robator vel mur
drator vel latro vel receptor eorum postquam dominus rex fuit
rex, de valentia v. solidorum quod sciat.
3. Et si dominus ejus qui captus . fuerit vel dapifer ejus vel
homines ejus requisierint eum per plegium infra tertium diem
postquam captus fuerit, replegiatur ipse et catalla ejus donee
ipse faciat legem suam.
4. Et quando robator vel murdrator vel latro vel receptores
eorum capti fuerint per praedictum sacramentum, si Justitiae
non fuerint tam cito venturae in ilium comitatum ubi capti
fuerint, vicecomites mandent propinquiori Justitiae per aliquem
intelligentem hominem, quod tales homines ceperint ; et Jus
titiae remandabunt vicecomitibus ubi voluerint quod illi ducantur
ante illos : et vicecomites illos ducant ante Justitias ; et cum
- illis ducant de hundredo et de villata ubi capti fuerint, duos
j[_vlegales homines ad portandum recordationem comitatus et
hundredi, quare capti fuerint, et ibi ante Justitiam facient legem
suam. 5. Et de illis qui capti fuerint per praedictum sacramentum
hujus Assisae, nullus habeat curiam vel justitiam nee catalla,

144 Henry II. [part
nisi dominus rex in curia sua coram Justitiis ejus, et dominus
rex habebit omnia catalla eorum. De illis vero qui capti
fuerint aliter quam per hoc sacramentum, sit sicut esse solet et
debet. lA/WtrtU^ <*»\*U~~ U &juX »^AUvtiU- , LfvwA, &\A ¦ - '
6. Et vicecomites qui eos ce23erint ducant eos ante Justitiam
sine alia summonitione quam inde habeant. Et cum robatores
vel murdratores vel latrones et receptores eorum, qui capti
fuerint per sacramentum vel aliter, tradantur vicecomitibus, et
ipsi recipiant eos statim sine dilatione.
7. Et in singulis comitatibus ubi non sunt gaiolae, fiant in
burgo vel aliquo castello regis de denariis regis et bosco ejus si
prope fuerit, vel de alio bosco propinquo, per visum servientium
regis, ad hoc ut vicecomites in illis possint illos qui capti fuerint
pev ministros qui hoc facere solent et per servientes suos,
custodire. 8. Vult etiam dominus rex quod omnes veniant ad comitatus
ad hoc sacramentum faciendum, ita quod nullus remaneat pro
libertate aliqua quam habeat, vel curia vel soca quam habuerit,
quin veniant ad hoc sacramentum faciendum.
9. Et non sit aliquis infra castellum vel extra castellum, nee
etiam in honore de Walingeford, qui vstet vicecomites intrare
in curiam vel terram suam ad videndos francos plegios, et quod
omnes sint sub plegiis : et ante vicecomites mittantur sub libero
plegio. 10. Et in civitatibus vel burgis nullus habeat homines vel
recipiat in domo sua vel terra sua vel soca sua, quos non in
manu capiat quod eos habebit coram Justitia si requisiti fuerint,
vel sint sub francoplegio.
1 1 . Et nulli sint in civitate vel burgo vel castello vel extra,
nee in honore etiam de Walingeford, qui vetent vicecomites
intrare in terram suam vel socam suam, ad capiendum illos qui
rettati fuerint vel publicati quod sint robatores vel murdratores
vel latrones vel receptores eorum, vel utlagati vel rettati de-
foresta ; sed praecipit quod juvent illos ad capiendum eos.
12. Et si aliquis fuerit captus qui fuerit saisiatus de roberia
vel latrocinio, si ipse fuerit diffamatus et habeat malum testi
monium de publicamento, et non habeat warantum, non habeat
legem. Et si non fuerit publicatus, pro saisina quam habet, eat
ad aquam.
13. Et si aliquis fuerit recognoscens coram legalibus homini
bus vel hundredis de roberia vel murdro vel latrocinio vel
de receptione eorum, et postea negare voluerit, non habeat
legem. 14. Vult etiam dominus rex quod ipsi qui facient legem suam

iv.] Assize of Clarendon. 145
et mundi erunt per legem, si ipsi fuerint de pessimo testimonio,
et publice et turpiter diffamati testimonio multorum et legalium
hominum, foras jurent terras regis, ita quod infra viii. dies
mare transibunt, nisi aura eos detinuerit ; et cum prima aura
quam habebunt postea mare transibunt, et ultra in Angliam
non revertentur nisi per misericordiam domini regis : et ibi
sint utlagafi ; et si redierint capiantur sicut utlagati.
15. Et prohibet dominus rex ne aliquis vaivus, id est vagus
vel ignotus, hospitetur alicubi nisi in burgo, et ibi non hospitetur
nisi una nocte, nisi ibi infirmetur, vel equus ejus, ita quod
monstrare possit monstrabile essonium.
16. Et si ibi fuerit plusquam una nocte, capiatur ille et
teneatur donee dominus ejus venerit ad eum plegiandum, vel
donee ipse habeat salvos plegios; et ille similiter capiatur qui
hospitatus fuerit.
17. Et si aliquis vicecomes mandaverit alii vicecomiti quod
homines fugerint de comitatu suo in alium comitatum pro
roberia vel pro murdro vel latrocinio vel receptione eorum, vel
pro utlagia vel pro retta forestae regis, ille capiat eos : et
etiam si per se vel per alios sciat quod tales homines fugerint in
comitatum suum, capiat eos et custodiat donee de eis habeat
salvos plegios.
18. Et omnes vicecomites faciant inbreviari omnes fugitivos,
qui fugerint de suis comitatibus ; et hoc faciant coram comita-
tibus, et illorum nomina scripta portabunt ante Justitias cum
primo ad illos venerint, ut illi quaerantur per totam Angliam, et
eorum catalla capiantur ad opus regis.
19. Et vult dominus rex quod ex quo vicecomites susceperint
summonitiones Justitiarum errantium, ut ipsi cum comitatibus
suis sint ante illos, ipsi congregabunt comitatus suos et in-
quirent omnes qui de novo venerint in suos comitatus post
hanc assisam ; et illos mittent per plegios, quod erunt coram
Justitias, vel illos custodient, donee Justitiae ad eos venerint, et
tunc habebunt coram Justitias.
20. Prohibet etiam dominus rex ne monachi vel canonici
vel aliqua domus religionum recipiant aliquem de populo
minuto in monachum vel canonicum vel fratrem, donee sciatur
de quali testimonio ipse fuerit, nisi ipse fuerit infirmus ad
mortem. 21. Prohibet etiam dominus rex, quod nullus in tota Anglia
receptet in terra sua vel soca sua vel domo sub se, aliquem de
secta illorum renegatorum qui excommunicati et signati fuerunt
apud Oxeneforde. Et si quis eos receperit, ipse erit in miseri-
cordia domini regis ; et domus, in qua illi fuerint, portetur

146 Henry II. [part
extra villain et comburatur. Et hoc jurabit unusquisque vice-
comes quod hoc tenebit, et hoc jurare faciet omnes ministros
suos, et dapiferos baronum, et omnes milites et franco-tenentes
de comitatibus.
22. Et vult dominus rex quod haec assisa tencatur in regno
suo quamdiu ei placuerit. — (MS. Bodl. Bawlinson, C. 641.)

A.D. 1 1 66. Cartel declaratory of Liability to Scutage.
The following letter is one of a large number of answers to
an inquiry made by Henry II in or about the year 1166, as
to the number of knights fees held of his tenants in chief.
The measure was necessitated by the financial policy of the king
who required some guide for the assessment of Scutage in aid
pur file marier; the earlier aids having been raised on the
hidage of the country simply, as recorded in Domesday. It
shows the way in which the barons declared their liability
and that of their tenants at this time. The letter probably
preserves the exact words of the royal writ which it is intended
to answer.
Karissimo domino suo ligio Henrico Regi Anglorum &c. suus
homo ligius Robertus de Brinton salutem et fidele servitium.
Mihi et aliis comparibus meis per litteras vestras innotuit, ut
per fidem et ligantiam quam vobis debemus, vobis per breve
nostrum pendens extra sigillum, mandaremus quot milites
habemus de veteri feodamento de tempore Henrici regis avi
vestri, et quot milites habeamus de novo feodamento post
tempus regis Henrici avi vestri, et quot milites habeamus super
dominium nostrum. Inde est quod vobis, ut domino meo
karissimo, mando quod de veteri feodamento nullum militem
habeo, praeter feodum unius quem mihi cum quadam liberali
muliere, nomine Eva, quae modo est haeres, per servitium unius
milites dedistis, faciendo servitium ad custum vestrum. De novo
autem feodamento nullum habeo militem vel super dominium
meum. Et vobis quidem et filio vestro hominium et ligantiam
feci. [Liber Niger Scacca/rii, ed. Hearne, i. 148, 149]

iv.] Inquest of Sheriffs. 147

A.D. 1 170. Inquest of Sheriffs.
When Henry II returned from the Continent in the spring
of 1 170, after an absence of four years, he was received with
loud complaints of the exactions of the sheriffs and bailiffs, and
of the oppressiveness of their jurisdiction. The country had
been scarcely prepared for the severe way in which the Assize
of Clarendon was carried out, and the payment of the aid
on the marriage of the king's eldest daughter had been felt as
a heavy tax ; but it is . probable that there had been some
misconduct among the royal officers themselves. For Henry,
who was at this moment anxiously contriving the recognition
and coronation of his eldest son, it was very important to keep
the people contented. Accordingly, shortly after Easter, in a
great council at London, he issued the following commission
to a body of barons errant, and removed the sheriffs of nearly
all the counties from their places.
I. He seems to have taken advantage of the opportunity
afforded by the complaints of the people to enter upon a
general investigation of the provincial administration of jus
tice, not merely in the county and hundred courts and royal
demesne, but in the franchises of the barons, lay and eccle
siastical : and further to have inquired narrowly into the con
fiscations of goods of the persons who had fled from justice
under the Assize of Clarendon, showing some suspicion as
to the honesty of the sheriffs both in the examination of
charges and in the disposition of the forfeitures. He seems to
have thought that the aid for the marriage of his daughter,
which we learn from the Pipe Rolls was a very large one,
afforded too great a temptation to the sheriffs. The further
inquiry whether these officers had restored anything, as hush-
money, to those who had complained to the king, with a view
of stifling their complaints, is very significant. The examina
tion into the administration of the forests completed the survey
of the whole system of jurisdiction existing in the country;
and the report, if it ever was made, must have been a record

I4« Henry II. [part
of the most interesting kind conceivable. It is probable that
the result was on the whole satisfactory, as the historian tells
us that no further proceedings were taken against the sheriffs.
II. The sheriffs removed on this occasion from their offices
were most of them local magnates, whose chances of oppression
and whose inclination towards a feudal administration of justice
were too great. In their place Henry instituted officers of the
Exchequer, less closely connected with the counties by property,
and more amenable to royal influence as well as more skilled
administrators — another step towards the concentration of the
provincial jurisdiction under the Curia Regis.
In primis exigent barones vadium et plegium ab omnibus
vicecomitibus qui fuerunt vicecomites postquam dominus rex
uovissime transfrstavit in Normanniam, et ab omnibus qui
fuerunt post terminum ilium baillivi vel ministri eorum qui-
cunque baillivam de eis habuerunt ; et ab omnibus illis qui
post terminum ilium tenuerunt hundredos baronum quos ipsi
habent in comitatu, sive eos tenuerint ad firmam, sive in
custodia ; — quod erunt coram domino rege die quem ipsi eis
constituerint ad faciendum rectum et adreciandum ei et homi
nibus suis quod adreciare debuerint. Et si vicecomites ante eos
propter infirmitatem venire non possunt, mittant loco suo qui
pro eis respondeant, et dent vadium et plegium sufficientem pro
vicecomitibus et pro se ipsis, quod coram domino rege facient
hoc quod vicecomites facere debent ad diem constitutum.
Postea capient sacramentum ab omnibus baronibus et mili-
tibus et liberis hominibus de comitatu, quod verum dicent de
hoc [quod] ab eis inquiretur ex parte domini regis ; et quod non
celabunt veritatem pro amore alicujus vel odio vel pretio vel
praemio vel timore vel promissione vel pro ulla re.
Hie est modus inquisitionis : — (I.) Inquiratur de vicecomiti
bus, inprimis, et baillivis eorum, quid vel quantum acceperint
de singulis hundredis et de singulis villatis, et de singulis
hominibus, postquam dominus rex transfretavit, unde terra vel
homines gravati sint ; et quid acceperint per judicium comitatus
vel hundredi, et quid sine judicio, et quid inquisierint captum
esse per judicium scribatur separatim, et quid sine judicio
scribatur separatim ; et de omnibus prisis inquirent causam et
testimonium. II. Similiter inquiratur de archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbati-
bus, comitibus, baronibus et eorum senescallis et ministris, quid

rv.] Inquest of Sheriffs. 149
vel quantum acceperint per terras suas post terminum praedic
tum, de singulis hundredis suis et de singulis villatis suis, et de
singulis hominibus suis, per judicium vel sine judicio ; et omnes
prisas illas scribant separatim et causas et occasiones earum.
III. Et similiter inquirant de hominibus illis qui post termi
num ilium habuerunt alias baillivas de domino rege in custodia,
sive de episcopatu, sive de abbatia, sive de baronia, sive de
honore aliquo vel eschaeta.
IV. Et similiter inquiratur de baillivis regis qui per terram
suam erraverunt pro negotiis regis faciendis, quid eis datum sit ;
et quid inde inquisierint, scribant.
V. Item de catallis fugitivorum pro Assisa de Clarendune,
et de catallis eorum qui per assisam illam perierunt, inquiratur
quid actum sit, et quid inde exierit de singulis hundredis et
singulis villatis, et diligenter et intente scribatur. Et similiter
inquiratur si aliquis in assisa ilia injuste retatus fuerit, pro
praemio vel promissione vel odio vel alio injusto modo ; et an
aliquis retatus relaxatus fuerit vel reus pro praemio vel promis
sione vel amore, et quis inde praemium acceperit, et hoc similiter
Rcribatur. VI. Et inquiratur de auxiliis ad maritandam filiam regis,
quid inde exierit de singulis hundredis et singulis villatis, sive in
redditis sive in perdonis, et cui illud traditum fuerit et libera-
tum. VII. Et inquiratur quid vel quantum acceperint fbrestarii
vel baillivi vel ministri eorum, post terminum praedictum, in
baillivis suis, quocunque modo illud ceperint vel quacunque
occasione ; et si quid perdonaverint de rectis regis pro praemio
vel promissione vel pro amicitia aliqua. Et de forisfactis forest-
arum; de hiis qui forestis suis forisfecerunt, et cervis et bisiis
et aliis bestiis salvagiis ; et quod inde inquisierint, scribant
diligenter ; et si forestarii vel baillivi eorum aliquem ceperint
vel attachiaverint per vadium et plegium, vel retayerint, et
postea sine judicio per se relaxaverint, qui haec fecerint inqui-
rantur et inbrevientur.
VIII. Et omnes qui retati fuerint de aliquo reto ponantur per
vadium et plegium quod sint coram domino rege die quem eis
ponent, et quod rectum facient, et quod adresciabunt ei et homi
nibus suis quod adresciare debuerint, et quibus plegii desunt,
custodiantur. ,
IX. Et inquiretur si vicecomites vel quicunque baillivi
aliquid reddiderint de hiis quae ceperint, vel si pacem aliquam
fecerint cum hominibus postquam audierunt adventum domini
regis, pro disturbare ne querimonia inde ad dominum regem
veniret.

150 Henry II. [part
X. Et de admerciatis inquiratur, si aliquis relaxatus fuerit
pro praemio vel amore de hoc quod fuerit primum admerciatus,
et per quem hoc factum fuerit.
XI. Inquiratur qui sunt qui debent domino regi homagium
et non fecerunt, neque illi neque filio suo, et inbrevientur.
XII. De dominiis domini regis inquiratur si curiae sint
clausae de fossatis et hjis, et si sint ibi grangiae et bovariae
et bercheriae, et aliae domus et instauramenta sicut dominus rex
praecepit antequam transfretaret.
XIII. Et postquam inquisiti fuerint, vicecomites mei et mi-
nistri adhibeantur ad cetera negotia mea et jurent quod legaliter
intendent inquisitioni faciendae per terras baronum. — (MS. Bodl.
Bawlinson, C. 641.) . , ¦ , , . , ., . ; (J^UUll)

A.D. 1 176. Assize of Northampton.
The Assize of Northampton is a re-issue and expansion of
the Assize of Clarendon issued in 1166, drawn up in the form of
instructions to the six committees of judges who were to visit
the circuits now marked out. The earlier articles of this Assize
correspond with those of Clarendon, but are more severe in the
punishment prescribed, and place less power in the hands of the
sheriffs. The later articles, which are new and are to be care
fully compared with the great Charter of John, are of leading
importance as touching the tenure of lands, reliefs, dower, and
similar points. The Assize has considerable significance as a
political measure also ; for it is the first judicial act of import
ance since the quelling of the rebellion of n 73: and in this
aspect deserves examination in such points as the exaction of
the oaths of fealty from all classes, freeholders and villeins alike ;
the complete destruction of the castles which had been held
against the king ; the present custody of all the castles ; and the
registration of all fugitives and outlaws.
Hae sunt Assisae factae apud Clarendune, et postea recordatae
apud Northamtoniam.
1. Si quis retatus fuerit coram justitiariis domini regis de
murdro vel latrocinio, vel roberia, vel receptatione hominum

iv.] Assize of Northampton. 151
talia facientium, vel de falsoneria vel iniqua combustione, per
sacramentum duodecim militum de hundredo, et si milites non
adfuerint, per sacramentum duodecim liberorum legalium homi
num, et per sacramentum quatuor hominum de unaquaque villa
hundredi, eat ad judicium aquae, et si perierit alterum pedem
amittat. Et apud Northamtoniam additum est pro rigore jus
titiae quod dexterum similiter pugnum cum pede amittat, et
regnum abjuret, et infra quadraginta dies a regno exulet. Et si
ad aquam mundus fuerit, inveniat plegios et remaneat in regno,
nisi retatus fuerit de murdro vel alia turpi felonia per commune
comitatus et legalium militum patriae, de quo si praedicto
modo retatus fuerit, quamvis ad aquam salvus fuerit, nihilo-
minus infra quadraginta dies a regno exeat, et catalla sua
secum asportet, salvo jure dominorum suorum, et regnum ab
juret in misericordia domini regis. Haec autem assisa afenebit
a tempore quo assisa facta fuit apud Clarendonam, continue
usque ad hoc tempus ; et amodo quamdiu domino regi placuerit,
in murdro, et proditione, et iniqua combustione, et in omnibus
praedictis capitulis nisi in minutis furtis et roberiis, quae facta
fuerunt tempore guerrae, sicut de equis et bobus et minoribus
rebus. 2. Item nulli liceat neque in burgo neque in villa hospitari
aliquem extraneum, ultra unam noctem, in domo sua, quem ad J
rectum habere noluerit, nisi hospitatns ille essonium rationabile "
habuerit, quod hospes domus monstret vicinis suis. Et cum
recesserit, coram vicinis recedat et per diem.
3. Si quis saisitus fuerit de murdro vel latrocinio vel roberia
vel falsoneria, et inde sit cognoscens, vel de aliqua alia felonia
quam fecerit, coram praeposito hundredi vel burgi, et coram
legalibus hominibus ; id postea coram Justitiis negare non poterit.
Et si idem sine saisina coram eis aliquid hujusmodi recognoverit,
hoc similiter coram Justitiis negare non poterit.
4. Item si quis obierit francus-tenens, haeredes ipsius rema-
neant in tali saisina qualem pater suus habuit die qua fuit vivus
et mortuus, de feodo suo ; et catalla sua habeant unde faciant
divisam defuncti : et dominum suum postea requirant, et ei
faciant de relevio et aliis quae ei facere debent de feodo suo.
Et si haeres fuerit infra aetatem, dominus feodi recipiat homa-
gium suum et habeat in custodia ilium quamdiu debuerit. Alii
domini, si plures fuerint, homagium ejus recipiant, et ipse faciat
eis quod facere debuerit. Et uxor defuncti habeat dotem suam
et partem de catallis ejus quae earn contingit. Et si dominus
feodi negat haeredibus defuncti saisinam ejusdem defuncti quam
exigunt, Justitiae domini regis faciant inde fieri percognitionem

15a Henry II. [vas.i
per duodecim legales homines, qualem saisinam defunctus inde
habuit die qua fuit vivus et mortuus : et sicut recognitum fuerit,
ita haeredibus ejus restituant. Et si quis contra hoc fecerit et
inde attaintus fuerit, remaneat in misericordia regis.
5. Item Justitiae domini regis faciant fieri recognitionem de
dissaisinis factis super Assisam, a tempore quo dominus rex
venit in Angliam proximo post pacem factam inter ipsum et
regem filium suum.
6. Item Justitiae capiant domini regis fidelitates infra clausum
Pascha, et ad ultimum infra clausum Pentecosten, ab omnibus,
scilicet comitibus, baronibus, militibus et libere tenentibus, et
etiam rusticis, qui in regno manere voluerint. Et qui facere
noluerit fidelitatem, tanquam inimicus domini regis capiatur.
Habent etiam Justitiae praecipere, quod omnes illi qui nondum
fecerunt homagium et ligantiam domino regi, quod ad terminum
quem eis nominabunt veniant et faciant regi homagium et ligan
tiam sicut ligio domino.
7. Item Justitiae faciant omnes justitias et rectitudines spec-
tantes ad dominum regem et ad coronam suam, per breve do
mini regis, vel illorum qui in loco ejus erunt, de feodo dimidii
militis et infra, nisi tam grandis sit querela quod non possit
deduci sine domino rege, vel talis quam Justitiae ei reportent
pro dubitatione sua, vel ad illos qui in loco ejus erunt. Inten-
dant tamen pro posse suo ad commodum domini regis faciendum.
Faciant etiam assisam de latronibus iniquis et malefactoribus
terrae ; quae assisa est per consilium regis filii sui et hominum
suorum, per quos ituri sunt comitatus.
8. Item Justitiae provideant quod castella diruta prorsus
diruantur et diruenda bene prosternantur. Et nisi hoc fecerint,
dominus rex judicium curiae suae de eis habere voluerit sicut
de contemptoribus praecepti sui.
9. Item Justitiae inquirant de excae.tis, de ecclesiis, de terris,
de feminis quae sunt de donatione domini regis.
10. Item baillivi domini regis respondeant ad scaecarium,
tam de assiso redditu, quam de omnibus perquisitionibus suis,
quas faciunt in bailliis suis ; exceptis illis quae pertinent ad
vicecomitatum. n. Item Justitiae inquirant de custodiis castellorum, et qui,
et quantum, et ubi eas debeant, et postea mandent domino regi.
12. Item latro, ex quo capitur, vicecomiti tradatur ad cus-
todiendum. Et si vicecomes absens fuerit, ducatur ad proxi-
mum castellannm, et ipse ilium custodiat donee ilium liberet
vicecomiti. 13. Item Justitiae faciant quaerere per consuetudinem terrae

iv.] Assize of Arms. 153
illos qui a regno recesserunt ; et nisi redire voluerint infra ter
minum nominatum, et stare ad rectum in curia domini regis,
postea utlagentur ; et nomina utlagorum afferant ad Pascha, et
ad festum Sancti Michaelis, ad scaccarium, et exinde mittantur
domino regi. — (Benedictus Abbas, i. 108.)

A.D. 1181. Assize of Arms.
The trinoda necessitas, the obligation on all free men possessing
land in full ownership, implied the duty of expeditio or fyrdy
in addition to the maintenance of bridges and local defences
(brig-bot and burh-bot). And this obligation to military service in
defence of the country or of the peace survived the earlier system,
and was not merged in the military machinery of feudalism. It
was by the means of a general levy of the whole population of the
shire under its ealdorman that the early wars against the Danes
were fought, and to the want of a general centre, probably, their
failure is to be ascribed. The hus-carls of Canute, on the other
hand, were the germ of a standing army, and an anticipation
of the system of fighting by mercenaries which was adopted by
William the Conqueror and the Norman kings on account of the
insufficiency of the feudal levies. The hatred of the English
towards mercenaries reached a climax in the time of Stephen,
and Henry II only ventured on one occasion to introduce his
Brabancons into the country, after the expulsion of the Flemings.
Neither the feudal levies which were unmanageable and pre
carious, nor the mercenaries who were intolerable to the people,
were available for the purposes served by the ancient national
militia ; and that body, which was the armed English people,
had subsisted side by side with the county court and hundred
court through the Norman period. It was this force which
William Rufus had brought to the seaside for compulsory ser
vice, and had there released on the payment of the sum given
to each man by his shire to provide him with necessaries during
the campaign ; and which, fighting under the banner of Arch
bishop Thurstan, who had called up every parish priest at the
head of his parishioners, had won the battle of the Standard :

154 Henry II. [part
the same force in 1173 had been out in Yorkshire in conjunc
tion with the loyal barons, and had successfully resisted the
Scottish invasion.
The Assize of Arms was a measure not peculiar to England,
but its effect in England was to re-create and re-arm this ancient
force. The effect of the scutages in commutation of personal
service was to diminish the military force under the influence
of the barons, providing the king with mercenaries for his
foreign wars : the Assize of Arms was intended to create a force
for national defence, safer and more trustworthy than the feudal
levies. And this purpose it seems to have answered ; it was
renewed or re-issued by Henry III in an expanded form and in
conjunction with the system of Watch and Ward : and subse
quent legislation by Edward I in the statute of Winchester, by
Henry IV, Philip and Mary, and James I, has brought it down,
in principle, to our own times as the militia. The importance
of the Assize as illustrating the constitutional point of recog
nition by jury for the purpose of taxation, and the growing
tendency to connect local and central administration, depends
chiefly on Article 9. The use of the words communa liberorum
hominum, in Article 3, is also interesting, and gives a sort of
clue to the political tendency of the whole Act.
Assisa de Armis habendis in Anglia.
1. Quicunque habet feodum unius militis habeat loricam et
cassidem, clypeum et lanceam ; et omnis miles habeat tot loricas
et cassides, et clypeos et lanceas quot habuerit feoda militum in
dominico suo.
2. Quicunque vero liber laicus habuerit in catallo vel in
redditu ad valentiam de xvi. marcis, habeat loricam et cassidem
et clypeum et lanceam ; quicunque vero liber laicus habuerit
in catallo vel redditu x. marcas habeat aubergel et capellet ferri
et lanceam.
3. Item omnes burgenses et tota communa liberorum homi
num habeant wambais et capellet ferri et lanceam.
4. Unusquisque autem illorum juret, quod infra festum
Sancti Hilarii haec arma habebit, et domino regi Henrico
scilicet filio Matildis imperatricis fidem portabit, et haec arma
in suo servitio tenebit secundum praeceptum suum et ad fidem

Iv-] Assize of Arms. 155
domini regis et regni sui. Et nullus ex quo arma haec habuerit,
ea vendat, nee invadiet nee praestet, nee aliquo alio modo a se
alienet; nee dominus suus ea aliquo modo ab homine suo alienet,
nee per forisfactum, nee per donum, nee per vadium, nee aliquo
alio modo.
5. Si quis haec arma habens obierit, arma sua remaneant
haeredi suo. Si vero haeres de tali aetate non sit, quod armis
uti possit, si opus fuerit, ille qui eum habebit in custodia habeat
similiter custodiam armorum, et hominem inveniat qui armis uti
possit in servitio domini regis, donee haeres de tali aetate sit
quod arma portare possit, et tunc habeat.
6. Quicunque burgensis plura arma habuerit, quam habere
oportuerit secundum hanc assisam, ea vendat vel det vel sic
a se alienet tali homini qui ea in servitio domini regis Angliae
retineat. Et nullus eorum plura arma retineat quam eum se
cundum hanc assisam habere oportuerit.
7. Item nullus Judaeus loricam vel aubergellum penes se
letineat, sed ea vendat, vel det, vel alio modo a se removeat,
ita quod remaneant in servitio regis.
8. Item nullus portet arma extra Angliam nisi per prae-
ceptum domini regis ; nee aliquis vendat arma alicui, qui ea
portet ab Anglia.
9. Item Justitiae faciant jurare per legales milites vel alios
liberos et legales homines de hundredis et de burgis, quot
viderint expedire, qui habebunt valentiam catalli secundum
quod eum habere oportuerit loricam et galeam et lanceam et
clypeum secundum quod dictum est ; scilicet quod separatim
nominabunt eis omnes de hundredis suis et de visnetis et de
burgis, qui habebunt xvi. marcas vel in catallo vel in redditu,
similiter et qui habebit x. marcas. Et Justitiae postea omnes
illos juratores et alios faciant inbreviari, qui quantum catalli vel
redditus habuerint, et qui secundum valentiam catalli vel red-
ditus, quae arma habere debuerint ; et postea coram eis in com
muni audientia illorum faciant legere hanc assisam de armis
habendis, et eos jurare quod ea arma habebunt secundum valen
tiam praedictam catallorum vel redditus, et ea tenebunt in ser
vitio domini regis secundum hanc praedictam assisam in prae-
cepto et fide domini regis Henrici et regni sui. Si vero conti-
gerit quod aliquis illorum qui habere debuerint haec arma, non
sint in comitatu ad terminum quando Justitiae in comitatu illo
erunt, Justitiae ponant ei terminum in alio comitatu coram eis.
Et si in nullo comitatu per quos iturae sunt, ad eos venerit, et
non fuerit in terra ista, ponatur ei terminus apud Westmuster ad
octavas Sancti Michaelis, quod sit ibi ad faciendum sacramentum

1 5*5 Henry II. [part
suum, sicut se et omnia sua diligit. Et ei praecipiatur quod
infra festum praedictum Sancti Hilarii habeat arma secundum
quod ad eum pertinet habendum.
10. Item Justitiae faciant dici per omnes comitatus per quos
iturae sunt, quod qui haec arma non habuerint secundum quod
praedictum est, dominus rex capiet se ad eorum membra et nullo
modo capiet ab eis terram vel catallum.
n. Item nullus juret super legales et liberos homines, qui
non habeat xvi. marcas, vel x. marcas in catallo.
12. Item Justitiae praecipiant per omnes comitatus, quod
nullus sicut se ipsum et omnia sua diligit, emat vel vendat
aliquam navem ad ducendum ab Anglia, nee aliquis deferat vel
deferre faciat maironiam extra Angliam. Et praecepit rex quod
nullus reciperetur ad sacramentum armorum nisi liber homo. —
(Ben. Abb. i. 278; Hoveden, ii. 261.)

A.D. 1 184. Assize of the Forest.
The forests of England were regarded, at least from the time
of the Conquest, as the peculiar and personal property of the
king, subject to his uncontrolled jurisdiction, and out of the
scope of the common law of the realm. In origin, they were
probably the remaining unenclosed woodlands which had been
national property, and became royal demesne in the eleventh
century. There exists a series of directions for the management
of these forests, stated to be enacted by Canute, with the con
sent of the witan. But their authenticity is too uncertain to
allow any argument to be based upon them. His genuine legis
lation on the point is very simple : ' I will that every man be
worthy of his hunting in wood and field on his own estate. And
let every man abstain from my hunting : look, wherever I will
that it should be freed, under full penalty.' (Canute, Saec. § 80.)
The ancient woodlands had been enclosed, with very extensive
additions, as hunting grounds, by the Conqueror and his sons ;
a set of forest customs, cruel to "man and beast, were brought
into use by Henry I ; and the supreme jurisdiction of the king
over all woods and forests, whether on his own soil or not, was
now asserted. This prerogative was odious both to the barons,
whose pleasures and rights it interfered with, and to the people,

iv.] Assize of the Forest. 157
on whom fell the cruelty of the executive administration. And
the charter of Henry I failed to provide any remedy for the
evil ; the article that touches the forests amounting to a refusal
of any limitation of the existing custom. Stephen, in his weak
ness, was compelled to resign all the forests that Henry I had
created, but retained those that subsisted at the death of William
Rufus. The jurisdiction had been resuscitated by Henry II
early in his reign, by the appointment of justices who visited
the forests at the time that the Justices Itinerant ' went the
counties' or ' circuits.' But this, the Assize of Woodstock, is his
first formal act concerning them, that is now in existence. The
eleventh article of Henry's Assize is repealed by the great Charter
of John ; and a parallel may be drawn between the county juris
diction and the forest jurisdiction in several of the other articles,
especially that requiring an oath from every person of twelve
years old and upwards. The punishments prescribed by the
assize are milder than those usual under Henry I, but the rigour
with which the law was enforced was a great ground of com
plaint against Henry II ; and this is altogether the part of his
administration that savours most strongly of tyranny. Henry
was an ardent and indefatigable hunter, and some of his most
important councils were held, and acts performed, at his hunting
palaces, such as Clarendon, Woodstock, and Marlborough.
Incipit Assisa Domini Henrici regis de Foresla.
Haec est assisa domini Henrici regis filii Matildis, in Anglia,
de foresta et venatione sua, per consilium et assensum archi-
episcoporum, episcoporum, et baronum, comitum et nobilium
Angliae, apud Wudestoke.
I. Primum defendit quod nullus ei forisfaciat de venatione
sua nee de forestis suis in ulla re : et non vult quod confident in
hoc quod habuerit misericordiam de illis propter eorum catalla
hue usque qui ei fbrisfecerunt de venatione sua et de forestis
suis. Nam si quis ei amodo forisfecerit et inde convictus fuerit,
plenariam vult de illo habere justitiam qualis fuit facta tempore
regis Henrici avi sui.
2. Item defendit quod nullus habeat arcus, nee sagittas, nee
canes, nee leporarios in forestis suis, nisi habeat warrantum regem
vel aliquem alium qui ei warantizare poterit.

158 Henry II. [part
3. Item defendit quod nullus donet vel vendat aliquid ad
destructionem vel vastum bosci sui, qui sunt infra fores tam regis
Henrici : concedit bene quod capiant de boscis eorum quod
necesse eis fuerit (sc. estoveria), sine vasto, et haec per visum
forestarii regis.
4. Item praecepit quod omnes illi qui habent boscos infra
metas forestae regis, ponant idoneos forestarios in boscis eorum,
de quibus forestariis ipsi quorum bosci fuerint sint plegii, vel
tales inveniant plegios idoneos qui emendare poterunt si forestarii
in aliquo forisfecerint quod domino regi pertineat. Et illi qui
extra metas reguardi boscos habeant in quibus venatio domini
regis pacem habet, nullum forestarium habeant, nisi assisam
domini regis juraverint et pacem venationis suae, et custodem
aliquem ad boscum ejus custodiendum.
5. Item praecipit dominus rex quod forestarii sui capiant
curam super forestain militum et aliorum qui habent boscos
infra metas forestae regis, quod bosci non destruantur ; nam si
super hoc fuerint destructi bosci, sciant bene illi quorum bosci
fuerint destructi, quod de ipsismet vel de eorum terris capietur
emendatio et non de alio.
6. Item dominus rex praecepit quod omnes forestarii sui
jurent quod secundum posse suum tenebunt assisam ejus qualem
earn fecit de forestis suis ; et quod non vexabunt milites neque
alios probos homines de hoc quod dominus rex concedit illis de
boscis eorum.
7. Item rex praecepit quod in quolibet comitatu in quo habet
venationem, ponantur xii. milites ad custodiendum venationem
suam et viridem cum foresta ; et iv. milites ponantur ad
agistandum boscos suos, et ad recipiendum panagium suum
et custodiendum ; et defendit rex quod nullus agistet boscos
suos infra metas forestae antequam bosci regis agistentur ;
et incipit agistamentum domini regis quindecim dies ante
festum Sancti Michaelis, et durat quindecim dies post festum
Sancti Michaelis.
8. Et rex praecepit quod si forestarius ejus habeat boscos
dominicos domini regis in custodia sua, et illi bosci fuerint
destructi, et non possit nee sciat justam causam monstrare
quare bosci destruantur, nihil aliud capiatur a forestario nisi
proprium corpus.
9. Item rex defendit quod nullus clericus ei forisfaciat de
venatione sua nee de forestis suis : praecepit bene forestariis
suis quod si invenerint eos forisfacientes, non dubitent in eos
manum ponere, ad eos retinendum et attachiandum, et ipse
eos bene warantizabit.

".J Saladin Tithe. 159
10. Item rex praecepit quod sua essarta videantur [in quo-
libet tertio anno] nova et Vetera ; et purpresturae suae, et vasta
forestae, et quod inbreviantur quaelibet per se.
11. Item rex praecepit quod [archiepiscopi, episcopi] comites
et barones et milites et libere tenentes et omnes homines veniant
ad summonitionem magistri forestarii sui, sicut se defendi volunt
ne incidant in misericordiam domini regis, ad placitandum
placita domini regis de forestis suis, efc alia negotia sua facienda
in comitatu. 12. Apud Wdestoke rex praecepit, quicunque forisfecerit de
foresta sua semel, de ipso salvi plegii capiantur ; et si iterum
forisfecerit, similiter : si autem tertio forisfecerit, pro tertio
forisfacto nulli alii plegii capiantur de illo, nee aliquid aliud
nisi proprium corpus forisfacientis.
[13. Item praecipit quod omnis homo habens aetatem xii.
annorum, manens infra pacem venationis, juret ejus pacem, et
clerici laicum feodum tenentes.
14. Item praecipit quod expeditatio mastivorum fiat ubi-
cunque ferae suae pacem habent et habere consueverunt.
1 /;. Item praecipit quod nullus tannator vel dealbator cori-
orum maneat in forestis suis extra burgum.
16. Item rex praecipit quod nullus de cetero chaceat ullo
modo ad capiendas feras per noctem infra forestam neque extra,
ubicunque ferae suae frequentant vel pacem habent aut habere
consueverunt, sub poena imprisonamenti unius anni et faciendo
finem et redemptionem ad voluntatem suam, et quod nullus sub
eadem poena faciat aliquam forstallationem feris suis vivam vel
mortuam inter forestam suam et boscos vel alia loca per ipsum
vel progenitores suos deafforestatos.] — (Ben. Abb. ii. clxi.)

A.D. 1 188. Ordinance of the Saladin Tithe.
The importance of this Act, constitutionally, consists in its
being an early attempt to bring taxation to bear on personal
property ; and in the fact of the employment of local jurors to
determine the liability of individuals, as had been done in 1181
in the Assize of Arms. In these points it should be compared
with the corresponding Act of Philip Augustus. A similar but
less complete plan had been tried in 1184.— (Lib. Cust. p. 653.)

160 Henry II. [part

Ordinance of the Saladin Titlie.
i. Unusquisque decimam reddituum et mobilium suorum in
eleemosynam dabit hoc anno, exceptis armis et equis et vestibus
militum, exceptis similiter equis et libris et vestibus et vesti-
mentis et omnimoda capella clericorum, et lapidibus pretiosis
tam clericorum quam laicorum.
2. Colligatur autem pecunia ista in singulis parochiis, prae-
sente presbytero parochiae et archipresbytero, et uno Templario
et uno Hospitalario, et serviente domini regis et clerico regis,
serviente baronis et clerico ejus, et clerico episcopi ; facta prius
excommunication e ab archiepiscopis, episcopis, archipresbyteris
singulis in singulis parochiis, super unumquemque qui decimam
praetaxatam legitime non dederit, sub praesentia et conscientia
illorum qui debent, sicut dictum est, interesse. Et si aliquis
juxta conscientiam illorum minus dederit quam debuerit, eli-
gentur de parochia quatuor vel sex viri legitimi, qui jurati
dicant quantitatem illam quam ille debuisset dixisse ; et tunc
oportebit ilium superaddere quod minus dedit.
3. Clerici autem et milites qui crucem acceperunt, nihil de
decima ista dabunt, sed de proprio suo et dominico : et quicquid
homines illorum debuerint ad opus illorum colligetur per supra-
dictos, et eis totum reddetur.
4. Episcopi autem per litteras suas in singulis parochiis
episcopatuum suorum facient nunciari, et in die Natalis, et
Sancti Stephani, et Sancti Johannis, ut unusquisque decimam
praetaxatam infra purificationem Beatae Virginis penes se colli-
gat, et sequenti die et deinceps, illis praesentibus qui dicti sunt,
ad locum quo vocatus fuerit, unusquisque persolvat. — (Benedictus
Abbas, ii. 31.)

Extracts from Glanvill.
The following extracts contain only such illustrations of the
system of recognition by jury as throw light on the principles of
representation and election existing in the legal system, before
they began to be applied to self-government and to the consti
tution of the Common National Council ; with a few casual no
tices of the condition of villeins and the privileges of boroughs
and franchises.

iv.] - Extracts from. Glanvill. 161
Glanvill, De Legibus Angliae, lib. ii. c. 7. Est autem
magna assisa regale quoddam beneficium, dementia jirincipis
de consilio procerum populis indultum, quo vitae hominum et
status integritati tam salubriter consulitur, ut in jure quod quis
in libero soli tenemento possidet retinendo duelli casum declinare
possint homines ambiguum. Ac per hoc contingit insperatae et
praematurae mortis ultimum evadere supplicium, vel saltern
perennis infamiae obprobrium illius infesti et inverecundi verbi
quod in ore victi turpiter sonat consecutivum. Ex aequitate
autem maxima prodita est legalis ista institutio ; jus enim quod
post multas et longas dilationes vix evincitur per duellum, per
beneficium istius constitutionis commodius et acceleratius expe-
ditur. Assisa enim ipsa tot non expectat essonia quot duellum,
ut ex sequentibus liquebit. Ac per hoc et laboribus hominum
parcitur et sumptibus pauperum. Praeterea quanto magis pon-
derat in judiciis plurium idoneorum testium fides quam unius
tantum, tanto majore aequitate nititur ista constitutio quam
duellum. Cum enim ex unius jurati testimonio procedat duel
lum, duodecim ad minus legalium hominum exigit ista constitutio
juramenta. Pervenitur autem ad assisam ipsam hoc ordine. Quare is
qui se in assisam posuit ab initio, perquiret breve de pace
habenda, ne de cetero ab adversario ponatur in placitum per
breve, quo prius inter eos placitum fuit de tenemento unde
tenens posuit se in assisam. . . .
c. 10. Per talia autem brevia pacem perquirit is qui tenet, et
in assisam se ponit, donee adversarius ad curiam veniens aliud
breve perquirat, ut per quatuor legales milites de comitatu
et de visineto eligantur duodecim milites legales de eodem
visineto, qui super sacramentum suum dicant uter litigantium
majus jus habeat in terra petita. . . .
c. 12. Sed nota quod apparentibus in curia quatuor militibus
die sibi praefixa, paratis duodecim alios eligere, de hoc ex aequo
prodita est quaedam constitutio, juxta quam de consilio curiae
ita solet res expediri, quod sive venerit sive non is qui tenet,
nihilominus per illos quatuor milites, et super eorum sacra
mentum fiet electio duodecim. . . .
c. 14. Facta electione duodecim militum, summonendi sunt
illi ut ad curiam veniant parati super sacramentum suum dicere
quis eorum, scilicet an tenens an petens, majus jus habeat in sua
dem and a. . . .
c. 16. Die autem duodecim militibus praefixa ad recogni-
tionem faciendam, sive venerit is qui tenet sive non, sine dila-
tione recognitio ipsa procedat. . . .
M

162 Henry II. [part
c. 17. Procedente autem assisa ad faciendam recognitionem
ipsam, aut bene notum est jus ipsum ipsis juratoribus, aut
quidam sciunt et quidam nesciunt, aut omnes ignorant. Si
nulli eorum rei veritatem inde sciverint, et hoc in curia super
sacramentum eorum testati sint sive fuerint, ad alios decur-
rendum est donee tales inveniantur qui rei veritatem inde
seierint. Sin autem quidam eorum rei veritatem sciant, quidam
non, rejectis ignorantibus, alii quidem vocandi sunt ad curiam
donee duodecim ad minus reperiantur inde Concordes. Item
si quidam eorum dixerint pro uno, quidam pro alio litigantium,
adjiciendi sunt alii donee duodecim ad minus in alterutram
partem concorditer acquieverint. Jurare autem quilibet eorum
debet, qui ad hoc vocati sunt, quod non falsum inde dicent nee
veritatem tacebunt scienter; ad scientiam autem eorum qui
super hoc jurant inde habendam, exigitur quod per proprium
visum suum et auditum illius rei habuerint notitiam, vel per
verba patrum suorum et per talia quibus fidem teneantur habere
ut propriis. . . .
Lib. v. c. 5. Pluribus autem modis potest ad libertatem aliquis
in villenagio positus deduci, veluti si dominus ejus volens eum
ad libertatem perduci et a se et haeredibus suis quietum clama-
verit ; vel si eum ad liberandum alicui donaverit vel vendiderit.
Illud tamen notandum est quod non potest aliquis in villenagio
positus libertatem suam jjropriis denariis suis quaerere. Posset
enim tunc a domino suo secundum jus et consuetudinem regni
ad villenagium revocari, quia omnia catalla cujuslibet nativi ita
intelliguntur esse in potestate domini sui, quod propriis denariis
suis versus dominum suum a villenagio se redimere non poterit.
Si quis vero extraneus eum ad liberandum emeret suis nummis,
posset quidem perpetuo versus dominum suum qui eum vendi-
derat, se in statu libertatis tueri. . . .
Notandum etiam quod potest quis nativum suum quantum
ad sui ipsius vel haeredum suorum personas liberum facere, non
quantum ad alios. Quia si quis prius nativus, hoc modo ad
libertatem perductus, contra extraneum aliquem ad diratiocina-
tionem faciendam produceretur in curia, vel ad aliquam legem
terrae faciendam, posset inde juste amoveri, si nativitas sua ad
villenagium suum in curia objecta fuerit et probata, etiamsi in
tali statu miles factus esset a villenagio liberatus.
Item si quis nativus quiete per unum annum et unum diem
in aliqua villa privilegiata manserit, ita quod in eorum com-
munam, scilicet gildam tanquam civis receptus fuerit, eo ipso a
villenagio liberabitur. . . .
Lib. ix. c. 1. . . . Episcopi vero consecrati homagium facere

tv.J Extracts from Glanvill. 163
non solent domino regi etiam de baroniis suis, sed fidelitatem
cum juramentis interpositis ipsi praestare solent. Electi vero in
episcopos ante consecrationem suam homagia sua facere solent.
c. 4. . . . Dicitur autem rationabile relevium alicujus juxta
consuetudinem regni, de feodo unius militis centum solidos ; de
socagio vero quantum valet census illius socagii per unum annum ;
de baroniis vero nihil certum statutum est, quia juxta volun-
tatem et misericordiam domini regis solent baroniae capitales de
suis releviis domino regi satisfacere.
c. 8. Postquam vero convenerit inter dominum et haeredem
tenentis sui de rationabili relevio dando et recipiendo, poterit
idem haeres rationabilia auxilia de hominibus suis inde exigere ;
ita tamen moderate secundum quantitatem feodorum suorum,
et secundum facultates, ne nimis gravari inde videantur vel
suum contenementum amittere. Nihil autem certum statutum
est de hujusmodi auxiliis dandis vel exigendis nisi ut praedicta
forma inviolabiliter observetur.
Sunt praeterea alii casus in quibus licet dominis auxilia
similia, sed sub forma praescripta, exigere ab hominibus suis,
veluti si filius et haeres suus miles fiat, vel si primogenitam
filiam suam maritaverit ; utrum vero ad guerram suam manute-
nendam possint domini hujusmodi auxilia exigere quaero. Obti-
net autem quod non possunt ad id tenentes distringere de jure
nisi quatenus facere velint. Possunt autem domini tenentes
suos ad hujusmodi rationabilia auxilia reddenda, etiam suo jure,
sine praecepto domini regis vel ejus capitalis Justitiae, per judi
cium curiae suae distringere per catalla quae in ipsis feodis
invenerint, vel per ipsa f'eoda si opus fuerit ; ita tamen quod
ipsi tenentes inde deducantur juste secundum consideration em
curiae suae et consuetudinem rationabilem : si ergo ad hujusmodi
auxilia rationabilia reddenda posset aliquis dominus tenentes
suos ita distringere, multo fortius districtionem eo modo licite
poterit facere pro ipso relevio .suo vel pro necessario servitio suo
de feodo suo sibi debito.
Lib. xii. c. 6. Solent autem placita ista (sc. de servitio) in
curiis dominorum vel eorum qui loco dominorum habentur
deduci, secundum rationabiles consuetudines ipsarum curiarum,
quae tot et tam variae sunt, ut in scriptum de facili reduci non
possunt. c. 9. Ad vicecomitem autem provinciarum pertinent praedicta
placita de recto ubi curiae dominorum probantur de recto
defecisse. . .
c. 23. Praedicta vero placita sive alia, qualiter vel quo jure
¦deduci sive terminari habeant in diversis comitatibus, omitto,
M 2

164 Henry II. [part
cum propter ipsorum comitatuum consuetudines diversas, quas
quidem singuli comitatus singulas observant, turn quia propositi
mei brevitas illud non exigit, cum non attendam nisi ad ea quae
in capitali curia regis fieri soleant et debeant.
Lib. xiii. c. 1. . . Nunc vero ea quae super seisinis solum-
modo usitata sunt restant prosequenda. Quae quia, ex beneficio
constitutionis regni quae Assisa nominatur, in majori parte
transigi solent per recognitionem, de diversis recognitionibus
restat tractandum.
c. 2. Est autem quaedam recognitio quae vocatur de morte
antecessoris ; quaedam autem de ultimis praesentationibus
personarum in ecclesiis. . . quaedam autem recognitio est quae
dicitur nova disseisina . . .
c. 3. Accepto itaque brevi de morte antecessoris ab ipso
vicecomite, et in comitatu data securitate ab ipso petente de
clamore suo prosequendo, tunc hoc ordine pervenitur ad assisam.
Ab initio eligendi sunt duodecim liberi et legales homines de
visineto secundum formam in brevi expressam. . . . Nomina
etiam illorum duodecim electorum faciet vicecomes imbreviari.
Deinde summonere faciet ipse vicecomes ipsum tenentem. . . .
Et si juratores ipsi dixerint pro petente, adjudicabitur ei inde
seisina et praecipietur vicecomiti quod ei seisinam illam habere
faciat. . . .

Charters of Boroughs granted by Henry II.
The following are specimens of the charters issued by Henry
II in the earlier part of his reign. Towards the end of it he
seems to have avoided granting such permanent liberties, and
to have generally preferred taking fines for the continuance
of privileges or customs from year to year. The grants of these
charters are not much in advance of those of Henry I. The
following list of liberties acquired by fine during the intervening
period is abridged from Madox's History of the Exchequer,
chap. xi. : — In the thirty -first of Henry I the citizens of London
pay 100 marks to have sheriffs of their own choosing : those
of Lincoln pay 200 marks of silver, and four of gold, that they
may hold their city in chief of the king : the weavers of Oxford
pay two marks of gold for their guild ; those of Lincoln, one ;
those of Huntingdon, forty shillings. Thomas of York, son of

!V.j Charters of Towns. 165
Ulviet, gives a coursing dog that he may be alderman of the
Guild of Merchants at York.
In the third of Henry II the citizens of York pay forty
marks for respite that they may not plead outside of the county
until the king's return : in the thirteenth, the burghers of
Bedford pay forty marks to have the same liberties that those
of Oxford have : in the sixteenth, those of Shrewsbury and
Bridgnorth pay a fine to have their town at ferm : in the
twenty-second, the men of Andover pay to have the same
liberties in their guild that those of Wilton and Salisbury
have : and in the twenty-sixth, the men of Preston pay to have
the same liberties as those of Newcastle. In the thirty-
first, the burghers of Cambridge pay three hundred marks of
silver, and one mark of gold, to have their town at ferm,
and be exempt from the intermeddling of the sheriff. In the
fourteenth of Henry II, the men of Horncastle paid £29 13s. 40?.
for the aid to marry the king's daughter, ' quod ipsi assederunt
inter se concessu Justitiarum aliter quam Justitiae.'
Charter of Henry II to Winchester.
Henricus rex Angliae, dux Normanniae et Aquitanniae,
comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comiti
bus, vicecomitibus et omnibus fidelibus suis Francis et Anglis,
et ministris totius Angliae et omnium portuum maris salutem.
Praecipio quod cives mei Wintonienses de gilda mercatorum
cum omnibus rebus suis sint quieti de omni thelonio, passagio
et consuetudine ; et nullus super eos disturbet neque injuriam
neque contumeliam eis faciat super forisfacturam meam. His
testibus, Tho. Cancell. ; Com. Reg.; Com. Gloec; Ric. de Humet,
Constabulario; Gar. fil. Giroldi, Camerario : Will. fil. Ham.;
Joe. Baillol. — (Milner' s Winchester, ii. 300 ; Woodward's Hamp
shire, i. 271.) Charter of Henry II to Winchester.
H. Rex Anglorum, &c. Sciatis me concessisse civibus meis
Wyntoniae omnes libertates et consuetudines quas ipsi habu
erunt in tempore regis Henrici avi mei. Et praecipio quod
habeant et teneant omnia acata et vadia sua et tenementa
sua secundum consuetudines civitatis, ita libere et quiete

166 Henry II. [part
et pacifice, sicut unquam melius tenuerunt tempore regis
Henrici ; et si aliquae consuetudines injuste levatae sunt in
guerra, cassatae sint ; et quicunque petierint civitatem illam
cum mercatu suo, de quocunque loco sint, sive extranei, sive alii,
veniant, morentur et recedant in salva pace mea, reddendo
rectas consuetudines, et nemo eas injuste disturbet super hanc
cartam meam. Et volo et praecipio quod praedicti cives mei
firmam pacem juste habeant. T. Cancellario, etc. Apud Sarum.
— (Woodward's Hampshire, i. 271.)
Charter of Henry II to Lincoln.
Henricus Dei gratia &c. episcopo Lincolniensi, justitiariis, vice
comitibus, baronibus, ministris et omnibus fidelibus suis, Francis
et Anglis Lincolniae salutem. Sciatis me concessisse civibus
meis Lincolniae omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges suas
quas habuerunt tempore Eadwardi et Willelmi et Henrici regum
Angliae, et gildam suam mercatoriam de hominibus civitatis et
de aliis mercatoribus comitatus, sicut illam habuerunt tempore
praedictorum antecessorum nostrorum regum Angliae melius et
liberius. Et omnes homines qui infra quatuor divisas civitatis
manent et mercatum deducunt, sint ad gildas et consuetudines
et assisas civitatis sicut melius fuerunt tempore Edwardi Wil
lelmi et Henrici regum Angliae. Concedo etiam eis quod si
aliquis emerit aliquam terram infra civitatem de burgagio Lin
colniae, et earn tenuerit per annum et unum diem sine calumnia,
et ille qui earn emerit, possit monstrare quod calumniator exstit-
erit in regione Angliae infra annum et non calumniatus est earn,
extunc ut in antea bene et in pace teneat earn et sine placito.
Confirmo etiam eis quod si aliquis manserit in civitate Lincolniae
per annum et unum diem sine calumnia alicujus calumniatoris,
et dederit consuetudines, et poterit monstrare per leges et con
suetudines civitatis quod calumniator exstiterit in regione
Angliae et non calumniatus est eum, extunc ut in antea re-
maneat in pace, in civitate mea Lincolnia, sicut civis meus.
Testibus, E. episcopo Lexoviensi ; Thoma Cancellario ; H. Con-
stabulario ; Henrico de Essex, Constabulario. Apud Nottinge-
ham. — (Foedera, i. 40.)
Charter of Henry II to Nottingham.
Henricus, Rex Angliae, &c. Sciatis me concessisse et hae
carta mea confirmasse burgensibus de Notingeham omnes illas
liberas consuetudines quas habuerunt tempore Henrici avi nostri ;
scilicet tol et theam et infangenethef et telonia a Turmotestona

iv.J Charters of Towns. 167
usque ad Newerc, de omnibus Trentam transeuntibus, ita ple-
narie ut in burgo de Notingeham, et ex alia parte a Duito ultra
Rempeston usque ad aquam de Radeford in Norhantesire.
Homines etiam de Notingehamsire et de Derbescire venire
debent ad burgum de Notingeham die Veneris et Sabbati cum
quadrigis et summagiis suis : nee aliquis infra decern leucas de
Notingeham tinctos pannos operari debet, nisi in burgo de
Notingeham. Et si aliquis undecunque sit in burgo de Not
ingeham manserit anno uno et die uno tempore pacis absque
calumnia, nullus postea nisi rex [in eum] jus habebit. Et qui
cunque burgensium terram vicini sui emerit et possederit per
annum integrum et diem unum absque calumnia parentum ven-
dentis, si in Anglia fuerint, postea earn quiete possidebit ; neque
praeposito burgi de Notingeham aliquem burgensium calumnianti
respondeatur nisi alius fuerit accusator in causa. Et quicunque
in burgo manserit, cujuscunque feodi sit, reddere debet simul
cum burgensibus talliagia et defectus burgi adimplere. Omnes
etiam qui ad forum de Notingeham venerint, a vespere diei
Veneris usque ad vesperam Sabbati, non namientur nisi pro firma
regis. Et iter de Trenta liberum esse debet navigantibus quan
tum pertica una obtinebit ex utraque parte fili aquae. Quare
volo et praecipio quod praedicti burgenses praedictas consuetu
dines habeant et teneant bene et in pace, libere et quiete, et
honorifice et plenarie et integre, sicut habuerunt tempore regis
Henrici avi mei. Teste, &c. — (Foedera, i. 41.)

Charter of Henry II to Oxford.
Henricus rex Angliae, dux Normanniae et Aquitanniae &c.
Sciatis me concessisse et confirmasse civibus meis in Oxenforde
omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges et quietantias quas
habuerunt tempore regis Henrici avi mei, nominatim gildam
suam Mercatoriam cum omnibus libertatibus et consuetudinibus
in terris et in silvis, pasturis et aliis pertinentiis, ita quod aliquis
qui non sit de gildhalla aliquam mercaturam non faciet in
civitate vel suburbiis, nisi sicut solebat tempore regis Henrici
avi mei. Praeterea concessi eis quod sint quieti a theloneo et
passagio et omni consuetudine per totam Angliam et Norman-
niam, per terram, per aquam, per ripam maris, bg land and by
strand. Et habeant omnes alias consuetudines et libertates et
leges suas quas habeant communes cum civibus meis Londonia
rum. Et quod ad festum meum mihi serviant cum illis de
botteleria mea, et facient cum eis mercaturam suam infra Lon-
donias et extra et in omnibus locis. Et si dubitaverint vel

1 68 ' Henry II. [part
contenderint de judicio aliquo quod facere debeant, de hoc
Londonias mittant nuncios suos, et quod,, Londonienses inde
judicabunt firmum et ratum habeant. Et extra civitatem
Oxenforde non placitent de aliquo unde calumniati sunt, sed de
quocunque in placito ponentur se disrationabunt secundum
leges et consuetudines civium Londoniarum et non aliter ; quia
ipsi et cives Londoniarum sunt de una et eadem consuetudine
et lege et libertate. Quare volo &c. quod habeant praedictas
libertates et leges et consuetudines et tenuras suas ita bene et in
pace &c. cum Saca et Soca et Tol et Team et Infangtheof, et cum
omnibus aliis libertatibus et consuetudinibus et quietantiis suis
sicut eas unquam melius habuere tempore regis Henrici avi mei ;
et sicut cives mei Londoniarum eas habent. Testibus Toma Can
cellario, Reginaldo Comite Cornubiae, H. Comite Norfolkiae &c. —
(PeshalVs Oxford, p. 339, from an inspeximus of Queen Eliza
beth.)

DlALOGUS DE SCACCAEIO.

This very important treatise is the work of Richard, Bishop
of London, Treasurer of the Exchequer, son of Nigel, Bishop of
Ely, his predecessor in the office, and great nephew of Bishop
Roger of Salisbury, the original organiser of the administration
of that Court. It is given here in its integrity, as contributing
an extraordinary mass of information on every important point
in the development of constitutional principles before the great
Charter. Even those portions of it which bear more directly
on archaeological and legal questions are worthy of scrutiny, as
indications of the spirit of the time that was preparing for the
great struggle for law against despotic misrule. It is taken
from Madox's edition, as drawn by him from the Red Book of
the Exchequer, a MS. of the thirteenth century ; and for the
first time printed in his invaluable History of the Exchequer.
Praefatio.
Ordinatis a Deo potestatibus in omni timore sublci similiter
et obsequi necesse est. Omnis enim potestas a Domino Deo est.
Non ergo videtur absurdum vel a viris ecclesiasticis alienum,
regibus quasi praecellentibus et ceteris potestatibus serviendo,

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 169
sua jura servare ; praesertim in hiis quae veritati vel honestati
non obviant. Oportet autem hiis servire, non in conservandis
tantum dignitatibus, per quas gloria regiae potestatis elucet,
verum in mundanarum facultatum copiis, quae eos sui status
ratione contingunt : ilia enim illustrant, heae subveniunt. Porro
mobilium copia, vel defectus, principum potestates humiliat vel
exaltat. Quibus enim haec desunt, hostibus praeda erunt :
quibus autem haec suppetunt, hiis hostes in praedam cedunt.
Sane licet haec regibus, plerunque jure non prorsus examinato,
sed patriis quandoque legibus, quandoque cordium suorum con-
siliis occultis, vel solius interdum suae voluntatis arbitrio, pro-
venire contingat, eorum tamen facta ab inferioribus discutienda
vel condempnanda non sunt. Quorum enim corda et motus
cordium in manu Dei sunt, et quibus ab Ipso Deo singulariter
est credita cura subditorum, eorum causa Divino tantum non
humano judicio stat aut cadit. Nemo tamen quantumlibet
dives, si secus egerit, de impunitate sibi blandiatur, cum de
hujusmodi scriptum sit, ' potentes potenter tormenta patientur.'
Igitur qualiscunque sit vel videatur acquirendi causa vel modus,
iis qui ad eorum custodiam ex officio deputantur, cura remissior
esse non debet. Sed in eisdem congregandis, conservandis, vel
distribuendis, sollicitam decet esse diligentiam quasi rationem
reddituris de regni statu, qui per hos incolumis perseverat.
Novimus quidem prudentia, fortitudine, temperantia, sive justitia,
ceterisque virtutibus principaliter regna regi juraque subsistere ;
unde et hiis mundi rectoribus totis est viribus insistendum. Sed
fit interdum ut quod sano consilio vel excellenti mente concipi-
tur, per hanc quasi per quandam negotiorum methodum facilem
consequatur effectum. Non solum autem hostilitatis, sed et
pacis ternpore necessaria videtur : illo enim in municipiis fir-
mandis, in stipendiis ministrandis, et in aliis plerisque locis
pro qualitate personarum ad conservandum regni statum effun-
ditur : hoc vero licet arma quiescant, a devotis principibus con-
struuntur basilicae, Christus alitur et vestitur in paupere, et
ceteris operibus misericordiae insistendo, in misericordia distri-
buitur : in utriusque vero temporis strenuis actibus gloria prin
cipum est ; sed excellit in hiis ubi pro temporalibus impensis
felici mercimonio mansura succedunt. Ea propter, rex illustris,
mundanorum principum maxime, quia saepe te vidimus utro-
que tempore gloriosum, non parcentem quidem pecuniae the-
sauris, sed pro loco, pro tempore, pro personis, legitimis
sumptibus insistentem, modicum opus excellentiae tuae de-
vovimus, non de rebus quidem magnis vel luculento sermone
compositum, sed agresti stylo de scaccarii tui necessariis ob-

170 Henry II. [part
servantiis. Porro super hiis te vidimus quandoque sollicitum,
adeo ut missis a latere tuo viris discretis, de eodem dominum
tunc Eliensem conveneris. Nee fuit absurdum tam excellentis
ingenii virum, tam singularis potentiae principem, inter cetera
majora haec etiam curasse. Sane scaccarium suis legibus non
temere, sed magnorum consideratione subsistit ; cujus ratio si
servetur in omnibus, poterunt singulis sua jura servari, et tibi
plane provenient quae fisco debentur ; quae possit opportune
nobilissimae mentis tuae ministra manus effundere.
Liber Primus.
Anno xxiii. regni regis Henrici secundi, cum sederem ad
fenestram speculae quae est juxta fluvium Tamensem, factum
est verbum hominis in impetu loquentis ad me, dicens, 'magister,
non legisti, quod in scientia vel thesauro abscondito nulla sit uti-
litasT Cui cum respondissem, 'legi;' statim intulit, 'cur ergo
scientiam de scaccario quae penes te plurima esse dicitur alios
non doces, et ne tibi commoriatur scripto commendas?' Turn
ego ; ' ecee, frater, ad scaccarium jam per multa tempora rese-
disti, et nihil te latet, cum scrupulosus sis ; sic et de ceteris qui
assident probabile est.' At ille, ' sicut qui in tenebris ambulant
et manibus palpant, frequenter offendunt : sic illic multi resi
dent, qui videntes non vident, et audientes non intelligent.'
Turn ego ; ' irreverenter loqueris ; nee enim scientia tanta est vel
de tantis ; sed forte sunt illis qui [circa] magna occupantur corda,
ut pedes aquilae, qui parva non retinent, et quos magna non effu-
giunt.' Et ille, ' esto : sed licet aquilae Celsius volant, tamen in
humilibus quiescunt et reficiuntur ; et ob hoc humilia vobis
exponi petimus ipsis aquilis profutura.' Turn ego ; ' veritus sum
de hiis rebus opus contexere, quia corporeis sensibus subjecta
sunt, et cotidianis usibus vilescunt ; nee est vel esse potest in
eis subtilium rerum descriptio. vel jocunda novitatis inventio.
Et ille ; ' qui novitatibus gaudent, qui subtilium rerum fugam
appetunt, habent Aristotelem et libros Platonicos, audiant illos.
Tu scribe non subtilia, sed utilia.' Turn ego ; ' de hiis rebus quas
petis impossibile est nisi rusticano sermone et communibus
loqui verbis.' At ille, velut succensus in iram, desideranti enim
animo nihil satis festinatur, ait : ' artium scriptores ne multa
parum scisse viderentur, et ut ars difficilior cognita fieret, multa
conquisierunt, et verbis incognitis palliarunt : tu vero scri-
bendam artem non suscipis, sed quasdam consuetudines et jura
scaccarii ; quae quia communia debent esse, communibus neces-
sario utendum est verbis ; ut sint cognati sermones rebus de

iv .j Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 171
quibus loquimur. Praeterea, quamvis plerunque nova liceat
nomina fingere, rogo tamen, si placet, ut usitatis rerum ipsarum
vocabulis quae ad placitum sunt uti non pudeat, nee nova difli-
cultas ex insolitis verbis oborta amplius perturbet.' Turn ego ;
1 sensi te iratum ; sed animo aequior esto ; faciam quod hortaris.
Surgens ergo sede ex adverso ; et de hiis quae te offendunt
interroga. Quod si quid inauditum proposueris, non erubesco
dicere, nescio. Sed conveniamus ambo discretiores.' Et ille ;
'ad vota respondes. Licet autem turpis et ridicula res sit ele-
mentarius senex, ab ipsis tamen elementis incipiam.'

I. Quid sit Scaccarium, et quae ratio hujus nominis.
Discipulus. Quid est scaccarium 1
Magister. Scaccarium tabula est quadrangula quae longitu-
dinis quasi decern pedum, latitudinis quinque, ad modum mensae
circumsedentibus apposita, undique habet limbum altitudinis
quasi quatuor digitorum, ne quid appositum excidat. Super-
ponitur autem scaccario superiori pannus in termino Paschae
emptus, non quilibet, sed niger virgis distinctus, distantibus
a se virgis vel pedis vel palmae extentae spatio. In spatiis
autem calculi sunt juxta ordines suos de quibus alias dicetur.
Licet autem tabula talis scaccarium dicatur, transmutatur tamen
hoc nomen ut ipsa quoque curia quae consedente scaccario est
scaccarium dicatur ; adeo ut si quandoque per sententiam aliquid
de communi consilio fuerit constitutum, dicatur factum ad
scaccarium illius vel illius anni. Quod autem hodie dicitur
ad scaccarium, olim dicebatur ad taleas.
D. Quae est ratio hujus nominis 1
M. Nulla mihi verior ad praesens occurrit, quam quod scac-
carii lusilis similem habet formam.
D. Nunquid antiquorum prudentia pro sola forma sic nomi-
navit, cum et simili ratione possit tabularium appellari "J
M. Merito te scrupulosum dixi. Est et alia, sed occultior.
Sicut enim in scaccario lusili quidam ordines sunt pugnatorum,
et certis legibus vel limitibus procedunt vel subsistunt, praesi-
dentibus aliis et aliis procedentibus : sic in hoc quidam praesi-
dent, quidam assident ex officio ; et non est cuiquam liberum
leges constitutas excedere ; quod erit ex consequentibus mani-
festum. Item sicut in lusili, pugna committitur inter reges : sic
in hoc inter duos principaliter conflictus est et pugna committitur,
thesaurarium scilicet et vicecomitem qui assidet ad compotum ;
residentibus aliis tanquam judicibus ut videant et judicent.

172 Henry II. [part
D. Nunquid a thesaurario compotus suscipitur, cum illic
multi sunt qui ratione potestatis majores videantur 1
M. Quod thesaurarius a vicecomite compotum suscipiat, hinc
manifestum est, quod idem ab eo cum regi placuerit requiritur :
nee enim ab ipso requireretur quod non suscepisset. Sunt
tamen qui dicunt thesaurarium et camerarios obnoxios tantum
hiis quae scribuntur in rotulis in thesauro, ut de hiis compotus
ab eis exigatur. Sed verbis creditur ut de tota scriptura rotuli
respondeant ; quod ex consequentibus constare poterit.
II. Quod aliud est inferius, aliud superius ; una tamen
origo utriusque.
D. Nunquid solum illud scaccarium est in quo est talis con-
flictus 1
M. Non. Est enim inferius scaccarium, quod et recepta
dicitur, ubi pec.unia numeranda traditur, et scriptis et talliis
committitur, ut de eisdem postmodum in superiori compotus
reddatur ; una tamen est utriusque origo ; quia quicquid sol-
vendum esse in majori deprehenditur, hie solvitur ; et quod hie
solutum fuerit, ibi computatur.
III. Quae sit ratio vel institutio inferioris per singula officia.
D. Quae est ratio vel institutio inferioris scaccarii 1
M. Ut video, nullius horum ignorantiam sustines. Noveris
autem quod inferius illud scaccarium suas habet personas,
ratione quidem officiorum a se distinctas, sed in regis utili-
tatem, salva tamen aequitate, pari intentione devotas ; omnes
quidem dominorum suorum nominibus non propriis militantes,
exceptis duobus militibus scilicet qui prae est examinibus, et
fusore. Horum officia de regis nostri pendent arbitrio ; unde
magis ad superius quam ad inferius pertinere videntur, sicut
infra dicetur. Illic est clericus thesaurarii cum sigillo ejus. Sunt
et duo milites camerariorum. Est et miles quidam qui argen-
tarius dici potest ; quia ex officio argento examinando praeest.
Est et fusor qui argentum examinat. Sunt et quatuor compu-
tatores ad numerandam pecuniam. Est et ostiarius thesauri,
et vigil. Horum autem haec sunt officia. Clericus thesaurarii,
cum fuerit numerata pecunia, et in forulos missa per centenas
libras, apponit sigillum, et deputat scripto, quantum, vel a quo,
vel ob quam causam receperit ; taleas quoque de eadem recepta a
camerariis factas inbreviat ; non solum autem pecuniae saccis
sed et archis et singulis forulis in quibus rotuli vel talliae collo-
cantur, si libet, apponit sigillum ; et ad omnia subjecta officia

iv. J Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 173
diligenter prospicit, et nihil eum latet. Militum, qui et came-
rarii dicuntur quod pro camerariis ministrant, hoc est offieium :
hi claves archarum bajulant ; archae enim cuilibet duae serae
sunt diversi generis, hoc est, cujus neutri clavis alterius possit
aptari ; et hii claves earum deferunt ; circumcingitur autem
quaelibet area corrigia quadam immobili, in qua desuper firmatis
seris thesaurarii sigillum apponitur ; ut nulli eorum nisi de
communi assensu accessus pateat. Item offieium horum est,
numeratam pecuniam et in vasis ligneis per centenos solidos
compositam ponderare, ne sit error in numero, tunc demum in
forulos mittere per centenas, ut dictum est, libras. Quod si vas
aliquod inventum est minus habens, non quidem per aestima-
tionem quod deesse putatur apponitur, sed statim de quo dubi-
tatur in acervum numerandorum projicitur. Et nota quosdam
comitatus a tempore regis Henrici primi et in tempore regis
Henrici secundi licite potuisse cujuscunque monetae denarios
solutioni offerre, dummodo argentei essent et ponderi legitimo
non obstarent; quia scilicet monetarios ex antiqua institutione
non habentes, undecunque sibi denarios perquirebant ; quales
sunt Norhumberland et Cumberland ; sic autem suscepti
denarii, licet de firma essent, seorsum tamen ab aliis cum quibus
dam signis appositis mittebantur. Reliqui vero comitatus solos
usuales et instantis monetae legitimos denarios tam de firmis
quam de placitis afferebant. At postquam rex illustris, cujus
laus est in rebus magnis excellentior, sub monarchia sua per
universum regnum unum pondus et unam monetam instituit,
omnis comitatus una legis necessitate teneri et generalis com-
mercii solutione coepit obligari. Omnes itaque idem monetae
genus quomodocunque teneantur solvunt ; sed tamen exami-
nationis quae de combustione provenit jacturam omnes non
sustinent. Item hii taleas faciunt de receptis, et commune est
• eis cum clerico thesaurarii, ut per brevia regis vel praecepto
baronum, thesaurum susceptum expendant; non tamen incon-
sultis dominis suis. Hii tres simul omnes vel vicissim cum
thesauro mittuntur cum oportuerit. His tribus praecipua
cura est in omnibus hiis quae in inferiori scaccario fiunt.
D. Ergo, ut video, licet his per breve regis, vel praecepto
eorum qui praesident, thesaurum susceptum consultis tamen
dominis suis expendere.
M. Licet, inquam ; hoc modo de liberationibus servientum in
ferioris scaccarii, et de minutis necessariis scaccarii emendis,
qualia sunt vasa ilia lignea, et alia, de quibus infra dicetur, eorum
fidei committitur ; alias autem non. Qui vero breve regis vel
cartam detulerit pro pecunia, praecipientibus dominis suis, hae

174 Henry II. [part
ei lege solvatur id quod expresse nominatur in brevi, ut ante-
quam exeat, susceptam pecuniam numeret ; quod si quid de-
fuerit, redeat ad scaccarium is qui suscepit, et fidei religionem
praestet sub hae forma : quod quantum suscepit reportavit, hoc
apposito, secundum conscientiam suam, ut fit in aliis ; et hoc
facto, solvatur ei quod restat ; numerata prius eadem coram
omnibus a constitutis computatoribus. Si vero lege sibi pro-
posita ostium thesauri egressus fuerit ; quaecunque fuerit per
sona, vel quantacunque jactura, non ei respondeatur. Militis
argentarii et fusoris officia sibi videntur annexa, et ad superius
scaccarium magis pertinentia ; et ob hoc ibidem cum ceteris
officiis explananda. Quatuor coniputatorum offieium hoc est. Cum
in scaccarium numeranda pecunia mittitur, unus eorum diligenter
totam commiscet, ut non seorsum meliores et seorsum deteriores
sint, sed mixti, ut ponderi respondeant ; quo facto, camerarius
ad libram scaccarii ponderat quantum oportet in trutina.
Quod si numerus xx. solidos plus quam vi. nummis excreverit
respectu librae, indigna recipi dicitur : si vero vel ad vi. denarios
vel infra se cohibet, suscipitur ; et a computatoribus diligenter
per centenos solidos, ut praedictum est, numeratur. Si vero de
firma sint denarii et sint examinandi, facta commixtione xliiii.
solidorum de acervo, in loculum seorsum mittuntur, et huic vice
comes signum apponit ; ut ex hiis postmodum examen, quod
vulgo essayum dicitur, fiat, sicut ex consequentibus liquebit.
Erit autem curae eorum qui praesunt receptae gratia dominorum
suorum, hoc est, clerici thesaurarii et camerariorum, ut recepta
pecunia seorsum mittant examinati argenti pondera et denarios
de firma, appositis quibusdam signis saccis eorum, ut si rex
vasa argentea ad cultum domus Dei, vel ad domus propriae
obsequium, vel forte monetas transmarinas fieri voluerit, ex hiis
fiant. D. Est aliquid in praedictis quod me pulsat.
M. Die ergo.
D. Dixisti, si bene memini, quod ad scaccarium quandoque
differtur solvenda pecunia, quae judicatur indigna recipi, si
scilicet pensata cum libra ponderis de scaccario, inventa est
minus habens ultra vi. denarios. Cum ergo quaelibet moneta
regni hujus impressam habere debeat regis imaginem, et ad idem
pondus omnes monetarii teneantur operari, qualiter fieri poterit
ut non omne eorum opus ejusdem ponderis sit 1
M. Magnum est quod quaeris, et alterius egens inquisitionis,
attamen fieri potest per falsarios et nummorum decurtatores vel
detonsores. Noveris autem monetam Angliae in tribus falsam
deprehendi, in falso scilicet pondere, in falsa lege, in falsa

IV-] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 175
imagine. His tamen falsitatibus par poena non debetur. Sed
de hiis alias.
D. Si placet, prosequere de officiis, ut coepisti.
M. Ad ostiarii curam spectat, ut excludat vel admittat quod
oportet, et diligens sit in custodia omnium quae ostio con-
cluduntur ; unde et ratione ostii de singulis brevibus exitus
duos habet denarios. Hie ministrat forulos ad pecuniam re-
ponendam et rotulos, et taleas, et cetera necessaria per annum,
et pro singulis forulis duos habet denarios. Hie in omnem
receptam ligna opportuna ministrat ad taleas receptae, et com-
potorum, et semel, hoc est, in termino Sancti Michaelis, v. solidos
pro lignis talearum percipit. Hie vascula lignea, cnipulos,
loculos, et corrigias, et cetera minuta necessaria de fisco invenit.
In termino eodem pro incausto totius anni ad utrumque scac
carium ii. solidi debentur, quos sibi de antiquo jure vendicat
sacrista majoris Ecclesiae Westmonasterii. Vigilis offieium
idem est ibi quod alibi ; diligentissima scilicet de nocte custodia,
thesauri principaliter, et omnium eorum quae in domo thesauri
reponuntur. Sic habes omnium officia distincta, qui inferius
ministrant. Sunt et hiis liberationes constitutae dum scaccarium
est, hoc est a die qua convocantur, usque ad diem qua generalis
est secessio. Clericus thesaurarii qui infra est, quinque denarios
habet in die. Scriptor ejusdem thesaurarii in superiori scac
cario similiter v. Scriptor cancellarii v. Duo milites bajuli
clavium, quisque in die viii., ratione militiae. Asserunt enim,
quod equis necessariis et armis instructi fore teneantur, ut cum
thesauro missi, quod sui officii fuerit opportunius sic exequantur.
Miles argentarius xii. denarios in die. Fusor v. Ostiarius
majoris scaccarii v. Quatuor computatores, quisque iii. denarios ;
si Londoniae fuerint; si Wintoniae, quia inde solent assumi, duos
quisque habet. Vigil unum denarium. Ad lumen cujusque
noctis circa thesaurum, obolum.
D- Ostiarius thesauri, qua ratione liberationem solus non
percipit 1
M. Non satis novi. Sed tamen quia videtur aliquid percipere
ratione ostii, et pro forulorum et talearum ministerio, libera
tionem forte non recipit; vel forte quia non regi, sed magis
thesaurario et camerariis servire videtur in custodia ostii
domus eorum. Hae lege minoris scaccarii vel receptae ratio
subsistit. D. Sic mihi satisfactum est in hae parte ut nihil deesse
videatur. Nunc ergo, si placet, prosequere de majore.

176 Henry II. [part

IV. Quae sit auctoritas superioris, et unde sumpsit originem /
M. Licet eorum qui ad scaccarium majus resident, officii!
quibusdam videantur proprietatibus esse distincta ; unum
tamen omnium offieium est et intentio ; ut regis utilitati pro-
spiciant ; salva tamen aequitate secundum constitutas leges
scaccarii. Ejus autem ratio vel institutio cum ipsa temporis
antiquitate, cum magnorum qui assident auctoritate, roborata
subsistit. Ab ipsa namque regni conquisitione per regem
Willelmum facta coepisse dicitur, sumpta tamen ipsius ratione a
scaccario transmarino : verum in plurimis et pene majoribus
dissident. Sunt etiam qui credunt usum ejus sub regibus
Anglicis exstitisse ; hiiic sumentes rei hujus argumentum, quod
coloni et jam decrepiti senes fundorum illorum qui coronae
annominantur, quorum in hiis cana memoria est, optime nove-
rint a patribus suis edocti, quantum de albo firmae pro singulis
libris solvere teneantur. Sed haec ratio cognitionis est de
firmae solutione, non de scaccarii sessione. Videtur autem eis
obviare, qui dicunt album firmae a temporibus Anglicorum
coepisse, quod in libro judiciario in quo totius regni descriptio
diligens continetur, et tam de tempore regis Edwardi, quam de
tempore regis Willelmi sub quo factus est, singulorum fundorum
valentia exprimitur, nulla prorsus de albo firmae fit mentio :
unde probabile videtur, quod, facta ilia descriptione tempore
jam dicti regis, de albo firmarum fuerit a studiosis ejus consti-
tutum propter causas, quae inferius annotantur. Quocunque
vero tempore coeperit usus ejus, certum est quod magnorum
auctoritate roboratur ; adeo ut nulli liceat statuta scaccarii
infringere, vel eis quavis temeritate resistere. Habet enim hoc
commune cum ipsa domini Regis Curia, in qua ipse in propria
persona jura decernit, quod nee recordationi, nee sententiae in eo
latae licet alicui contradicere. Huic autem curiae tam insignis
auctoritas est, turn propter regiae imaginis excellentiam quae in
sigillo ejus de thesauro individua lege servatur ; turn propter
eos qui assident, ut dictum est, quorum solertia totius regni
status indemnis servatur. Illic enim residet caj>italis domini
regis Justicia, primus post regem in regno ratione fori, et
majores quique de regno, qui familiarius regiis secretis assistant;
ut quod fuerit sub tantorum praesentia constitutum vel termi-
natum, inviolabili jure subsistat. Verum quidam ex officio,
quidam ex sola jussione principis resident. Ex officio principa-
liter residet, immo et praesidet, primus in regno, capitalis scilicet
Justicia. Huic autem assident ex sola jussione principis, momen-
tanea scilicet et mobili auctoritate quidam, qui majores et dis-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 177
cretiores videntur in regno, sive de clero sint sive de curia.
Assident inquam ad discernenda jura et dubia determinanda
quae frequenter ex incidentibus quaestionibus oriuntur. Non
enim in ratiociniis sed in multiplicibus judiciis excellens scac
carii scientia consistit. Facile enim est, proposita summa quae
exigitur, et suppositis ad collationem ejus hiis quae soluta sunt,
per subtractionem discernere, si satisfactum est, vel si quid
restat. At cum coeperit multiplex inquisitio fieri de hiis rebus,
quae varie fisco proveniunt et diversis modis requiruntur, et a
vicecomitibus non eodem modo perquiruntur, discernere si secus
egerint, quibusdam grave est, et ob hoc circa haec scientia scac
carii major esse dicitur. Dubiorum vero vel dubitalium judicia,
quae frequenter emergunt, sub una tractatus serie comprehendi
non valent ; quia necdum omnia dubiorum genera in lucem
prodierunt. Quaedam tamen ex hiis quae proposita vel deter-
minata cognovimus, suis locis inferius annotabimus.
V. Quid sit offieium Praesidentis, et omnium illic ex officio
residentium; et quae dispositio sedium.
D. Quid est hujus tam excellentis sessoris offieium t
M. Aliud verius attribui sibi non valet, nisi quod omnibus,
quae inferiore vel superiore scaccario fuerint, hie prospicit et ad
nutum ipsius quaelibet officia subjecta disponuntur ; sic tamen
ut ad domini regis utilitatem juste proveniant. Hoc tamen
inter cetera videtur excellens, quod potest hie sub testimonio
suo breve domini regis facere fieri, ut de thesauro quaelibet
summa liberetur, vel ut computetur alicui quod sibi ex domini
reo-is mandato praenoverit computandum ; vel si maluerit, breve
suum faciet sub aliorum testimonio de his rebus.
D. Magnus est hie, cujus fidei totius regni cura, immo et cor
regis committitur. Scriptum quippe est ; 'ubi est thesaurus
tuus ibi est et cor tuum.' Sed jam si placet prosequere de
ceteris. M. Vis prosequar de ipsis secundum gradus dignitatum an
secundum dispositionem sedium 1
D. Secundum quod quisque ratione officii sui sedem adeptus
est. Facile enim erit ut credo ex officiis perpendere dignitates.
M. Ut noveris quo ordine disponantur, scias ad quatuor
scaccarii latera quatuor poni sedilia vel scanna. Ad caput vero
scaccarii, hoc est unde latitudo discernitur, in medio non sedilis
sed scaccarii, locus est illius principalis de quo supra diximus.
In laeva ejus primo loco residet cancellarius ratione officii, si
adesse eum contingat : post hunc miles gregarius quem consta-
N

178 Henry II. [part
bularium dicimus : post hunc duo camerarii, prior autem, qui
intuitu provectioris aetatis venerabilior esse videbitur : post hos
miles qui vulgo dicitur marescallus : inseruntur tamen quando
que alii his absentibus, vel forte eis praesentibus, si tanta scilicet
fuerit auctoritas eorum qui a rege destiiiantur, ut eis cedere
debeant. Et haec est dispositio primi sedilis. In secundo vero
quod est ad latus longitudinis scaccarii, in primo capite residet
clericus vel alius serviens camerariorum cum recautis, hoc est,
cum contrataleis de recepta. Post hunc interpositis quibusdam
qui non ex officio resident sed sunt a rege missi, locus est quasi
in medio lateris scaccarii illi qui compotos positione ponit calcu-
lorum. Post hunc aliqui non ex officio, necessarii tamen. In
fine sedilis illius residet clericus qui scriptorio praeest ; et hie ex
officio. Sic habes secundi scanni dispositionem. Verum ad
dextram praesidentis justiciarii residet primo loco nunc Win
toniensis Episcopus quondam Pictaviae Archidiaconus, non ex
officio quidem sed ex novella constitutione ; ut scilicet proximus
sit thesaurario, et scripturae rotuli diligenter intendat. Post
hunc residet thesaurarius in capite secundae sedis in dextra, cui
diligentissima cura est per singula quae illic geruntur, quasi
rationem de hiis omnibus si oportuerit reddituro. Post hunc
residet clericus ejus, scriptor rotuli de thesauro : post hunc alius
scriptor rotuli de cancellaria : post hunc clericus cancellarii, qui
oculata fide semper prospicit, ut rotulus suus alii per singula
respondeat, ut nee iota unum desit, nee alius sit ordo scribendi :
post hunc quasi in fine sedilis illius residet clericus constabularii,
magnus quidem et officiosus in domini regis curia, et hie
quidem habens offieium quod per seipsum vel per clericum dis-
cretum, si regi visus fuerit alias magis necessarius, administrat.
Et haec est descriptio tertiae sedis. In quarto scanno, quod est
oppositum justiciario, in capite residet Magister Thomas cogno-
mine Brunus, cum rotulo tertio qui ex novella constitutione, hoc
est a domino rege nostro, additus est ; quia scriptum est, ' funi
culus triplex difficile solvitur.' Post hunc vicecomites et clerici
sui, qui assident ad compotum cum taleis et aliis necessariis.
Et haec est dispositio quartae sedis.
D. Scriptor Magistri Thomae nunquid sedem habet cum aliis
scriptoribus sed super alios %
M. Sedem quidem habet non cum aliis sed super alios.
D. Quare sic?
M. Cum enim sic dispositae essent sedes ab initio, ut scriptor
thesaurarii ad latus suum resideret, ne quid scriberetur, quod
oculum ejus effugeret ; et item scriptor cancellariae ad latus
scriptoris thesaurarii, ut fideliter exciperet quod ille praescribe-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 179
bat; et item clericus cancellarii necessario proximus esset illi
scriptori, ne posset errare ; non superfuit locus in quo scriptor
ille resideret in serie seanni, sed datus est ei locus in eminenti,
ut prospiciat et immineat scriptori thesaurarii qui primus
scribit, et ab ipso quod oportet excipiat.
D. Huic oculi lyncei necessarii essent, ne erraret ; pericu-
losus enim in hiis error dicitur.
M. Licet erret interdum in excipiendo, quia remotus est ;
tamen dum rotuli corriguntur facta omnium trium collatione,
facile erit errata corrigere.
D. Satis hactenus dictum est de ordine sedentium. Nunc de
eorum officiis, si placet, exsequere, incipiens a laeva praesidentis.
Quid ad Cancellarium.
M. Cancellarius in ordine illo primus est : et sicut in curia
sic ad scaccarium magnus est : adeo ut sine ipsius consensu vel
consilio nil magnum fiat, vel fieri debeat. Verum hoc habet
offieium dum residet ad scaccarium ; ad ipsum pertinet custodia
sigilli regii, quod est in thesauro, sed inde non recedit nisi
cum praecepto Justitiae ab inferiore ad superius scaccarium a
thesaurario vel camerario defertur, ad explenda solum negotia
scaccarii. Quibus peractis in loculum mittitur, et loculus a
cancellario consignatur, et sic thesaurario traditur custodien-
dus. Item, cum necesse fuerit, signatus sub omnium oculis
cancellario offertur ; nunquam ab ipso, vel ab alio alias offeren-
dus. Item ad ipsum pertinet rotuli qui est de cancellaria
custodia per suppositam personam ; et sicut viris magnis visum
est, de omni scriptura rotuli cancellarius aeque tenetur ut
thesaurarius, excepto duntaxat de hoc, quod scribitur in
thesauro receptum : licet enim non praescribat ut thesaurarius
conscribit, tamen etsi ille erraverit, licet ipsi vel clerico ejus
thesaurarium cum modestia corripere, et quid debeat suggerere.
Quod si thesaurarius perseveraverit, et mutare noluerit, poterit
eum si de parte sua confidit tantum coram baronibus arguere, ut
ab eis quid fieri debeat judicetur.
D. Verisimile etiam videtur custodem tertii rotuli eadem.
scripturae lege constringi.
M. Non est verisimile tantum sed verum : par enim est aucto
ritas illis duobus rotulis ratione scripturae ; quia sic placuit ejus
auctori. Quid ad Constabularium.
Constabularii offieium est ad scaccarium, ut in brevibus regis
de exitu thesauri vel de aliquibus computandis, his qui compotum

180 Henry II. [part
faciunt simul cum praesidente testis existat. In omnibus enim
hujusmodi brevibus ex antiqua institutione duos oportet con-
scribi testes. Item ejus offieium est, cum ad scaccarium stipen-
diarii regis venerint pro stipendiis suis, sive sint residentes in
castris regis sive non, assumpto secum clerico constabulariae,
cujus est terminos eorum nosse, et marescallo scaccarii, com
putet eorum liberationes, et de retractis fidem suscipiat, et
residuum solvi faciat. Omnis enim liberatio quorumcunque,
sive accipitrariorum sive falconariorum sive bernariorum, ad
offieium ejus spectat, si praesens fuerit; nisi forte dominus rex
ad idem aliquem prius assignaverit : quia constabularius a rege
non facile potest avelli, propter majora et magis urgentia.
Notandum vero quod marescallus scaccarii de liberationibus
residentium militum percipit quod ad eum pertinet ratione officii
sui ; de commeantibus autem non. Item huic cum aliis magnis
commune est, ut nihil magnum eo inconsulto fieri debeat.
Quid ad Camerarios.
Camerariorum offieium annexum est officio thesaurarii, quia
uno et eodem praetextu honoris vel dispendii militare noscuntur ;
et est eis idem velle ad honorem regis, adeo ut quod ab uno
factum fuerit, a nullo eorum dicatur infectum. Thesaurarius
enim pro se et pro eis suscipit compotos, et secundum qualitates
exactorum verba ministrat in scripturam rotuli, in quibus
omnibus pari jure societatis obligantur, et sic de aliis quae vel
ab hoc, vel ab hiis, salva fide domini regis, fiunt, sive in
scriptis, sive in receptis, sive in taleis, sive in expensis.
Quid ad Marescallum.
Marescalli cura est taleas debitorum quas vicecomes reddi-
derit, quae tamen annotantur in rotulo, mittere seorsum in
forulo suo : brevia quoque regia de computandis, vel perdonandis,
vel dandis, his quae exiguntur a vicecomite per summonitionem.
Illi vero forulo superscriptio comitatus, cujus haec sunt, ap-
rjonitur, et singulis comitatibus singulos oportet forulos, a vice
comite qui computat, marescallo ministrari.
D. Est hie aliquid quod me movet.
M. Satis praesensi. Sustine tamen modicum. Plana enim
erunt omnia ex consequentibus. Item si quis debitor non
satisfaciens de summonitione meruerit comprehendi, huic tradi-
tur servandus, et soluto scaccario illius diei, si voluerit, mittet
eum in carcerem custodiae publicae, non tamen vinculabitur vel
in una trudetur, sed seorsum vel supra carcerem ; licet enim

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 181
solvendo non sit, tamen ob hoc non meruit sceleratis deputari ;
ita tamen si miles non fuerit ; de militibus namque pro pecunia
retentis, illustris regis constitutio est, quae infra annotabitur in
agendis vicecomitis. Item ad hunc spectat, ut peracto compoto
vicecomitis, vel custodis, vel cujuscunque personae qui ad com-
potum residet, fidem ab ipso suscipiat in publico, quod legitimum
compotum secundum conscientiam suam fecerit. Si vero vice
comes, vel qui computavit, aliquo debito tenetur, addet quod a
scaccario, hoc est, a leugata villae, in qua est, non discedet, nisi
ipsa die rediturus, sine licentia baronum. Item hie factas
summonitiones contra terminum alterius scaccarii a latere sigilli
regii signatas sub numero suscipiet, et ostiario superioris
scaccarii per manum suam distribuet, per Angliam deferendas.
Sic habes eorum, qui in primo scanno resident, officia distincta.
Quid ad Factorem Talearum.
In capite vero secundae sedis primus est serviens camerariorum,
clericus seu laicus, cujus offieium paucis expediri potest, verbo
tamen non opere. Hie taleas de thesauro contra vicecomitem,
vel eum qui computat, ministrat, et, cum oportuerit, secundum
quod ratio computationis exegerit, mutat, vel minuit, vel addit
in talea, apposita eidem contratalea vicecomitis. Quo facto in
termino Paschae, longiorem vicecomiti reddit iterum in termino
Sancti Michaelis afferendam. In termino vero Sancti Michaelis,
cum in rotulo summa ejus scripto fuerit deputata, tradit eandem
longiorem marescallo, in forulo suo reponendam.
D. Miror, quod dixisti taleam semel compoto oblatam iterum
alii compoto offerendam.
M. Noli mirari ; quoniam quaecunque exacta vel soluta fuerint
a vicecomite in termino Paschae, necesse est iterato summoneri ;
non tamen ut secundo solvatur quod jam solutum fuerit, sed ut
offerant se compoto, et oblata talea solutionis jamdudum factae
redigatur in scripturam rotuli ; et sic absolvatur a debito
Dum enim taleam penes se habuerit, liberatus non erit, sed
semper summonendus.
D. Et haec necessaria visa sunt ; sed prosequere, si placet, de
officiis. M. Immo quia de taleis mentionem fecimus, quo ordine
taleandi ratio consistat, paucis adverte. Talearum igitur alia
est, quae simpliciter talea dicitur ; alia, quam memorandam
nuncupamus. Legitimae vero taleae longitudo a summitate
indicis usque ad summitatem extenti pollicis est : illic terebro
modico perforatum Memoranda vero, quae de firma blanca
semper fieri solet, paulo brevior est ; quia facto essayo, per quod

1 82 Henry II. [part
firma dealbatur, prima ilia confringitur, et apposita sibi talea
combustionis taleae longitudinem tunc primo meretur. Hae
autem ratione fit incisio. In summo ponunt M. libr. ; sic ut
incisio ejus spissitudinis palmae capax sit ; C. 1. ut pollicis ; xx. 1.
ut auricularis ; librae unius incisio quasi grani hordei tumentis ;
solidi vero minus ; sic tamen ut ex concisionibus loco vacuato
modicus ibi sulcus fiat ; denarius facta incisione nullo dempto
signatur. Ex qua vero parte millenarius inciditur, alium non
pones numerum ; nisi forte mediam ejus partem ; sic ut mediam
similiter incisionis ejus partem demas, et infra constituas. Sic
si C. 1. incisurus est, et non sit tibi millenarius, facies sic ; et de
xx. 1. sic ; et de xx. sol. quos libram dicimus. Quod si multi
millenarii, vel centenarii, vel vigenae librarum incidendae sunt,
lex eadem servetur, ut ex patentiore parte ejusdem taleae, hoc
est, quae directe tibi proponitur, facta annotatione, major nu
merus, ex altera vero minor incidatur ; ex patentiore vero parte
semper est major numerus in summo, ex minus patente semper
minor, hoc est denarii. Marcae argenti ad scaccarium incisio
sola significativa non est ; sed per solidos designator. Marcam
autem auri in medio taleae, sicut libram unam incidas. Aureum
vero unum non prorsus ut argenteum, sed ducto directe inciden
ts cultello per medium taleae, non obliquando sicut fit in
argenteo. Sic igitur ipsa locorum dispositio et incisionis diffe
rentia, quid aureum vel quid sit argenteum, utrumque determinat.
Ceterum opportunius haec omnia visu quam verbo cognosce.
D. Quod de his restat oculata fide constabit. Nunc si placet
de officiis prosequere.
M. Post hunc, ut supra diximus, interpositis viris aliquibus
discretis a rege missis, residet is qui ex praecepto regis com-
putationes facit positione numerorum pro calculis. Offieium
quidem satis perplexum est et laboriosum ; et sine eo vix vel
nunquam scaccarii ratio posset expediri ; sed nulli illic residenti
convenit ex officio, nisi cui rex vel Justitia mandaverit exsequen-
dum. Laboriosum inquam ; quia cetera officia lingua vel manu ;
haec hiis duobus explentur ; sed in hoc, ' lingua, manus, oculi,
mens indefessa laborant.' Quid ad Calculatorem.
Hujus autem haec est ratio : secundum consuetum cursum
scaccarii non legibus arismeticis. Memoriter, ut credo, dixisse
me retines, scaccario superponi pannum virgis distinctum, in
cujus interstitiis numerales acervi collocantur. Porro calcula
tor in medio lateris residet, ut pateat omnibus, et ut liberum
habeat ministra manus excursum. Statuit autem ad dextram

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 183
in spatio inferiore acervum nummorum ab xi. et infra ; in se
cundo solidorum a xix. et infra ; in tertio vero librarum. Et
hie quidem ipsi recta fronte debet opponi, quia medius est in
consuetis compotis vicecomitis ; in quarto acervus est vigena-
rum ; in quinto centenarum ; in sexto millenarum ; in septimo,
sed raro, decern mille librarum; raro inquam, hoc est, cum a
rege vel mandato ejus, a magnis regni compotus a thesaurario
et camerariis regni totius receptae suscipitur. Licet autem
calculatori pro decern solidis argenteum, pro decern vero libris
obolum aureum, apponere, ut compotus expeditius fiat. Caven-
dum vero est, ne manus praeambula linguam praeveniat, vel e
converso ; sed simul qui computat, et calculum mittat et nu
merum designet, ne sit error in numero. Deposita igitur per
acervos summa quae a vicecomite requiritur, disponuntur infra,
similiter per acervos, quae soluta fuerint, vel in thesauro vel
alias. Quod si fuerit firma numero quae ab ipso requiritur, vel
quodlibet aliud debitum cui solo possit numero satisfieri, sim
plex fiet detractio inferioris a superiore summa, et de residuo
tenebitur ; secus autem fiet si firmam blancam sit soluturus,
quod in agendis vicecomitis plenius ostenditur.
D. Parce parumper currenti calamo ut liceat paucis uti.
M. Ad aleam resides, nee sunt tibi verba neganda.
D. Videre mihi videor fieri posse ratione calculandi, ut idem
denarius pro calculo missus, nunc nummum, nunc solidum, nunc
libram, nunc centum, nunc mille significet.
M. Sic est, quibusdam tamen appositis ; itemqne fieri potest
eisdem demptis si calculatori placeat, ut qui mille significat
gradatim descendens unum significet.
D. Sic fit ut quivis de plebe, cum homo sit et aliud esse non
possit, temporalibus appositis voluntate praesidentis ab imo con-
scendat in summum, ac deinceps fortunae lege servata retrudatur
in imum, manens quod fuerat, licet videatur ratione dignitatis
et status a se sibi mutatus.
M. Noscis, quod sermo tuus non capit in omnibus; verum
quicquid aliis videatur, mihi satis placet, quod ex hiis alia
conjicis ; in mundanorum vero tribulis mystici intellectus flores
quaerere laudabile est. Nee in hiis tantum quae commemoras,
sed in tota scaccarii descriptione sacramentorum quaedam
latibula sunt. Officiariorum namque diversitas ; judiciariae
potestatis auctoritas; regiae imaginis impressio; citationum
emissio ; rotulorum conscriptio ; villicationum ratio ; debitorum
exactio ; reorum condempnatio vel absolutio ; districti examinis
figura sunt, quod revelabitur cum omnium libri aperti erunt et
janua clausa. Sed de his hacenus. Nunc prosequamur de

184 Henry II. [part
officiis ; post hunc qui calculis inservit, primus residet ex officio
clericus qui praeest regis scriptorio.
Quid ad Clericum qui praeest scriptorio.
Ad hunc pertinet scriptores idoneos ad rotulum cancellariae,
et ad brevia regis quae in scaccario fiunt, nee non ad summoni-
tiones conscribendas, invenire, et ut bene fiant prospicere ; quae
quidem officia, licet paucis exprimantur verbis, infinitis tamen
vix expleri possunt laboribus ; quod norunt hii, qui haec ipsa
rerum cxperientia didicerunt. Sic habes officia dispositorum in
secundo sedili.
Quid ad Pictavensem Archdiaconum nunc Wintoniensem
Episcopum.
D. Si bene memini, primus ad dextram praesidentis residet
Wintoniensis Episcopus, cujus offieium in scaccario vellem pro-
tinus expediri. Magnus enim est et nisi magnis occupari non
debeat. M. Magnus est proculdubio ; et magnis intentus in multa
distrahitur, sicut in Tricolumni plenius est ostensum. Hic
ante tempora promotionis, dum paulo inferior in regis curia
militaret, visus est fide et industria regis negotiis necessarius, et
in computationibus atque in rotulorum et brevium scripturis
satis alacer et officiosus. Unde datus est ei locus ad latus
thesaurarii, ut scilicet scripturae rotulorum et hiis omnibus
cum ipso intenderet. Thesaurarius quidem tot et tantis curis et
sollicitudinibus per omnia distrahitur, ut fas sit interdum tanto
operi subrepere somnum. In humanis autem actionibus vix
aliquid est usquequaque perfectum.
D. Quid est quod dicis 1 nee enim novi quid sit Tricolumnis.
M. Libellus quidem est a nobis utcunque tempore juventutis
editus, de tripartita regni Angliae historia, sub illustri Anglorum
rege Henrico secundo ; quem quia per tres columnas per uni-
versum digessimus, diximus Tricolumnum. In prima quidem de
ecclesiae Anglicanae negotiis plurimis, et de nonnullis rescriptis
sedis apostolicae. In secunda vero de insignibus praedicti regis
gestis, quae fidem humanam excedunt. In tertia vero de pluribus
negotiis tam in publicis quam in familiaribus, necnon in curiae
judiciis, agitur. Hic si forte in manus tuas incident, cave ne te
effugiat ; utilis enim poterit futuris esse temporibus et jocundus
his, qui de regni statu sub praedicto principe solliciti fuerint. Hic
enim rex licet atavis regibus editus fuerit, et per longa terrarum
spatia triumphali victoria suum dilataverit imperium; majus

IV.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 185
tamen est, quod prodigum in se famae titulum strenuis actibus
superavit. Sed de his hactenus. Nunc coepta negotia prose
quamur. D. Esto, si sic placet. Salva sit igitur reverentia thesau
rarii : hic videtur ejus dignitati derogatum, quia non est soli
fidei ipsius per omnia creditum.
M. Absit ; immo magis sic ejus laboribus parcitur et indemni-
tati providetur ; non enim quod vel ipsi vel alii non creditur,
tot et tanti resident ad scaccarium : sed quia rebus magnis et
regni negotiis sub tanto principe decet magnos ac multos de-
putari, non tamen ut utilitati prospiciant, sed excellentiae et
honori regis deserviant.
D. Prosequere, si placet, de officiis.
Quid ad Thesaurarium.
M. Offieium thesaurarii, vel cura vel sollicitudo ipsius vix ex-
plicari posset verbis, etiamsi esset mihi calamus scribae velociter
scribentis. In omnibus enim et per omnia, quae vel in inferiori
scaccario vel in superiori geruntur, ipsius sollicita diligentia
necessaria est. Ex praedictis tamen magna ex parte constare
potest, in quibus amplior sit ejus cura, adeo ut ab hiis avelli
non possit manente scaccario ; in recipiendis scilicet compotis
vicecomitum, et in scriptura rotuli. Ipse namque ministrat
verba secundum qualitatem negotiorum in scripturam rotuli sui,
a quo postmodum illud idem excipitur ab aliis rotulis, sicut
supra dictum est ; et cavendum est ipsi, ne vel in numero, vel in
causa, vel in persona sit error, ne absolvatur qui quietus non
est, vel rursus conveniatur qui meruit absolvi. Tanta namque
rotuli ejus auctoritas est, ut nulli liceat ei contradicere vel
mutare ; nisi forte tam manifestus error fuerit, ut omnibus
pateat : neque tunc nisi de communi consilio omnium baronum
mutari debet, et ipsis praesentibus cum adhuc scilicet scacca
rium illius diei perseverat : scripturam vero rotuli praeterito
anno factam, vel etiam hujus anni exstantis, post solutum
scaccarium nulli mutare licet nisi regi, cui super his licent
quaecunque libent. Item ad eum spectat, ut ad omnia magna
negotia cum superioribus assumatur, et nil eum lateat.
Quid ad Scriptorem Thesaurarii.
Scriptoris qui proximus est thesaurario offieium est praeparare
rotulos ad scripturam ex pellibus ovinis, non sine causa. Longi-
tudo autem eorum est quanta surgit ex duabus membranis ; non
tamen quibuslibet, sed magnis, ad hoc opus ex industria pro-

1 86 Henry II. [part
curatis : latitudo vero paulo plus una expansa et semis. Regu-
latis igitur rotulis a summo pene usque deorsum, et ex utraque
parte, lineis a se decenter distantibus, praenotantur in summo
rotuli comitatus et bailliae, de quibus infra compotus redditur :
facto vero modico intervallo quasi trium vel quatuor digitorum,
praescribitur in medio lineae nomen comitatus de quo primo
loco agendum est. Deinde in capite sequentis lineae nomen vice
comitis depingitur, subsequente hoc tenore verborum ; ' Ille vel
ille vicecomes reddit compotum de firma illius vel illius comi
tatus.' Deinde paulo post in eadem linea scribitur, ' in thesauro,'
nee apponitur aliud nisi consummato compoto, propter urgentem
causam, quae in agendis vicecomitum manifesta est. Deinde in
capite sequentis lineae, quid in eleemosyna et decimis constitutis,
quid etiam in liberatione, de firma comitatus expendatur, ex-
primitur. Post haec in capite lineae inferioris in terris datis
annotantur ea quae regum munificentia contulit ecclesiis, vel his
qui eis militarunt, in fundis suis quae coronae annominantur,
quibusdam blancos, quibusdam numero.
D. Movet me quod dicis quosdam fundos dari blancos,
quosdam numero.
M. Prosequamur ad praesens de scriptoris officio ; et in
agendis vicecomitis super hoc, si libet, interroga. Post terras
datas, facto intervallo unius lineae ut videantur etiam ipsa sui
ratione sejuncta, annotantur ea quae jussa sunt de firma expendi
per brevia regis ; quia haec constituta non sunt, sed casualia ;
quaedam etiam, quae sine brevibus computantur per con
suetudinem scaccarii, de quibus infra dicetur : et sic terminator
compotus de corpore comitatus. Post hoc, facto intervallo quasi
sex vel septem linearum, fit compotus de purpresturis et escaetis
sub his verbis ; ' Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de firma pur-
presturarum et escaetarum ;' sed et de omnibus firmis maneriorum
et de censu nemorum, quae annuatim debentur et solvuntur.
Post haec suo ordine compoti collocantur, exceptis quibusdam
civitatibus et villis et bailliis, quarum majores compoti sunt ;
quia constitutas habent eleemosynas vel liberationes, et terras
datas ; et ad custodes earum terrarum propriae summonitiones
de debitis regis diriguntur. De his autem compoti fiunt post
consummatum omnino compotum de comitatibus in quibus sunt.
Qualia sunt Lincolnia, Wintonia, Mienes, Berchamstede, Cole-
cestria, pleraque alia.
D. Miror dixisse te quosdam reditos constitutos dici firmas,
quosdam vero census.
M. Firmae maneriorum sunt, census autem nemorum tantum.
Quae enim ex maneriis proveniunt, quia per agriculturam quo-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 187
libet anno renovantur et redeunt, et praeter haec in ipsis certi
sunt constituti redditus consuetudinum jure perpetuo, merito
firma et immutabilia nominantur. Quae vero ex nemoribus,
quae quotidie succiduntur et pereunt, annua lege debentur, —
quorum non est tam firmus vel immobilis quaestus, sed est in
eis aseensus et descensus, licet non annuus, frequens tamen, —
census dicuntur : et sic per aphaeresim redditus hos ceuseri
dicunt. Sunt tamen qui credunt, censum dici quae a singulis
hominibus solvuntur ; firma vero quae ex his surgit ; ut sit
firma nomen collectivum, sicut turba : ob hoc igitur sicut
creditor, sic censetur, ut annuum indicet, et firmum non esse
designet. Post haec constituta, facto iterum intervallo, fit com
potus de debitis, super quibus summonitus est vicecomes ; prae-
titulatis tamen nominibus illorum judicum quorum haec sunt.
Ultimo vero de catallis fugitivorum, vel mutilatorum pro exces-
sibus suis. Et his expletis, compotus illius vicecomitatus
terminator. Cavendum autem est scriptori, ne aliquid motu
animi sui scribat in rotulo, nisi quod thesaurario dictante
didicerit. Quod si forte per negligentiam vel alium quemlibet
casum, contigerit eum errare in scriptura rotuli, vel in nomine,
vel in numero, vel in causa, in quibus vis major scripturae
consistit ; non praesumat abradere, sed linea subtili subducta
cancellet, et scribat in serie quod oportet : habet enim rotuli
scriptura hoc commune cum cartis et aliis scriptis patentibus,
quod abradi non debet : et ob hoc cautum est ut de pellibus
ovinis fiant ; quia non facile nisi manifesto vitio rasurae cedunt.
D. Scriptor iste de proprio an de fisco rotulos invenit 1
M. In termino iste Sancti Michaelis v. solidos de fisco recipit,
et scriptor cancellariae alios nihilominus v. ; ex quibus ad
utrumque rotulum, et ad summonitiones et receptas inferioris
scaccarii membranas inveniunt.
Quid ad Scriptorem Cancellariae.
Cura, labor, studium, reliqui scriptoris ad ejus latus residentis
in his maxime consistit, ut scilicet excipiat de rotulo altero
verbum e verbo, eodem ut praediximus ordine servato. Item
ad hunc pertinet brevia regis de exitu thesauri scribere, de his
tantum rebus quae consideratione baronum, consedente scaccario,
a thesaurario et camerariis liberari debent : nihilominus hic
brevia regis scribit de computandis vel perdonandis his, quae
barones ad scaccarium computanda vel perdonanda decreverint.
Ad hunc etiam spectat, ut peractis compotis vicecomitum, et
taxatis debitis regis de quibus summonitiones fiunt, easdem per
totum regnum dirigendas diligenti simul et laboriosa discretione

1 88" Henry II. [part
conscribat : ex quibus, et in quorum gratia, sequentis termini
scaccarium convocatur.
VI. Quis sit tenor Brevium Begis factorwm ad Scaccarium, sive
de exitu Thesauri, sive de computandis, sive de perdonandis.
D. Brevia regis de exitu thesauri sub quo tenore verborum
fiunt? M. Thesaurarius et camerarii nisi regis expresso mandato vel
pi-aesidentis justiciarii, susceptam pecuniam non expendunt :
oportet enim ut habeant auctoritatem rescripti regis de distri-
buta pecunia, cum ab eis compotus generalis exigetur ; est
autem hic tenor ; ' H. rex etc. N. thesaurario et illi et illi
camerariis salutem. Liberate de thesauro meo illi vel illi, hanc
vel hanc summam. Testibus his apud N. ad scaccarium.'
Additur autem ' ad scaccarium,' ut sic fiat discretio brevium quae
in curia regis fiunt. Oportet etiam ut facto brevi de exitu
thesauri, ut diximus, faciat idem scriptor rescriptum ejus, quod
vulgo dicitur contrabreve ; et illud penes se reservabit clericus
cancellarii in testimonium liberatae factae per breve regis origi-
nale, quod thesaurarius et camerarii habent. Brevia quoque de
computandis vel perdonandis his, quae barones decreverint com-
putanda vel perdonanda, praecognita domini regis voluntate, sub
hoc tenore verborum fiunt; ' H. Dei gratia etc., baronibus de
scaccario salutem. Computate illi vel illi hanc vel hanc sum
mam, quam liberavit ad hoc vel ad illud negotium meum.
Testibus hiis ibi ad scaccarium.' Item ; ' Rex baronibus de scac
cario salutem. Perdono illi, vel clamo quietum hunc vel ilium
de hoc vel de illo. Testibus hiis ibi ad scaccarium.' Horum
autem omnium brevium rescripta penes jamdictum clericum
residebunt, in testimonium factorum brevium. Originalia enim
computatorum vel perdonatorum brevia forulis marescalli, factis
vicecomitum compotis, includuntur ; de cetero, nisi contentio
de eis oriatur, non exponenda. Quod autem de brevibus regis
dicimus, intelligendum est similiter de brevibus praesidentis
justioiarii, tantum cum rex absens est, et cum sigilli ejus
impressione jura regni statuuntur, et causae citantur, ut con-
demnentur vel absolvantur qui vocantur ad curiam. Ceterum
dum rex in regno Angliae fuerit, brevia scaccarii nomine regio
fient, sub ejusdem praesidentis et alicujus alterius magni testi
monio. Quis autem sit tenor brevium illorum quae summo
nitiones dicuntur, plenius infra dicetur in titulo de summoni-
tionibus.

IV.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 189
Quid ad Clericum Cancellarii.
Clericus cancellarii qui huic proximus est, licet non proprio
sed alieno nomine militet, magnis tamen occupatur, et in multa
distrahitur : adeo ut ab ipso initio compotorum usque ad finem
inde avelli non possit ; nisi forte dum sibi propitius est ; substi-
tuto sibi interim discreto vicario. Huic enim prima cura est
post thesaurarium in hiis omnibus quae illic geruntur ; maxime
tamen circa rotulorum ac brevium scripturam ; in hiis enim
praecipue versatur ; nam ne forte sui calamus scriptoris aberret
prospicit hic, alium sequitur dum passibus aequis. Item hic
intuetur diligenter alterius anni rotulum sibi propositum, donee
a vicecomite satisfactum fuerit de debitis hiis quae illic anno
tantur, et de quibus summonetur. Item residente vicecomite
ad compotum, computatis et scripto deputatis his quae con-
stituta sunt in comitatu, breve summonitionis, cui regis sigillum
appensum est, suscipit a vicecomite, et de his debitis quae illic
scripta sunt urget vicecomitem, pronuncians in publicum et
dicens, ' redde de hoc tantum, et de illo tantum.' Debita vero
quae solvuntur in integrum, et de quibus satisfit, cancellet idem
clericus linea ducta per medium ; ut sit distinctio per hoc etiam
inter soluta et solvenda. Hic etiam custodit contrabrevia fac-
torum ad scaccarium. Hic etiam summonitiones factas, ut prae
dictum est, corrigit et sigillat; et est ei labor infinitus, atque
post thesaurarium maximus.
D. Utilis hic esset magis Argus, quam Polyphemus.
Quid ad Clericum Constabularies.
M. Clericus constabulariae magnus et officiosus in regis curia,
ad scaccarium etiam ad majora quaeque cum magnis ascitur, et
assensu ejus regia fiunt negotia. Destinatur autem a rege ad
scaccarium cum contrabrevibus ad terminos scaccarii, de hiis
tantum quae ad curiam fiunt. Hic etiam cum constabulario
liberationibus militum vel quorumlibet eorum intendit, ut prae
dictum est ; et est interdum laboriosum satis offieium ejus, licet
paucis exprimatur. Explet tamen illud frequentius per suppo-
sitam personam, sicut cancellarius; quapropter majores non
facile possunt a regis praesentia longius ire. Sic habes disposi-
torum in secundo sedili ad dextram praesidentis utcunque
distributa officia. Quid ad Brunum.
Porro in capite quarti sedilis quod opponitur justiciariis,
residet Magister Thomas cognomento Brunus. Hujus ad scac-

190 Henry II. [part
carium non vilis est auctoritas. Magnum enim et validum
fidei ejus et discretiouis est argumentum, quod a tam excellentis
ingenii principe electus est, ut praeter antiquam consuetudinem
tertium habeat rotulum, in quo regni jura regisque secreta con-
scribat, et eundem penes se reservans quocunque voluerit deferat.
Habet etiam clericum suum in inferiore scaccario, qui juxta
clericum thesaurarii residens, liberam habet facultatem scribendi
quae recipiuntur et expenduntur in thesauro.
D. Nunquid principi cognita est eo usque fides ejus atque
discretio, quod ad hoc opus merito non aestimetur alius ad
ilium ?
M. Magnus hic erat in magni regis Siculi curia, consiliis pro-
vidus, et in regis secretis pene praecipuus. Surrexit interea rex
novus qui ignorabat ilium, qui prava habens latera patrem per-
sequebatur in suis. Compulsus est igitur. vir iste, mutatis
rebus prosperis, vitae suae consulere, et licet pateret ei cum
summo honore accessus ad regna plurima, tamen frequenter
vocatos ab illustri rege Anglorum Henrico, cui fama veritate
ipsa minor est, praeelegit ad natale solum et successorium ac
singularem dominum suum accedere. Susceptus igitur ab ipso
sicut utrumque decuit, quia apud Siculum magnis intenderat,
hic etiam ad magna deputatur negotia scaccarii. Sic igitur et
locum et dignitatis offieium adeptus est ; ad quaelibet etiam
scaccarii magna negotia cum magnis assumitur. Sic habes
omnium qui ad majus scaccarium ex officio resident jura dis
tincta. Consequens autem est, ni fallor, ut quae sint eorum
dignitates ratione sessionis ad scaccarium prosequamur.
D. Immo, si placet, de officio militis quem argentarium dicis,
nee non de fusoris officio dicendum est ; quia cum sibi videantur
annexa, et ad majus scaccarium pertinentia, hucusque dilata
sunt. M. Cerno quod te promissorum memoria nou praeterit, ex
quo spes certa concipitur, quod te jam dictis non fraudabit
oblivio. Credebam sane de officiis tibi fuisse satisfactum, quia
de residentibus ad scaccarium neminem praetermiseram. Sed
hii de quibus commemoras certas non habent sibi deputatas
sedes, immo pro imperio praesidentis vel thesaurarii suum
explent offieium. Quid ad Militem Argentarium.
Porro miles argentarius ab inferiori scaccario ad superius
defert loculum examinandi argenti, cujus supra meminimus •
quem cum intulerit signatum sigillo vicecomitis, sub omnium
oculis effundit in scaccario quadraginta quatuor solidos, quos de

tv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I.

191

acervo sumptos prius signaverat, factaque commixtione eorundem,
ut ponderi respondeant, mittit in unum vaseulum trutinae libram
ponderis, in alteram vero de denariis quod oportuerit, quo
facto numerat eosdem, ut ex numero constare possit, si legitimi
ponderis sint; cujuscunque vero ponderis inventi fuerint, seorsum
mittit in ciffum libram unam, hoc est xx. solidos ex quibus examen
fiat ; reliquos vero xxiiii. solidos mittit in loculum. Item duo
denarii praeter libram examinandam dantur fusori, non de fisco
sed de parte vicecomitis, quasi in praemium sui laboris. Tunc
eliguntur a praesidente, vel a thesaurario si ille absens fuerit,
alii duo vicecomites, ut simul cum argentario nee non et vice
comite cujus examen faciendum est, procedant ad ignem ; ubi
fusor ante praemonitus praeparatis necessariis eorum praesto-
latur adventam : ibi iterum praesente fusore et hiis qui a
baronibus missi sunt, diligenter computantur, et fusori tra-
duntur. Quid ad Fusorcm.
Quos ille suscipiens manu propria numerat, et sic disponit
eos in vaseulum ignitorum cinerum quod in fornace est. Tunc
igitur artis fusoriae lege servata redigit eos in massam, conflans
et emundans argentum. Ceterum cavendum est ei, ne citra
perfectum subsistat, vel importunis aestuationibus vexet illud
atque consumat ; illud propter regis, hoc propter vicecomitis
jacturam ; sed modis omnibus provideat et procuret quanta
poterit industria, ut non vexetur, sed ad purum tantum exco-
quatur: hoc autem ipsum providere debent hii, qui ad idem
missi sunt a majoribus. Facto igitur examine, defert illud
argentarius ad barones, comitantibus illis, et tunc in omnium
oculis ponderat illud cum libra praedicta ponderis : supplet
autem mox, quod ignis consumpsit, appositis denariis ejusdem
loculi, donee aequilibriter se habeat examen cum pondere ; tunc
inscribitur idem examen desuper ducta creta his verbis, ' Ever-
wicscira. Libra arsit tot, vel tot denariis ; ' et tunc illud essaium
dicitur; non enim inscribitur nisi praeconcesso quod sic stare
debeat. Quod si vicecomes cujus est, calumpniatus fuerit illud
quasi plus justo consumptum fuerit, ignis scilicet exaestuatione,
vel plumbi infusione ; vel etiam fusor ipse qualibet occasione
defecisse fateatur examen, iterum numerentur viginti solidi, qui
residui sunt in loculo praedicto, coram baronibus, sicut dictum
est, ut eadem ratione servata fiat examen. Hinc tibi constare
potest, qua consideratione de acervo magno praepositae pecuniae
quadraginta quatuor solidi seorsum ab initio mittantur in locu
lum apposito vicecomitis sigillo. Notandum vero est, quod

192 Henry II. [part
fusor duos percipit denarios pro examine, sicut diximus. Quod
si quovis casu aliud faceret, etiam si tertio examinaverit, non
percipiet quicquam, sed contentus erit semel susceptis duobus.
D. Miror a tantis tantam adhiberi diligentiam in unius librae
examinatione, cum nee magnus ex eo quaestus nee multa jactura
perveniat. M. Non propter hanc tantum fiunt haec, sed propter omnes
illas quae ab eodem vicecomite sub eodem nomine firmae simul
cum hae persolvuntur. Quantum enim ab hae libra per ignem
purgatorium decidit, tantundem ex singulis aliis libris noverit
vicecomes de summa sua subtrahendum : ut si centum libras
numeratas solvent, et libra examinis xii. denar. exeiderit, non
computentur ei nisi nonaginta quinque.
D. Nunc videre videor quaestum ex hiis provenire posse non
modicum, sed cui cedere debeat ignore
M. Semel dictum est et semper intelligatur, soli regiae utili
tati in his omnibus serviri. Licet autem a talea vicecomitis
combustio detrahatur, mittitur tamen seorsum in taleam alteram
breviorem, ut de summa ejus thesaurarius et camerarii respon
deant. Sciendum vero quod per hanc taleam combustionis
dealbatur firma vicecomitis ; unde in testimonium hujus rei
semper majori taleae appensa cohaeret.
D. Pulsat adhuc me quaestio non dissimilis illi, quam in
agendis inferioris scaccarii proposuisse me memini ; quare vide
licet libra una plus altera decidat, cum par debeat esse conditio
omnium operantium in moneta.
M. Ad hanc sicut ad illam quaestionem sufficit respondere,
fieri posse hoc per falsarios et nummorum detonsores. Fuerunt
autem, qui crederent, quibus nee ego dissentio, non esse legiti-
mam hujus regni monetam, si examinata libra decidat plusquam
vi. den. a pondere, cui numerata respondet ; et etiam delatam ad
scaccarium hujusmodi pecuniam fisco debere cedere, nisi forte
novi sint et non usuales denarii, quorum etiam superscriptio
suum prodat auctorem ; tunc enim idem monetarius super opere
suo districte convenietur, et legibus constitutis sine jactura vice
comitis comdemnabitur vel absolvetur. Quod si per examina-
tionem probatis et reprobatis denariis monetarius condemnatus
et punitus fuerit, denarii a fusore scaccarii, praesentibus aliis
hujus artis peritis, redigentur in massam, et pondus ejus vice
comiti computabitur. Verum totum hoc pene nunc abolitum
est et multum relinquitur, quoniam in moneta generaliter pec-
catur ab omnibus. Cum autem ad debitum et lege determina-
tum modum moneta pervenerit, primitivae constitutionis legem
observarii necesse erit. Contra, si quis vicecomes nummos attu-

!V.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 193
lisset, quorum libra combusta a v. vel iiii. vel infra se cohiberet,
et viderentur de novo facti, non usuales vel cursorii, simili modo
non legitimi dicebantur, quasi excedentes legem communem ;
unde et infiscari poterant sicut et alii. Item sunt ad scaccarium
liberationes constitutae quae statutis terminis sine brevi regis
solvuntur : qualis est liberatio naucleri, custodis scilicet navis
regiae quam esneccam dicimus, qui xii. den. percipit quaque die ;
de qua et consimilibus taleae fiunt a camerariis, quia de hiis brevia
non habent. Miles autem argentarius horum recauta habet,
i. e. contrataleas. Hic simul et fusor rogati a camerariis, cum
necesse fuerit et plurima delata pecunia opprimit computatores,
juvant eos computatione : voluntarium tamen est eis, non neces-
sarium. Sic habes militis argentarii et fusoris officia.
D. Quae sunt signa facti vel infecti examinis ?
M. Non satis novi ; quia nee sollicitus super hiis fui. Verum
quamdiu super jam liquidum argentum nigra quaedam nubecula
circumferri conspicitur, infectum dicitur. At cum quaedam
quasi grana minuta ab imo deducuntur ad summum, et illic dis-
solvuntur, signum est examinati.
VII. A quibus vel ad quid instituta fuerit argenti examinatio.
D. A quibus vel ob quam rem instituta fuit examinatio haec
vel combustio ?
M. Ut de his tibi constare possit, paulo altius oriendum est.
Sicut traditum habemus a patribus, in primitivo regni statu post
conquisitionem, regibus de fundis suis non auri vel argenti pon-
dera sed sola victualia solvebantur ; ex quibus in usus quotidi-
anos domus regiae necessaria ministrabantur. Et noverant, qui
ad haec deputati fuerant, quantam de singulis fundis prove-
niebat. Ceterum ad stipendia vel donativa militum et alia
necessaria, de placitis regni vel conventionibus, et ex civitatibus
vel castellis a quibus agricultura non exercebatur, pecunia
numerata succrescebat. Toto igitur regis Willelmi primi tem
pore perseveravit haec institutio, usque tempora regis Henrici
filii ejus ; adeo ut viderim ego ipse quosdam, qui victualia
statutis temporibus de fundis regiis ad curiam deterri viderint :
certumque habebant officiales domus regiae a quibus comitatibus
triticum, a quibus diversae species carnium vel equorum pabula,
vel quae necessaria, debebantur. Hiis vero solutis secundum
constitutum modum cujusque rei, regii officiales computabaut
vicecomiti redigentes in summam denariorum : pro mensura
scilicet tritici ad panem c. hominum, solidum unum ; pro cor-
pore bovis pascualis, solidum unum ; pro ariete vel ove, iiii. d. ;
o

194 Henry II. [part
pro praebenda xx. equorum, similiter iiii. d. Succedente vero
tempore, cum idem rex in transmarinis et remotis partibus
sedandis tumultibus bellicis operam daret, contigit ut fieret sibi
summa necessaria ad haec explenda numerata pecunia. Con-
fluebat interea ad regis curiam querula multitudo colonorum,
vel, quod gravius sibi videbatur, praetereunti frequenter occur-
sabat, oblatis vomeribus in signum deficientis agricultarae ;
innumeris enim molestiis premebantur occasione victualium,
quae per plurimas regni partes a sedibus propriis deferebant.
Horum igitur querelis inclinatus rex, diffinito magnorum consilio,
destinavit per regnum quos ad id prudentiores et discretiores
cognoverat, qui circueuntes et oculata fide fundos singulos per-
lustrantes, habita aestimatione victualium, quae de hiis solve-
bantur, redegerunt in summam denariorum. De summa vero
summarum quae ex omnibus fundis surgebat in uno comitatu,
constituerunt vicecomitem illius comitatus ad scaccarium teneri ;
addentes, ut ad scalam solveret, hoc est propter quamlibet
numeratam libram vi. d. Rati sunt enim tractu temporis de
facili posse fieri, ut moneta tunc fortis a suo statu decideret.
Nee eos fefellit opinio; unde coacti sunt constituere ut firma
maneriorum non solum ad scalam, sed ad pensum solveretor;
quod perfici non poterat nisi longe pluribus appositis. Serva-
batur per plures annos ad scaccarium lex hujus solutionis : unde
frequenter in veteribus annalibus rotulis regis illius invenies
scriptum, in thesauro c. libras ad scalam ; vel, in thesauro
c. libras ad pensum. Surrexit interea vir prudens, consiliis
providus, sermone discretus, et ad maxima quaeque negotia per
Dei gratiam repente praecipuus ; diceres in eo completum quod
scriptum est, ' nescit tarda molimina Spiritus Sancti gratia.' Hic
ab eodem rege ad curiam vocatus, licet ignotus non tamen igno-
bilis suo perdocuit exemplo
Paupertas tenuis quam sit foecunda virorum J
Hic igitur, succrescenti in eum principis ac cleri populique
favore, Sarisberiensis episcopus factus, maximis in regno fun-
gebatur honorihus, et de scaccario plurimam habuit scientiam;
adeo ut non sit ambiguum sed ex ipsis rotulis mauifestam,
plurimum sub eo floruisse; de cujus stillicidiis nos quoque
modicum id quod habemus per traditionem accepimus. Super
hoc ad praesens multa loqui supersedeo ; quia pro qualitate sui
status nobilissimae mentis indicem superstitem sibi memoriam
dereliquit. Hic postmodum ex mandato principis accessit ad
scaccarium; ubi cum per aliquot annos persedisset, comperit
hoc solutionis geriere non plene fisco satisfieri: licet enim in

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I.

195

numero et pondere videretur satisfactum, non tamen in materia :
consequens enim non erat, ut si pro libra una numeratos
xx. solidos etiam librae ponderis respondentes solvisset, conse-
quenter libram solvisset argenteam : poterat enim cupro vel
quovis aere mixtam solvisse, cum non fieret examinatio. Ut
igitur regiae simul et publicae provideretur utilitati, habito
super hoc ipso regis consilio, constitutum est nt fieret ordine
praedicto firmae combustio vel examinatio.
D. Quomodo publice ?
M. Sentiens enim vicecomes se praegravari per combus-
tionem deterioris monetae, cum firmam est soluturus, sollicitam
adhibet diligentiam ut monetarii sub eo constituti legis con-
stitutae fines non excedant ; quos cum deprehenderit, sic puni-
untur, ut eorum exemplo ceteri terreantur.
D. Nunquid de omnibus comitatibus firma blanca solvi debet,
vel ex omnibus comitatibus examinatio fieri ?
M. Non; sed qui de antiquo jure coronae regiae annomi-
nantor sic solvunt. Qui vero per incidentes aliquos casus infis-
cantur, solo numero satisfaciunt ; quales sunt Salopscir, Sudsex,
Northumberland et Cumberland. Liberum est etiam viceco
miti ut pro firma blanca solvat examinati argenti pondera ; et
sic eflugiat jacturam combustionis ; sic tamen ut fusor regis
eadem suscipienda discernat. Habes igitur quod petisti, a
quibus scilicet et ob quam causam instituta fuerit examinatio.
D. Video per hanc ad litteram impletum quod scriptum est :
'quale fuerit cujusque opus ignis probabit.' Sed jam nunc
placeat coeptis insistere.
M . Fiat. Consequens est, ut credo, secundum dispositae rati-
onis ordinem, ut quae sunt dignitates residentium ad scaccarium
ex officio, vel ex regis mandato, prosequamur.
D. Miror satis qua consideratione cum de officiis ageretur, de
ostiario majoris scaccarii et ejus officio vel ex industria suppres-
sisti, vel oblivionis injuria resistente praeteriisti.
M. Gratulor te memorem praedictorum ; in proficiente quippe
discipulo gloria doctoris est. Nosti jam dictum ostiarium
liberationem percipere cum aliis officialibus, et ideo merito
requiris, quid sit ejus offieium. Est autem hujusmodi;
Quid ad Ostiarium Superioris Scacca/rii.
Ostium domus illius in qua scaccarium residet, ostiarius ille
solus sine consorte custodit ; nisi cum de domo propria servi
entes assumit in onus officii sui. Nihilominus custodit idem
ostium thalami secretorum, qui collocates est juxta domum ubi
scaccarium est. Ad hunc accedunt barones, cum proponitur eis
o 2

196" Henry II [part
verbum ambiguum ad scaccarium, de quo malunt seorsum trac-
tare quam in auribus omnium ; maxime autem propter hoc in
partem secedunt, ne compoti qui ad scaccarium fiunt impedi-
antur ; quibus moram facientibus in consiliis, consuetus cursus
compotorum agitur. Si quid vero natum fuerit quaestionis,
referetur ad eos. Liberum etiam est ostiario, ut quibuslibet
magnae auctoritatis viris ad hoc opus non necessariis impune
praecludat aditum cum voluerit. Solis vero hiis qui ad scac
carium ex officio vel ex regis mandato resident, voluntarius
patet ingressus in utrumque thalamum. Quod si auctenticae
sint personae, quos singulariter incedere non est idoneum, unum
vel duos introducere poterunt in exteriorem domum scaccarii,
sed in thalamum secretorum soli majores introeunt, ceteris
exclusis ; nisi cum ad quaelibet regia negotia explenda a dominis
suis vocantur. Item ostiarius factas summonitiones et signatas
a marescallo suscipit ; soluto scaccario illius termini, in propria
persona vel per fidelem nuncium per Angliam, sicut supra
dictum est, easdem defert. Hic etiam ex mandato praesidentis
convocat in praesentiam ejus vicecomites qui extra domum
ubicunque dispersi sunt, cum indiguerit illis. Item ad hunc
pertinet, ut sollicitus sit circa minuta quaelibet necessaria quae
in domo scaccarii sunt, velut ad sternenda et praeparanda
sedilia circa scaccarium, et hujusmodi. Ex praedictis, ut cre-
dimus, de officiis omnium qui ad scaccarium resident tibi con
stare potest. Nunc quae sunt eorum jura vel dignitates ratione
sessionis ad scaccarium ostendemus.
VIII. Quae sunt jura et dignitates residentium ad Scaccari/wm
ratione sessionis.
Oportet autem de cetero nobis amplius parcat lingua detrac-
toris, et dens aemulus ne laniet insultando ; vix enim ad notitiam
tuam aliquid horum pertingeret, si non usitatis rerum vocabulis,
sed exquisito verborum schemata vel confectis nominibus duxe-
rimus insistendum.
D. Solam verborum novitatem a principio vitare praemonui,
et circa communia communibus et usitatis uti verbis obtinui, ne
disciplinalia rudimenta novitas insueta turbaret. Sic igitur, ut
coepisti, coeptum libeat iterum explere. Quod si te sic gradi-
entem detractoris aemula mens vel lingua repererit, illud obtineas
ab eo, ut qui in scriptis suis sine peccato est, primus in te
lapidem mittat.
M. Sponte pareo, dummodo lex ista servetur. Dignitas resi
dentium ad scaccarium in pluribus consistit. Sive enim de clero
sint sive de regis curia qui assident ex mandato, ab ea die qua

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 197
convenient usque ad generalem sessionem, ad alias quaslibet
causas sub quibuscunque judicibus non evocantur; et si forte
vocati fuerint, ratione publicae potestatis excusantur. Quod si
sint actores et non rei qui assident, et alias habent lites, in
eorum erit arbitrio vel experiri per procuratorem, vel absque
omni detrimento sui juris diem prorogare. Si vero judex sub
quo litigant, sive sit ecclesiasticus sive forensis, legis hujus
ignarus, ab jam dicta die convocationis ad scaccarium citaverit
quemlibet eorum, et absentem forte per sententiam possessione
sua vel quovis jure spoliaverit, auctoritate principis et ratione
sessionis revocabitur in eum statum causa ipsius, in quo erat
ante citationem : sed judex propter hoc puniri non meruit ;
quod enim sui officii est, est exequutus ; licet pro publica potes
tate non consequatur effectum. ¦ Quod si sic citatus fuerit, ut
fatalis dies lege determinatos sibi constitutas diem convocationis
ad scaccarium praeveniat, non poterit se per illud excusare, vel
judicis sententiam declinare, vel in se latam irritam facere,
etiamsi alter alteri sic proximus sit, ut iter cogatur arripere.
Procuret itaque sibi procuratorem vel responsalem, et ipse regiis
addictus negotiis ad curiam sine simulatione festinet. Praeterea
barones qui ad scaccarium resident, de victualibus suae domus
in urbibus et castellis et maritimis emptis, nomine consuetudinis
nihil solvunt. Quod si minister vectigalium de hiis quicquam
solvere compulerit, dummodo praesens sit serviens ejus qui
suis usibus empta fuisse oblata fide probare voluerit, baroni
quidem exacta pecunia restituetur in integrum, et improbus
exactor pro qualitate personae pecuniariam poenam luet. Item
si quilibet etiam magnus in regno inconsulto calore animi quem
libet ad scaccarium residentem probris vel conviciis lacessierit,
si praesidens ille praesens est, excessus hujusmodi ultricem
poenam pecuniariam statim excipiet. Absente vero praesidente,
illatam injuriam si constanter ille negaverit, et acclamaverint
consedentes dixisse eum quod sibi objicitur, nihilominus regi cui
militatur in pecuniam reus statim judicabitur, nisi festinaverit
postulando misericordiam praevenire judicium. Quod si se
invicem hii qui ad scaccarium resident, contumeliosa qualibet
objectione molestaverint, mediantibus aliis sui ordinis ministris
in pacem redeant ; ut satisfiat ab ipso qui innocentem laesit ad
eorum aestimationem. Si vero acquiescere noluerit, sed magis
in sua temeritate perseveraverit, proponatur verbum praesidenti,
et ab eo postmodum quod justum fuerit uterque suscipiat.
Ceterum si per incentorem malorum diabolum, qui fraternae
pacis jocundam laetitiam non aequis aspicit oculis, fieri conti-
gerit, ut inter ipsos majores dissensionis oriatur occasio, deinde

198 Henry II. [part
quod absit succrescant conviciorum jurgia, et addente stimulos
Sathana, per alios collegas operis ejus pax reformari non possit ;
horum omnium cognitio ipsi principi reservabitur ; qui secundum
quod cordi suo Deus, in Cujus manu ipsum est, inspiraverit, ex-
cessum puniet ; ne qui praesunt aliis ferre videantur impune
quod decernunt in aliis puniendum.
D. Ex his manifestum est, quod Salomon ait, ' mors et vita in
manibus linguae ; ' et item Jacobus ; ' lingua modicum membrum
est, et magna exaltat.'
M. Sic est ; sed prosequamur de dignitatibus. Fiunt inter
dum per comitatus communes assisae, a justitiis itinerantibus
quos nos deambulatorios vel perlustrantes judices nominamus ;
quae ideo dicuntur communes, quia cognita summa quae de
comitatu requiritur communiter ab his qui in comitatu fundos
habent, per hydas distribuitur, ut nihil desit de ilia cum ventum
fuerit ad scaccarium solutionis. Ab hiis omnibus omnes hii qui
ad scaccarium ex principis mandato resident liberrimi sunt ;
adeo ut non solum a dominiis sed etiam ad omnibus feodis suis
nihil horum exigatur. Si vero qui residet ibi fundum habeat
vel ad firmam, vel in custodiam, vel etiam in pignus pro pecunia,
liber non erit, sed magis de hiis legibus publicis obnoxius fiet.
Amplius autem praeter has liber erit ad scaccarium a murdris,
a scutagiis, et a Danegeldis. Quod autem ad ipsum pertinet a
summa constituta decidet, et vicecomiti computabitur per haec
verba; 'in perdonis per breve regis, illi vel illi hoc vel illud;'
cum tamen nullum super hoc breve regis habuerit. Caveat
autem cui dimittitur aliquid a principe, ne postea sibi dimissum
requirat a subditis, sed magis memor sit verbi illius, ' dimittite
et dimittemini ; ' quia cum hoc fuerit deprehensum, princeps
evangelicae aemulator doctrinae nee dimittet eum nee debitum
dimittet ei, sed forsitan in centuplum puniet ; quia impensa sibi
gratia videtur abuti, cum ab aliis irreverenter exigit quod gratis
sibi dimissum est.
D. Dictum est, si bene memini, quod quicunque regis prae
cepto residet ad scaccarium quibusdam a lege determinatis
ratione sessionis liber est. Additum est etiam, si bene recolo,
considere scaccarium in termino Paschae, non tamen quae illic
fiunt omnino terminari, sed eorum consummationem termino
Sancti Michaelis reservari. Cum igitur possibile sit, immo et
frequenter contingat, aliquem ex regis mandato in termino
Paschae ad hoc assumi, qui in termino Sancti Michaelis vel fati
debita solvit, vel ad alia regni negotia mandato regis transfertur,
vel quod fortius quibusdam visum est, medio tempore principi
factus exosus, tam excellentibus negotiis indignus judicatur :

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 199
quaero si qui termino Paschae quietus est quo pauca termi-
nantur, sed omnia per iteratam summonitionem innovantur,
hic talis in termino Sancti Michaelis absolvi mereatur, cum
etiam et scaccarii sessionem et ipsam principis gratiam de-
meruerit. M. Ad hujus quaestionis partem utramque construendam
copiosa fbrsitan est rationum inventio, sed noveris regiae muni-
ficentiae libertatem, post semel indultam absolutionis gratiam,
etiam cum pecuniae dispendio, in partem meliorem semper esse
proniorem : quippe similis est donorum et perdonorum regis
ratio, ut sicut dona ejus revocari vel repeti non debent, sic nee
regis dimissa quae vulgo perdonata dicuntur, nequeunt in irri-
tam devocari. Liber igitur et absolutus est in termino consum-
mationis, qui quocunque modo in praecedenti meruit absolvi.
D. Movent me quaedam, quae praedicta sunt. Primo quod
dicis aliquid alicui dimitti sub hoc tenore verborum, 'in per-
donis per breve regis, illi vel illi hoc vel illud,' cum tamen
nullum breve regis dimissionis obtinuerit. Quomodo enim fieri
potest, ut sic falsa non deprehendatur scriptura rotuli, non
video. M . Movet te nee immerito ; quod me diu movit ; atque
(ut credo) nondum patuit omnibus haec scripturae ratio : unde
licet non sit magnum quod petis, attamen est insolitum, et
videtur absurdum, ut per breve regis dicatur dimissum quod
sine brevi semper est dimittendum. Ea propter de hae ipsa
sollicitus fui circa dominum Eliensem, virum utique hujus officii
peritissimum, cujus memoria in benedictione sit in aeternum.
Hic illustris illius Anglorum regis Henrici primi thesaurarius,
et nepos Sarisberiensis cujus supra meminimus, incomparabilem
suis temporibus habuit scaccarii scientiam : maximus etiam
existens in hiis quae ad sui status dignitatem pertinebant,
celebrem sui nominis famam fecit, adeo ut pene solus in regno
sic vixerit et sic decesserit ut gloriam ejus invida lingua deni-
grare non audeat. Hic etiam ab illustri rege Henrico secundo
frequenter rogatus, scaccarii scientiam continuata per multos
annos bellica tempestate pene prorsus abolitam refbrmavit, et
totius descriptionis ejus formam, velut alter Esdras bibliothecae
sedulus reparator, renovavit. Credidit sane vir prudens satius
esse, constitutas ab antiquis leges posteris innotescere, quam
sua taciturnitate ut novae conderentur efficere ; vix enim
modernitas in quaestu pecuniae mitiora prioribus jura dictavit.
Ab hoc igitur super hoc hujusmodi responsum accepi ; ' frater,
qui aures audiendi avidas habet, facile detractoris linguam
invenit ; etiam is qui non habet non facile eandem effugiet.

200 Henry II. [part
Accessit itaque ad regem Henricum primum vir aliquis habens
sibila serpentis, dicens ei ; " barones vestri qui ad scaccarium
resident ut quid quae de terris eorum exsurgunt non solvunt ?
Cum quidam constitutas habeant ad scaccarium liberationes pro
sessione sua ; quidam etiam pro officio suo fundos habent
et fructus eorum; hinc ergo gravis jactura fisco provenit."
Cum igitur ille principis emolumentum allegans frequenter
instaret, mentem ejus vix tandem verbum istud eo usque
possedit, ut omnia constituta ab omnibus solvi praeciperet, nee
aliquid alicui dimitti, nisi quis super hoc expressum ejus obti-
nuisset mandatum : factumque est ita. Succedente vero tem
pore, cum recordaretur princeps consilii Achitophel, poenituit
eum acquievisse. Decrevit autem omnibus illic ministrantibus
omnia praedicta computari, nihil ducens jacturam modici aeris
respectu magni honoris. Destinavit itaque breve suum ad
scaccarium, ut assidentes illic ab his liberi essent jure perpetuo.
Ab hoc igitur brevi ex tunc et modo dicitur, " in perdonis per
breve regis;" sicque factum est, ut quod indultum est patribus
etiam nunc perseveret in posteris.' Simile autem huic aliquid
temporibus modernis nos vidisse meminimus, quod tractu tem
poris sub consimili verborum tenore hiis qui absolvi meruerint
computabitur. Praecepit namque dominus rex Henricus se
cundus in termino Sancti Michaelis xxiiii anno regni sui, ut
milites Templi, et fratres Hospitalis, et monachi Cisterciensis
ordinis, quibus per cartae suae libertatem longe ante quietan-
tiam indulserat omnium quae ad denarios pertinent, excepta
justitia mortis et membrorum, amodo quieti essent de hiis
omnibus quae ad denarios per singulos comitatus pertinerent,
adeo ut de cetero cartas suas ad scaccarium deferre non
cogerentur. Hoc enim regiae pietatis decrevit auctoritas, ut sic
semel baronum consideratione de hiis omnibus expedirentur ; ne
qui ad frugem vitae melioris transierunt, et orationibus potius
vacare tenentur, ad scaccarium propter hoc cum cartis suis
inutilem et taediosam moram facere compellantur. Consilio
igitur et consideratione baronum qui interfuerunt factum est
breve domini regis sub hoc tenore ; ' Clamo quietos milites
Templi de quinque marcis, quae exiguntur ab hominibus eorum
pro defectu ; et prohibeo ne amodo ab ipsis vel hominibus eorum
vel terris aliquid exigatur vel capiatur, quod ad denarios
pertineat. Testibus his ibi.' Sic et fratribus Hospitalis, et
monachis praedictis. Hujus autem auctoritate mandati, amodo
per singulos comitatus de omnibus quae ad denarios pertinent
quieti erunt : sic ut dicatur in annali, ' in perdonis per breve
regis,' illud scilicet cujus supra meminimus.

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 201
D. Satis intellexi quod dictum est. Nunc si placet, quid sit
scutagium, murdrum, vel Danegeldum, aperire non differas.
Barbara quidem esse videntur ; sed eo magis me sollicitant,
quod ab hiis dicis liberos esse scaccarii ministros.
IX. Quid Scutagium, et quare sic dictum est.
M. Fit interdum, ut imminente vel insurgente in regnum
hostium machinatione decernat rex de singulis feodis militum
summam aliquam solvi, marcam scilicet vel libram unam ; unde
militibus stipendia vel dbnativa succedant. Mavult enim
princeps stipendiaries, quam domesticos bellicis opponere casi-
bus. Haec itaque summa, quia nomine scutorum solvitur,
scutagium nuncupatur. Ab hoc autem quieti sunt ad scac
carium residentes. X. Quid Murdrum, et quare sic dictum.
Porro murdrum proprie dicitur mors alicujus occulta, cujus
interfector ignoratur. Murdrum enim idem est quod abscondi-
tom vel occultum. In primitivo itaque regni statu post con-
quisitionem, qui relicti fuerant de Anglicis subjectis in suspectam
et exosam sibi Normannorum gentem latenter ponebant insidias,
et passim ipsos in nemoribus et locis remotis, nacta opportuni-
tate, clanculo jugulabant : in quorum ultione cum reges et eorum
ministri per aliquot annos exquisitis tormentorum generibus in
Anglicos desaevirent, nee tamen sic omnino desisterent, in hoc
tandem devolutum est consilium, ut centuriata, quam hundre-
dum dicunt, in qua sic interfectus Normannus inveniebatur,
quia mortis ejus minister non exstabat, nee per fugam quis esset
patebat, in summam grandem argenti examinati fisco condem-
naretur, quaedam scilicet in xxxvi., quaedam in xliiii. libris,
secundum locorum diversitatem et interfectionis frequentiam ;
quod ideo factum dicunt, ut scilicet poena generaliter inflicta
praetereuntium indemnitatem procuraret, et festinaret quisque
tantum punire delictum, vel offerre judicio per quem tam
enormis jactura totam laedebat viciniam. Ab horum, ut prae
diximus, solutione sedentes ad tabulam liberos noveras.
D. Nunquid pro murdro debet imputari clandestina mors
Anglici sicut Normanni 1
M. A prima institutione non debet, sicut audisti : sed jam
cohabitantibus Anglicis et Normannis, et alterutrum uxores
ducentibus vel nubentibus, sic permixtae sunt nationes, ut vix
discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus quis Nor-

202 Henry II. [part
mannus sit genere ; exceptis duntaxat ascriptitiis qui villain
dicuntur, quibus non est liberum obstantibus dominis suis a sui
status conditione discedere. Ea propter pene quicunque sic
hodie occisus reperitur, ut murdrum punitur, exceptis his quibus
certa sunt ut diximus servilis conditionis indicia.
D. Miror singularis excellentiae principem et acerrimae vir-
tutis hominem, in subactam et sibi suspectam Anglorum gentem
hae usum misericordia, ut non solum colonos per quos agricul-
tura posset exerceri indempnes servaret ; verum ipsis regni
majoribus fundos suos et amplas possessiones relinqueret.
M. Licet haec ad suscepta negotia quibus debitor factus sum
non attinent, tamen quae super hiis ab ipsis indigenis accepi,
gratis exponam. Post regni conquisitionem, post justam re-
bellium subversionem, cum rex ipse regisque proceres loca nova
perlustrarent, facta est inquisitio diligens, qui fuerint qui contra
regem in bello dimicantes per fugam se salvaverint. His omnibus
et item haeredibus eorum qui in bello occubuerunt, spes omnis
terrarum et fundorum atque redituum quos ante possederant,
praeclusa est : magnum namque reputabant frui vitae beneficio
sub inimicis. Verum qui vocati ad helium nee dum convenerant,
vel familiaribus vel quibuslibet necessariis oceupati negotiis non
interfuerant, cum tractu temporis devotis obsequiis gratiam
dominorum possedissent, sine spe successionis sibi tantum pro
voluptate tamen dominorum possidere coeperunt. Succedente
vero tempore cum dominis suis odiosi passim a possessionibus
pellerentur, nee esset qui ablata restitueret, communis indige-
narum ad regem pervenit querimonia, quasi sic omnibus exosi
et rebus spoliati ad alienigenas transire cogerentur. Communi-
cato tandem, super his consilio, decretum est, ut quod a dominis
suis exigentibus meritis interveniente pactione legitima poterant
obtinere, illis inviolabili jure concederentur : ceterum autem
nomine successionis a temporibus subactae gentis nihil sibi ven-
dicarent. Quod quidem quam discreta consideratione cautum
sit, manifestum est, praesertim cum sic modis omnibus ut sibi
consulerent, de cetero studere tenerentur devotis obsequiis
dominorum suorum gratiam emercari. Sic igitur quisquis de
gente subacta fundos vel aliquid hujusmodi possidet, non quod
ratione successionis deberi sibi videbatur, adeptus est ; sed quod
solummodo meritis suis exigentibus, vel aliqua pactione inter
veniente, obtinuit.
D. Quid sit centuriata vel hundredum non satis novi.
M. Sustine modicum : scies postea loco suo, hoc est in titulo
de libro judiciario. Nunc prosequamur de Danegeldo et ut
ratio nominis tibi constet, paulisper adverte.

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 203

XI. Quid Danegeldum, et quare sic dictum.
Insula nostra suis contenta bonis peregrinis
Non eget. Hanc igitur merito dixere priores,
Divitiisque sinum deliciisque larem.
Propter haec innumeras ab exteris injurias passa est ; quia
scriptum est : ' furem preciosa signata sollicitant.' Circum-
jacentium enim insularum praedones irruptione facta maritima
depopulantes, aurum, argentum, et quaeque pretiosa tollebant.
Verum cum rex et indigenae bellicis apparatibus instructi in suae
gentis defensionem instarent, illi fugas aggrediebantor aequo-
reas. Inter hos itaque pene praecipua et semper pronior ad
nocendum erat bellicosa ilia et populosa gens Dacorum ; qui
praeter communem raptorum avaritiam acrius instabant, quia
aliquid de antiquo jure in ejusdem regni dominatione vendi-
cabant, sicut Britonum plenius narrat historia. Ad hos igitur
arcendos a regibus Anglicis statutum est, ut de singulis hidis
regni jure quodam perpetuo duo solidi argenti solverentur in
usus virorum fortium, qui perlustrantes et jugiter excubantes
maritima impetum hostium reprimerent. Quia igitur princi-
paliter pro Dacis institutus est hic redditus, Danegeldum vel
Danegeldus dicitur. Hic igitur annua lege, sicut dictum est,
sub indigenis regibus solvebatur, usque ad tempora regis
Willelmi primi de gente et genere Normannorum. Ipso nam
que regnante, tam Daci quam ceteri terrae marisque praedones
hostiles cohibebant incursus ; scientes verum esse quod scriptum
est ; ' cum fortis armatus custodit atrium suum, in pace sunt ea
quae possidet.' Noverant autem etiam quod acerrimae virtutis
homines impunitas non ferunt injurias. Cum ergo diu siluisset
terra sub ejusdem regis imperio, noluit hoc ut annuum solvi,
quod fuerat urgente necessitate bellicae tempestatis exactum,
nee tamen omnino propter inopinatos casus dimitti. Raro
igitur temporibus illius vel successorum ipsius solutus est : hoc
est cum ab exteris gentibus bella vel opiniones bellorum insur-
gebant. Verum quocunque tempore solvatur, ab ipso liberi sunt
qui assident ad scaccarium, sicut dictum est. Vicecomites quo
que, licet inter barones scaccarii non computantur, ab hoc quieti
sunt de dominiis suis, propter laboriosam ejusdem census col-
lectam. Noveris autem dominica cujuslibet haec dici, quae
propriis sumptibus vel laboribus excoluntur; et item quae ab
ascriptitiis suis suo nomine possidentur. Quia enim ascriptitii
de regni jure non solum ab hiis quae modo possident ad alia
loca a dominis suis transferri possunt : verum etiam ipsi quoque

204 Henry II. [part
licite venduntur vel quomodo libet distrahuntur ; merito tam
ipsi quam terrae, quas excolunt ut dominis suis serviant,
dominia reputantur. Item fertur ab his quibus antiqua scac
carii dignitas oculata fide pernotuit, quod barones ejus ab
essartis forestarum liberi sunt de dominiis suis. Quibus et nos
consentine videmur ; adjecta determinatione, ut de hiis essartis
dicantur quieti, quae fuerant ante diem qua rex illustris Henricus
primus rebus humanis exemptus est. Si enim de omnibus quo-
cunque tempore factis vel faciendis quieti essent, liberum vide-
retur baronibus propter impunitatem nemora sua in quibus regia
foresta consistit, pro sui arbitrii voluntate succidere ; quod
nequaquam impune possunt, nisi praecedente regis consensu vel
principalis forestarii. Porro in necessarios etiam usus suae
domus de propriis nemoribus non assumunt hii, qui in foresta
sua habent domicilia, nisi per visum eorum qui ad forestae cus-
todiam deputantur. Verum sunt plures qui suis velint argu-
mentis astruere, quod de essartis hiis nullus liber sit ratione
sessionis ad scaccarium. Si quis omnium illic residentium erga
principem quovis delinqueret infortunio, unde pecuniariter
puniri mereretur, a poena ilia liber non esset nisi speciali prin
cipis mandato. Cum ergo essartum factum excessus sit in
forestam regis, non debet, ut dicunt, is qui sic delinquit et
propter hoc punitur, nisi regis expresso mandato, liberari. Haec
itaque ratio licet subtilis sit, et videatur aliquibus pene sufficiens,
obviat tamen illi quod poena pro essartis constituta sit et com
munis in illos, qui sic delinquunt ; ut scilicet pro essarto jugeris
unius triticei solidus unus solvatur ; pro jugere vero quo seritur
avena, vi. denarii jure perpetuo. Ex hiis autem particulis co-
acta summa quaedam exsurget, de qua vicecomes ad scaccarium
respondere tenetur ; sicut ex constitutis duobus solidis vel uno
per singulas hidas comitatus summa una, quae communis assisa
nuncupatur, excrescit. Quia igitur in hiis expressam habet
similitudinem essartum cum assisa communi, sicut dictum est,
videri potuit non immerito similiter quietos habendos illos ab
essartis ut ab aliis communibus assisis. Item obviat eis consue-
tudinis ususque longaevi non vilis auctoritas. Sic enim re-
troactis temporibus fuisse commemorant quibus cana memoria
est. Vidi ego ipse qui loquor tecum temporibus modernis
Legrecestriae comitem Robertum, virum discretum, litteris erudi-
tom et in negotiis forensibus exercitatum. Hic ingenitam habens
animi virtutem, paternae quoque prudentiae aemulator effectus
est : cujus industria pluribus examinata est penes principem
nostrum Henricum secundum, quem nee palliata prudentia nee
dissimulata fallit ineptia ; ut ex mandato ipsius non solum ad

iv-] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 205
scaccarium, verum etiam per universum regnum praesidentis
dignitatem obtinuerit. Hic semel imminente visitatione nemo
rum quam reguardam vulgo dicunt, quae tertio anno fit, breve
regis obtinuit, ut quietus esset ab hiis quae de terra ipsius pro
essartis exigebantur, apposito numero qui de his exsurgebat : quo
delato et lecto ad scaccarium in publico stapcbant omnes et
mirabantur, dicentes ; ' Nonne comes iste libertatem nostram in-
firmat ? ' Contuentibus igitur se invicem qui assidebant, exorsus
est felicis memoriae Nigellus tunc Eliensis episcopus, sic in-
quiens cum modestia : ' Domine comes, irritam fecisse videris per
hoc breve scaccarii dignitatem, qui mandatom regis de hiis rebus
impetrasti, a quibus liber es per sessionem scaccarii : ac, si con-
sequenter amodo per locum a majori debeat inferri, qui de
essartis breve regis non obtinet, solutioni mox obnoxius fiat ;
sed salva reverentia, perniciosus est propter exemplum hic
absolutionis modus.' Cum igitur, ut fit in dubiis, quidam sic
quidam aliter sentirent, allatus est in hujus rei validum argu-
mentum, rotulus annalis de tempore regis illius magni cujus
supra meminimus, sub quo plurimum floruisse dicitur dignitas
et scientia scaccarii ; et inventom est aliquid, quod episcopo de
dignitate residentium alleganti consonum videbatur : quibus
auditis, paulisper deliberans secum comes, sic ait ; ' Fateor me
super hiis rebus breve regis impetrasse, non ut jus vestrum infir-
marem sed ut sic sine molestia declinarem importunam nimis, regi
tamen incognitam, alaniorum exactionem.' Abdicans ergo breve
suum, per libertatem sessionis praeelegit absolvi. Succedente
tempore cum praedictus episcopus infirmitate detentus adesse non
posset, me ipso supplente ad scaccarium vices ipsius in quibus po-
teram, contigit essarta solvi; cum ergo de dominio ejus exacta
solverentur, questus sum in publicum allegans jus absolutionis.
De communi ergo omnium consilio et consideratione, quae jam
soluta fuerat mihi restituta est summa ; reservans autem quae
de dominio suo provenerant, ascriptitiis ejus quod de quolibet
exactum fuerat cum integritate restitui, ut hujus rei testis esset
superstes memoria.
D. Salva reverentia, non exemplis sed rationibus in hiis
utendum est.
M . Ita est ; sed fit interdum, ut causae rerum dictorumque
rationes occultae sint, et tunc sufficit de his exempla subjicere,
praesertim de viris prudentibus sumpta, quorum opera circum-
specta sunt et sine ratione non fiunt. Verum quicquid super
his dixerimus allegantes pro hae libertate vel contra earn, cer
tum habeas quod nihil in hae parte certum dicimus, nisi quod
principis auctoritas decreverit observandum. Sane forestarum

206 Henry II. [part
ratio, poena quoque vel absolutio delinquentium in eas, sive
pecuniaria fuerit sive corporalis, seorsum ab aliis regni judiciis
secernitur, et solius regis arbitrio vel cujuslibet familiaris ad
hoc specialiter deputati subjicitur. Legibus quidem propriis
substitit ; quas non communi regni jure, sed voluntaria princi
pum institutione subnixas dicunt ; adeo ut quod per legem ejus
factum fuerit, non justum absolute, sed justum secundum legem
forestae dicatur. In forestis etiam penetralia regum sunt, et
eorum maximae deliciae ; ad has enim venandi causa curis
quandoque depositis accedunt, ut modica quiete recreentur.
Illic seriis simul, et innatis curiae tumultibus omissis, in nata-
ralis libertatis gratiam paulisper respirant ; unde fit, ut delin-
quentes in earn soli regiae subjaceant animadversioni.
D. Ab ungue primo didici, quod prave prudentis est igno-
rantiam pati malle, quam dictorum causas inquirere ; ut ergo
de praedictis plenius constet, aperire non differas quid foresta
sit, et quid essartum.
XII. Quid Regis Foresta, et quae ratio hujus nominis.
M. Foresta regis est tuta ferarum mansio ; non quarumlibet
sed sylvestrium ; non quibuslibet in locis sed certis et ad hoc
idoneis ; unde foresta dicitur, e mutata in o, quasi feresta, hoc
est ferarum statio.
D. Nunquid in singulis comitatibus foresta regis est 1
M. Non; sed in nemorosis, ubi et ferarum latibula sint et
uberrima pascua : nee interest cujus sint nemora, sive sint regis,
sive regni procerum, liberos tamen et indempnes habent ferae
circumquaque discursus.
XIII. Quid Essartum, et quare sic dictum.
Essarta vero vulgo dicuntur, quae apud Isidorum occationes
nominantur ; quando scilicet forestae nemora vel dumeta quae
libet pascuis et latibulis opportuna succiduntur ; quibus succisis
et radicitus avulsis, terra subvertitur et excolitur. Quod si
nemora sic excisa sint, ut subsistens quis innixus exstanti suc-
cisae quercus vel alterius arboris stipiti, circumspiciens v. suc-
cisas viderit, vastum reputant, hoc est, vastatum per syncopen
sic dictum. Excessus autem talis etiam in propriis cujusque
nemoribus factus, adeo gravis dicitur, ut nunquam inde per
sessionem scaccarii liberari debeat ; sed magis juxta sui status
possibilitatem pecuniariter puniri. Hactenus de dignitatibus
residentium ad scaccarium, quod brevitas succincta permisit, et
menti meae repente se obtulit, utcunque figuraliter exposui.

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 207
Ceterum regum munificentiae terminum in hiis quem non
transgrediantur non constitui ; proni etiam sunt omnes propter
gratiam sibi creditam in suae dignitatis gloriam promovendam,
hii praesertim qui recte sapiunt : at ille maxime mundanorum
principum maximus illustris Anglorum rex Henricus secundus
in augendis dignitatibus sibi militantium semper aspirat; sciens
pro certo, quod indulta suis beneficia nominis sui gloriam im-
mortalis famae titulis emercantur. Nunc igitur ad alia curren-
tem calamum convertamus.
D. Consequens est, ni fallor, sicut ex praedictis videor com-
perisse, ut de regis sigillo, et libro judiciario prosequaris, quo
rum primum si bene memini in thesauro servatur et inde non
recedit. M. Immo et utrumque, sed et pleraque alia.
XIV. Quod Thesaurus interdum dicitur ipsa pecunia, interdum
locus in quo servatur.
Noveris autem thesaurum quandoque dici pecuniam ipsam
nnmeratam, vasa diversi generis aurea vel argentea, ac ves-
timentorum mutatoria. Secundum hanc acceptionem dicitur,
' ubi est thesaurus tuus, ibi est cor tuum.' Dicitur enim
thesaurus locus in quo reponitur, unde thesaurus auri thesis, id
est positio, nominator ; ut non incongrue respondeatur quae-
renti de quolibet ubi sit, in thesauro est, hoc est, ubi thesaurus
reponitur. Numerata quidem pecunia vel alia praedicta semel
in toto loco reposita non efferuntur, nisi cum ex regis mandato
in necessarios usus distribuenda sibi mittantur. Verum plura
sunt in repositoriis archis thesauri, quae circumferuntur, et
includuntur et custodiuntur a thesaurario et camerariis, sicut
supra plenius ostensum est : qualia sunt sigillum regis de quo
quaeris, liber judiciarius, rotulus qui exactorius dicitur, quem
quidem nominant breve de firmis. Item magni annales, com-
potorum rotuli, privilegiorum numerosa multitudo, receptarum
recauta ac rotuli receptarum, ac brevia regis de exitu thesauri,
et pleraque alia quae, consedente scaccario, quotidianis usibus
necessaria sunt.
XV. Qui sit usus Sigilli Regii quod est in Thesauro.
Usus sigilli regii qualis esse debeat ex praemissis constare
potest : hoc enim factae summonitiones et alia pertinentia dun-
taxat ad scaccarium regis mandata signantur; nee effertur alias;
sed sicut supra dictum est, a cancellario custoditur per vicarium.
Expressam autem habet imaginem et inscriptionem cum deam-

208 Henry II. [part
bulatorio curiae sigillo, ut par cognoscatur utrobique jubentis
auctoritas, et reus similiter judicetur pro hoc et pro illo, qui
secus egerit. Porro liber ille de quo quaeris sigilli regii comes
est individuus in thesauro. Hujus institutionis causam ab Hen
rico quondam Wintoniensi episcopo sic accepi.
XVI. Quid Liber Judiciarius, et ad quid compositus.
Cum insignis ille subactor Angliae rex Willelmus, ejusdem
pontificis sanguine propinquus, ulteriores insulae fines suo sub-
jugasset imperio, et rebellium mentes terribilium perdomuisset
exemplis ; ne libera de cetero daretur erroris facultas, decrevit
subjectum sibi populum juri scripto legibusque subjicere. Pro-
positis igitur legibus Anglicanis secundum tripartitam earum
distinctionem, hoc est Merchenelage, Denelage, Westsaxenelage,
quasdam reprobavit, quasdam autem approbans, illis transma-
rinas Neustriae leges, quae ad regni pacem tuendam efficacis-
simae videbantur, adjecit. Demum ne quid deesse videretur ad
omnem totius providentiae summam, communicato consilio, dis-
cretissimos a latere suo destinavit viros per regnum in circuitu.
Ab hiis itaque totius terrae descriptio diligens facta est, tam in
nemoribus, quam in pascuis et pratis, nee non in agriculturis, et
verbis communibus annotata in librum redacta est ; ut videlicet
quilibet jure suo contentus, alienum non usurpet impune. Fit
autem descriptio per comitatus, per centuriatas, et per hidas,
praenotato in ipso capite regis nomine, ac deinde seriatim alio
rum procerum nominibus appositis secundum status sui digni
tatem, qui videlicet de rege tenent in capite. Apponuntur
autem singulis numeri secundum ordinem sic dispositis, per
quos inferius in ipsa libri serie, quae ad eos pertinent, facilius
occurrunt. Hic liber ab indigenis Domesdei nuncupatur, id est,
dies judicii per metaphoram ; sicut enim districti et terribilis
examinis illius novissimi sententia nulla tergiversationis arte
valet eludi : sic cum orta fuerit in regno contentio de his rebus
quae illic annotantur; cum ventum fuerit ad librum, sententia
ejus infatuari non potest vel impune declinari. Ob hoc nos
eundem librum judiciarium nominavimus ; non quod in eo de
propositis aliquibus dubiis feratur sententia ; sed quod ab eo
sicut a praedicto judicio non licet ulla ratione discedere.
D. Quid comitatus, quid centuriata, vel quid sit hida, si
placet edissere ; alioquin plana non erunt quae praemissa sunt.

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. I. 209

XVII. Quid Hida, quid Centuriata, quid Comitatus, secundum
vulgarem opinionem.
M. Ruricolae melius hoc norunt; verum sicut ab ipsis ac-
cepimus, hida a primitiva institutione ex centum acris constat :
hundredus vero ex hidarum aliquot centenariis, sed non deter-
minatis ; quidam enim ex pluribus, quidam ex paucioribus hidis
constat. Hinc hundredum in veteribus regum Anglorum pri-
vilegiis centuriatam nom'inari frequenter invenies. Comitatus
autem eadem lege ex hundredis constant, hoc est quidam ex plu
ribus quidam ex paucioribus, secundum quod divisa est terra
per viros discretos. Comitatus igitur a comite dicitur, vel comes
a comitatu. Comes autem est qui tertiam portionem eorum quae
de placitis proveniunt in quolibet comitatu percipit. Summa
namque ilia quae nomine firmae requiritur a vicecomite, tota non
exsurgit ex fundorum redditibus, sed ex magna parte de placitis
provenit ; et horum tertiam partem comes percipit ; qui ideo
sic dici dicitur, quia fisco socius est et comes in percipiendis.
Porro vicecomes dicitur, quia vicem comitis suppleat in placitis
illis, quibus comes ex suae dignitatis ratione participat.
B. Nunquid ex singulis comitatibus comites ista percipiunt i
M. Nequaquam: sed hii tantum ista percipiunt, quibus re
gum munificentia, obsequii praestiti vel eximiae probitatis in
tuitu, comites sibi creat, et ratione dignitatis illius haec
conferenda decernit, quibusdam haereditarie, quibusdam per-
sonaliter. XVIII. Quid Rotulus Exactorius.
Rotulus exactorius ille est, in quo distincte satis et diligenter
annotantur firmae regis, quae ex singulis comitatibus exsurgunt,
cujus summa minui quidem non potest, sed per operosam justi-
ciarii diligentiam frequenter augetur. Reliquorum ratio, scilicet
annalium rotulorum, et aliorum quorum supra meminimus, quae
in thesauro sunt et inde non recedunt, ex praedictis satis liquet.
Restat igitur ut ad majores et magis necessarias institutiones
scaccarii convertamur, in quibus ut praedictum est excellentior
est et utilior et a pluribus remotior scaccarii scientia.

Liber Secundus.

Audi, mi frater, et auribus audiendi percipe quae loquor tibi.
Non poenitebit te modicum tempus ereptum otiis impendere
velle negotiis. Sunt enim nonnulli, qui non erubescunt dicere

210 Henry II. [part
in cordibus suis, ' qui apponit scientiam, apponit et dolorem :'
hiis onerosa est doctrina et jocundum desipere. Propter hoc ab
hiis longe facta est Veritas, qui metuentes jocundum disciplinae
laborem incidunt in errorem. Fiunt igitur caeci corde, viarumque
pericula non videntes pronis gressibus in pvaecipitium ruunt.
Verum te, frater, nullus dies otiosum inveniat ; ne te forte va-
cantem pessimis quibusque subjiciat pronior in malum infirmi-
tatis humanae conditio. Quod si forte tibi nulla sunt, honesta
tamen finge negotia ; ut semper exercitatus animus expeditior sit
ad doctrinam. His igitur negotiis in, quae nos impegisti paulis-
per attende ; non ut ex eis magnos laboris metas fructus, sed
tantum ne sis otiosus.
D. Vereor ne instantis noctis crepusculum praecipitem im-
ponat finem negotiis, et omissis pluribus necessariis acceleres, ut
careas importunitate quaerentis.
M. Immo ego magis veritus sum, ne te post longa silentia,
propter agrestem stilum, diu suppressus cachinnus succuteret,
vel forte tacitus tecum pertractasses, qualiter sine nostra mo-
lestia ab his avelli posses, ad quae nos coegisti. Ob hoc fateor
me finem intempestivum pene posuisse dicendis : sed tamen cum
docilis sis et in te nondum tepuerit attentionis industria, coepto
ferar itinere. Ut igitur dispositae rationis ordini satisfiat, de
summonitionibus primo loco dicendum est : ex quibus scilicet et
qualiter, et ad quid fiant. Atque ut de his tibi plenius constet,
sit trium praemonstrandorum primo prius ultimum, hoc est, ad
quid fiant. I. Fiunt autem summonitiones, ut Scaccarium fiat.
Praecedente namque brevi summonitionis, quod regiae aucto-
ritatis signatur imagine, convocantur ad locum nominatum qui
necessarii sunt ; nee enim necesse habent accedere, nisi sum-
monitione praemissa. Accedunt autem quidam ut sedeant et
judicent, quidam ut solvant et judicentur. Sedent et judicant
ex officio vel ex principis mandato barones quorum supra
meminimus. Solvunt autem et judicantur vicecomites et alii
plures in regno, quorum quidam voluntariis oblationibus,
quidam necessariis solutionibus, obnoxii sunt, de quibus infra
plenius dicemus in agendis vicecomitis. Horum itaque cum per
omnes comitatus numerosa sit multitudo, oportet in ipsa cita-
tione emissa de singulis seriatim exprimi, quantum in instanti
termino solvi debeat, adjecta etiam causa ; ut si dicatur, de illo
habeas hanc vel illam summam, propter hanc vel hanc causam.
Quod si autem, residente ad compotum vicecomite, requiratur
aliquid de quovis debitore qui sit in comitatu suo, de quo tamen

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 2ii
in summonitione nulla fuit mentio, non tenebitur respondere ;
sed magis excusabitur ; quia non praecessit hujus rei sum-
monitio. Ad hoc ergo summonitiones fiunt, ut firmae regis
et debita multiplici ratione requirenda fisco proveniant. Verum
sunt aliqua, quae per manum vicecomitis provenire necesse est,
etiamsi nulla de his summonitio fiat ; sed haec magis casualia
sunt quam constituta vel certa, sicut ex consequentibus liquebit.
Qualiter Summonitiones fiant.
Qualiter autem vel quo ordine fiant, primo dicendum est, ac
demum ex quibus. Noveris autem quod, soluto scaccario ter
mini illius quo fiunt summonitiones, excipiuntur a clericis
thesaurarii debita regis per singulos comitatus a magno rotulo
illius anni, et in brevioribus annotantur, simul cum causis ; quo
facto secedunt hii in partem quos majores diximus, proposito
comitatu quolibet, et de singulis debitoribus illius decernunt
quantum summoneri debeat, habita consideratione secundum
qualitatem personae, et secundum qualitatem negotii et causae
pro qua regi tenetur. Authenticus etiam annalis rotulus a quo
debita excepta sunt, tenetur a thesaurario vel ejus clerico, ne
forte fuerit in excipiendo quomodolibet erratum. Est etiam
alius clericus, qui quod illi taxaverint in exceptis annotat stu-
diose ; de quibus summonitio fit per haec verba; 'H. rex Anglo
rum, illi vel illi vicecomiti, salutem. Vide sicut teipsum et
omnia tua diligis, quod sis ad scaccarium ibi vel ibi, in crastino
Sancti Michaelis, vel in crastino clausi Paschae, et habeas ibi
tecum quicquid debes de veteri firma vel nova, et nominatim
haec debita subscripta ; de illo x. marcas pro hae causa, et sic
deinceps.' Annotatis autem omnibus debitis illic seriatim cum
causis, quae in majori annali rotulo continentur, proferuntur
minores quique perambulantium judicum rotuli, ex quibus ex
cipiuntur quae in singulis comitatibus domino regi debentur,
labore et industria ipsorum ; et hiis taxatis a majoribus, in sum-
monitionibus annotantur ; quibus ordine digestis, terminator
summonitio per haec verba : ' Et haec omnia tecum habeas in
denariis ; taleis, et brevibus et quietantiis, vel capientur de firma
tua ; teste illo vel illo, ibi ad scaccarium.' Fuerunt tamen qui
crederent dicendum in denariis vel taleis vel brevibus vel
quietantiis ; non intelligentes vel quandoque subdisjunctive
poni. Superflua tamen est hujusmodi de verbis contentio, cum
de eorum intellectu constiterit : sive enim dixeris ' in denariis
vel brevibus vel quietantiis,' vel 'in denariis et brevibus et
quietantiis,' idem est intellectus ; ut scilicet in hiis omnibus
vel eorum aliquibus, satisfiat de his quae in summonitione

212 Henry II. [part
continentur. Praeterea, quia novis morbis per nova remedia
decet subveniri, additum fuit in summonitionibus hoc subscrip-
tum, ex novella constitutione, hoc est post tempora regis Henrici
primi: quod 'si forte de alicujus debito summonitus es, qui
terram vel catalla non habet in baillia tua, et noveris in cujus
baillia vel comitatu habuerit ; tu ipse vicecomiti illi vel ballivo
per breve tuum hoc ipsum significes, deferente illud aliquo a te
misso, qui ei breve tuum in comitatu, si potest, vel coram
pluribus liberet.' Haec quae praediximus apponere ridiculosa
satis et dispendiosa quorundam subterfugia compulerunt. Cog-
nito enim quibus determinatis summonitiones emittebantur,
antequam pervenisset ad comitatum summonitio de debito
suo, vacuatis horreis et pecuniis suis quocunque sibi distractis
vel ad loca tuta translatis, vacuus in domo sua residens, vice
comitis et ceterorum officialium securus exspectabat adventum ;
et hae arte plurimis annis regiae summonitionis auctoritas non
sine dispendio videbatur eludi. Ille enim, ad quem cum facul-
tatibus suis metus hujus causa transierat, cum inde mandatum
non haberet, in res suas manum mittere non praesumebat. Hae
ergo consideratione per aliquot annos in summonitionibus appo-
situm fuit verbum quod praemissum est ; nee postea alicui
patuit locus subterfugii, quin satisfaciat omnis debitor per
omnem modum, nisi quem sola suprema excusat inopia. Cum
autem jam omnibus vicecomitibus et debitoribus constitisset
quia sic sophisticae poterant importunitates determinari, non
oportuit amplius illud verbum apponi, nee apponitur : modus
tamen ille qui dictus est coercionis debitorum quacumque se
transtulerint, perseverat apud vicecomites, et quasi quodam jure
perpetuo constitutus servatur.
B. Audivi jamdudum referentibus multis, quod bis in anno
scaccarium convocetur, hoc est in termino Paschae et in termino
Sancti Michaelis. Dixisti etiam, si bene memini, nisi praemissis
summonitionibus scaccarium non teneri. Cum ergo summoni
tiones ad utrumque terminum fiant, rogo te, si placet, aperias,
si in utrisque summonitionibus lex una servetur, vel, si in verbo
rum tenore dissonantia est, quae sit, et quare sic.
II. Quae sit differentia summonitionum utriusque termini.
M. Magnum tuae provectionis est argumentum quod super
hiis jam nosti dubitare. Porro certo certius est, quod bis scac
carium in anno convocatur et tenetur ; praeeedentibus tamen,
ut praedictum est, summonitionibus. Terminorum utriusque
sessionis satis bene meministi. Sed attende, quod in termino
Paschae a vicecomitibus non compoti sed quidam visus com-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. IT. 213
potorum fiunt ; unde pene nihil eorum quae illic tunc geruntur
scripturae commendatur ; sed totum reservatur alii termino ;
et tunc diligenter in magno annali rotulo singula per ordinem
annotantur : tamen quaedam memoranda quae frequenter inci-
dunt a clerico thesaurarii seorsum conscribuntur ; ut soluto
scaccario illius termini de hiis discernant majores ; quae quidem
non facile propter numerosam sui multitudinem, nisi scripto
commend arentur, occurrerent. Insuper quid vicecomes in the
sauro solverit de firma ; ac deinde si satisfacit, in eadem linea
scribitur, 'et quietus est:' si non, debitum ejus in inferiori linea
distincte ponitur, ut sciatur, quantum de summa illius termini
desit ; et statim satisfaciat ad arbitrium praesidentium. Qui
libet enim vicecomes medietatem firmae illius quae de suo
comitatu per annum exsurgit, in termino illo soluturus est.
Noveris autem, quod in hiis summonitionibus tenor verborum
non mutatur nisi quod ad terminum pertinet vel locum ; si
scilicet decreverint majores alias tenendum scaccarium Paschae,
et alias scaccarium Sancti Michaelis ; sed eadem virtute verbo
rum in utrisque summonitionibus servata, dissimilis est debi-
torum exceptorum annotatio. In summonitione namque contra
terminum Paschae facta, quod tunc annus ille dicitur initiari,
simpliciter dicetur de illo, ' habeas x. libras ;' et de hae summoni
tione non nisi solvendo tunc vel satisfacie'ndo de x. libris
absolvetur. At cum facienda est summonitio de termino Sancti
Michaelis in quo clauditur et terminator idem annus, et fit
annalis rotulus, addetur praedictis x. Ii. aliae x. Ii., vel plura,
sicut praesidentibus visum fuerit, et dicetur, ' de illo habeas xx.
Ii.' qui tamen termino Paschae de hae ipsa summa x. solverat,
sed solvens x. Ii. in denariis nunc, et proferens taleam de x.
jamdudum solutis, absolvi merebitur a summonitione : dictum
est enim in summonitione, ' haec omnia habeas in denariis et
brevibus et taleis.' Noveris praeterea, quod facta summonitione,
si dum corrigitur inventus fuerit error, non debet subducta
linea cancellari, sed nee abradi, quia patens scriptura est : immo
potius, in quo erratum fuerit, debet penitus oblitterari, ut quod
scriptum fuerat nulli pateat ; cujus rei causa, si tecum super hiis
actitaveris, facile tibi valet occurrere.
D. Cum, sicut commemoras, patens sit illud scriptum, et
sic vicecomiti destinetur, et per longa tempora penes ipsum
suosque resideat, soli fidei ejus summonitionis indemnitas com
mittitur. Posset enim, quod vellet impune delere, mutare,
vel minuere, cum non exstet aliquod penes barones ejus re-
scriptum. M. Posset fortasse, si vellet; sed foret hoc insani capitis

214 Henry II. [part
argumentum, si tantis se periculis sponte opponeret; prae-
sertim cum non auferre sic regis debita posset, sed vix differre.
Omnia namque debita de quibus summonitiones fiunt, alias dili
genter annotata servantur ; unde non posset quis a debito suo,
etiam procurante vicecomite, hae arte liberari. Verum ad
majorem hujus rei cautelam vidimus a Pictavensi archidiacono
nunc Wintoniensi episcopo omnium summonitionum rescripta
fieri, nee aliquatenus originales emitti, nisi factis et diligenter
correctis earum rescriptis. Cum autem, sedente vicecomite ad
compotum, legeretur summonitio a clerico cancellarii, inspiciens
clericus archidiaconi rescriptum, observabat eum ne exorbitaret.
Procedente vero tempore, cum numerus debitorum cresceret in
immensum, adeo ut uni summonitioni unius membranae longi-
tudo non sufficeret, cessum est multitudini et laborioso operi, et
sola originali summonitione, sicut antiquitus, contenti sunt. Sic
habes, ut credo, quantum brevitas permisit, qualiter et ad quid
summonitiones fiant. Nunc ex quibus fieri debeant libet intueri;
licet ex praemissis hoc ipsum magna pro parte jam constet.
Ex quibus Summonitiones fiant.
Illustris Anglorum rex Henricus hoc nomine participantium
regum secundus dictus est, sed nulli modernorum fuisse creditor
in rebus componendis animi virtute secundus : ab ipso enim
suae dominationis exordio totum in hoc direxit animum, ut paci
rebellantes et dyscolos multiplici subversione contereret, et pacis
ac fidei bonum in cordibus hominum modis omnibus consig-
naret. Hujus igitur insignia cum jam in omnes gentes cele-
berrima fama vulgaverit, adeo ut his exponendis insistere super-
vacuum videatur : unum tamen est, quod cum silentio praeterire
non valeo, ex quo solo singularis ejus probitas et pietas inaudita
firmatur. Non tamen hoc hominis fuit, immo Dei miserentis,
Quod sibi, quod toti cum paucis restitit orbi.
D. Qualiter sibi resistere dici possit opus insigne, nisi planum
feceris, non video.
M. Licet haec ad opus coeptum vel propositum non adper-
tineant, memor tamen regis illius magnanimi, cum pace meae
mentis hiis supersedere non valui Videas ergo quam miracu-
lose vir ille sibi restitit, in suos filios quidem suae carnis, immo
et animae suae spem post Deum unicam et gloriam singularem ;
dum parvuli essent, et ratione aetatis cerei supra modum et in
omnem animi motum proni, vulpeculae pertinaces consiliis
pravis demolitae sunt, et tandem in patrem tanquam in hostem

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 215
sua viscera converterunt ; 'facti sunt etiam inimici homines
domestici ejus, et qui custodiebant latus ejus, consilium inierunt
adversus eum ; dicentes' filii s et hostibus ' persequimini et com-
prehendite eum, quia non est qui eripiat ;' diceres in hiis verbum
completum prophetae ; ' filios enutrivi et ecce ipsi spreverunt me.'
Cum igitur uxor in virum, filii in patrem suum, domestici sine
causa desaevirent in dominum ; nonne satis optime sibi rebellan-
tem virum diceres 1 Verum contra numerosam hostium multi -
tudinem solius Divinae gratiae magnitudo subvenit, et quasi
pugnante pro se Domino, sic in brevi pene rebelles omnes ob
tinuit, ut longe fortius quam prius, ex eo quo infirmari debuit,
confirmaretur in regno.
Norunt enim per hoc potissimum, qui conspiraverant adversus
eum in omni virtute sua, clavam a manu Herculis nisi vix extor-
queri non posse. Comprehensis insuper hostibus tam enormis
sceleris incentoribus. inaudita pepercit misericordia ; ut eorum
pauci rerum suarum, nulli vero status sui vel corporum dis-
pendia sustinerent. Si legeres ultionem quam exercuit David
in subversores Absalonis filii sui, diceres hunc illo longe miti-
orem exstitisse : cum tamen de illo scriptum sit ; ' inveni virum
secundum cor Meum.' Licet autem rex insignis pluribus abun-
daret exemplis, et posset in eos vel vilissimam exercere vin-
dictam; maluit tamen expugnatis parcere quam eos punire,
ut ejus regnum crescere videant vel inviti. Vivat igitur in
longo tempore rex»ille gloriosus et felix, et pro inpensa gratia
gratiam mereatur ab alto. Vivat et proles ejus ingenua, patri
suo subjecta nee ei dissimilis : et quia nati sunt populis impe-
rare, paterno simul et proprio discant exemplo, quam gloriosum
sit ' parcere subjectis et debellare rebelles.' Nos autem suscepta
negotia prosequamur. Quod si de hiis et aliis strenuis ejus
actibus libet plenius instrui, libellum cujus supra meminimus, si
placet, inspicito. Igitur post naufragum regni statum pace
reformata, studuit iterum rex avita tempora renovare ; et eligens
discretos viros secuit regnum in sex partes, ut eas electi judices
quos errantes vocamus perlustrarent, et jura destituta resti-
tuerent. Facientes ergo sui copiam in singulis comitatibus,
et hiis qui se laesos putabant justitiae plenitudinem exhibentes,
pauperum laboribus et sumptibus pepercerunt. Contigit autem
in hiis excessus varios plerumquc.variis modis pro negotiorum
qualitate puniri, ut quidam corporalem, quidam pecuniariam
poenam luant. Porro pecuniariae delinquentium poenae in
rotulis errantium diligenter annotantur ; et consedente scaccario
coram omnibus thesauro traduntur. Caveant autem judices, ut
correctos et per ordinem dispositos rotulos thesaurario liberent ;

216 Henry II. [part
non enim fas erit ipsis etiam judicibus, facta traditione, iota
unum mutare etiam in quod omnes judices consenserint.
D. In hoc mirabile est, quod cum scriptorum suorum auctores
sint, et non nisi de ipsorum industria vel labore proveniat, etiam
in unum aliquid consentientes scriptum proprium mutare non
possunt. M. Cum indulta sint correctionis tempora, et legem noverint
constitutam, sibi imputent ; oblatorum enim summa vel ab ipsis
debitoribus, si in hanc condemnati sunt, vel ab ipsis judicibus
requiretor. Ut si in rotulo condemnatum aliquem in solu-
tione xx. descripserint, et, tradita jam cautione thesaurario,
recordati fuerint quod non teneatur ille nisi in x. ; ipsi judices
de residuo satisfacient ; quia scriptum suum cum deliberatione
factum et correctum post traditionem revocare non possunt.
Susceptorum vero rotulorum debita thesaurarius in magno annali
rotulo diligenter et distincte per singulos comitatus annotari
facit, simul cum causis : praenotatis, ut jam dictum est, nomini-
bus judicum ; ut per hoc exactorum fiat discretio. Ex his igitur
summonitiones fiant sic ; ' de placitis illorum N. de illo illud ;'
secundum quod praesidentes prius debita taxaverint. Habes ex
praedictis, ut credimus, quantum necesse est, ex quibus et
qualiter et ad quid summonitiones fiant : nunc ad agenda vice
comitis transeamus. Decet autem te dicendis sollicitam adhibere
diligentiam, quia in hiis excellentior scaccarii scientia consistit,
sicut dictum est ab initio. *
III. De agendis Vicecomitum multipliciter.
Omnes igitur vicecomites et ballivi, ad quos summonitiones
diriguntur, eadem necessitate legis constringuntur ; hoc est,
auctoritate regii mandati ; ut scilicet die nominato designatoque
loco conveniant, et de debitis satisfaciant ; quod ut manifestius
fiat ipsius summonitionis tenorem diligentius intuere ; ait enim :
' Vide sicut teipsum et omnia tua diligis, ut sis ad scaccarium ibi
tunc ; et habeas tecum quicquid debes de veteri firma et nova,
et haec debita subscripta.' Attende igitur, quia duo dicuntur,
quae duobus sequentibus coaptantur : hoc enim, ' vide sicut teip
sum diligis,' refertur ad ' sis ibi tunc ;' illud vero, ' et sicut omnia
tua diligis,' referri videtur ad. hoc, ' et habeas tecum haec debita
subscripta :' ac si aperte dicatur ; ' absentia tua, to quicunque
suscipis summonitionem, nisi necessariis et lege definitis causis
possit excusari, in capitis tui periculum redundabit ; videris
enim sic regium sprevisse mandatum, et in contemptum reoiae
majestatis irreverenter egisse, si citatus super regis quibus

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 217
addictos es negotiis nee veneris, nee excusatorem miseris.
Verum si per te steterit, quo minus debita subscripta solvantur,
tunc de firma quam soluturus es, aliena debita de quibus sum-
monitus es capientur ; firma vero de catallis et fundorum tuorum
redditibus perficietur ; te interim, si barones decreverint, in
loco tuto sub libera custodia collocato.' Cum ergo praemissa
fuerit a vicecomite suscepta summonitio, ipsa die nominata
veniat et ostendat se praesidenti, si adesse eum contigerit, vel
thesaurario, si praesidens ille praesens non fuerit. Deinde
salutatis majoribus, ipsa die sibi vacet, et in crastino et deinceps
die qualibet ad scaccarium rediturus. Quod si forte nee venerit
nee justam praemiserit excusationem, prima die regi condem-
nabitur in c. solidis argenti de quolibet comitatu ; sequenti vero
in x. libris argenti ; similiter in tertia, sicut ab his accepimus,
qui nos praecesserunt, in beneplacito regis erunt quaecunque
mobilia possidet; quarto vero quia jam ex hoc contemptus
regiae majestatis convincitur, non solum in rebus suis, sed in
propria persona soli regiae misericordiae subjacebit. Sunt
tamen qui credant ad omnem summam solam poenam pecuni
ariam sufficere ; ut scilicet prima die in c. solidis ; secunda
similiter in c. solidis ; et ita deinceps per singulos dies in singulis
centenis puniantur absentes. His ego non dissentio ; si tamen
is cui delinquitur in hoc ipsum consenserit; hunc autem
poenae modum velle regem admittere satis probabile est, cum
ejus gratia singularis ad poenam pigra sit, et haec ad praemia
velox. D. Imprudentis pariter et impudentis est auditoris currentem
calamum ante provisum dicendorum finem praeoccupare ; ideo-
que sustinui volvens in animo quod ex parte me turbat : dixisti
enim, si per vicecomitem steterit quo minus debita subscripta
solvantur, tunc de firma quam soluturus est capientur. Si ergo
vicecomes per brevia regis vel in operationes vel alias universa
distribuerit, quae hic fuerat soluturus ; quid fiet ?
M. Cum ex regis mandato vel in camera curiae, vel in opera-
tionibus, vel in quibuslibet aliis, firmam comitatus expenderit,
si in debitis solvendis minus egisse deprehenditur, per fidem
suam ubi majores decreverint detinebitur, donee de hiis satis-
faciat sicut de firma satisfacturus fuerat.
D. Cum citatum vicecomitem et non venientem vel excu-
santem, turn rerum mobilium turn immobilium turn et proprii
corporis gravis jactura sequatur, nisi suam non voluntariam sed
necessariam absentiam excusaverit ; rogo te, si placet, ut quas
citatus praetendere possit absentiae suae sufficientes causas
aperire non differas.

2i 8 Henry II. [part

IV. Quibus de causis absentia Vicecomitum servatur indemnis.
M. Plures sunt excusationum modi, quibus vicecomitis ab
sentia servatur indemnis, sic tamen ut, occasione vel excusatione
postposita, die nominata per legitimos viros pecuniam regis ante
collectam praemittat ; qui porrigentes praesidenti litteras excu-
sationis, et absentiae domini sui causas necessarias allegantes,
etiam sacramento corporaliter praestito, si praesidenti placuerit,
easdem confirment. Quod si vicecomes, vel alius serviens cita-
tus, infirmitate detentus adesse non poterit ; addat in litteris
excusationis, quae ad scaccarium diriguntur : ' et, quia venire
non possum, mitto vobis hos servientes meos N. et N., ut loco
meo sint, et quod ad me pertinet faciant, ratum habiturus quod
ipsi fecerint.'
Provideat autem qui excusat, ut alter vel uterque missoruni
miles sit, vel laicus alius ratione sanguinis vel aliter sibi con-
junctus, hoc est cujus fidei vel discretioni se et sua committere
non diffidat : solos enim clericos ad hoc suscipi non oportet ;
quia, si secus egerint, non decet eos pro pecunia vel ratiociniis
comprehendi. Si vero citatum vicecomitem abesse contigerit,
non infirmitate quidem sed qualibet alia causa praepeditum, sic
forsitan a poena constituta poterit liberari : verum ad explen-
dum compotum suum nullus pro eo suscipietur, nisi primo-
genitus filius; nee generalis ejus procurator, etiamsi breve suum
direxerit se ratum habiturum quod ille vel ille pro se fecerit ;
solius vero mandati regii vel etiam praesidentis auctoritate, si
rex absens fuerit, ad compotum suum explendum a]ium poterit
substituere : si tamen aliud a domino rege negotium sibi gerat
assignatum, ipse ad scaccarium in propria persona praesentem
nominet, qui, juxta quod supra dictum est, possit et debeat vice
comitis absentis negotia procurare. Illud autem breve regis
vel praesidentis, vel vicecomitis excusantis, in forulo marescalli,
cujus supra meminimus, in testimonium hujus rei reservabitur.
Quod si vicecomes alias regi necessarius ab ipso vocatus fuerit
extra regnum, vel accepta licentia pro familiaribus negotiis exire
disposuerit, prius praesidentem adeat, et viva voce vices suas ad
scaccarium deleget cui voluerit viro legitimo ; quo facto, cum
absens fuerit, nee breve mittere, nee absentiam suam excusare
cogetur. Excusante vero se vicecomite causa infirmitatis, cum
ventum fuerit ad scribendum ejus compotum in annali rotulo,
dicetur, ' Willelmus vicecomes de Lundoniis, Robertus filius,
ejus pro eo, reddit compotum de firma de Lundoniis.' At si
per regis mandatum alius sibi substituitur, vel ipse viva voce,
sicut praedictum est, aliquem pro se designaverit praesidenti,

iv-] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 219
sic per omnia dicendum est ac si ipse in propria persona ad
compotum resideret.
_ B. Nunquid infirmitas sola sufficiens est excusatio, per quam
citatus absens servetur indemnis?
M. Absit : sunt enim plures ad scaccarium ; sed haec tam
in litibus quam in aliis negotiis ecclesiasticis et forensibus est
usitatior. Porro decet te memorem esse praedictorum, ut in-
telligas nullam excusationem hoc efficere, ut regis pecunia de
comitatu collecta penes eum detineatur impune, vel ad scac
carium die nominata non mittatur. Praemissa ergo pecunia,
poterit excusari per infirmitatem, sicut dictum est. Item si
filius ejus primogenitus, quem declaravit haeredem post se
futurum, morti proximus adjudicetur, excusabitur. Item si
uxor ejus dolore partus periclitari coeperit, vel quavis alia de
causa morti proxima decubuerit, quia portio suae carnis est,
excusari poterit. Item si dominus ejus, qui vulgo ligius dicitur,
hoc est, cui soli ratione dominii sic tenetur ut contra ipsum
nihil alii debeat, rege duntaxat excepto, vocaverit ipsum, ut
adsit sibi tracto in jus de toto feudo suo vel ejus maxima parte,
vel super alia causa quae in status vel corporis sui detrimentum
redundare videatur, excusari poterit ; sic tamen si dominus ille
nee amplius excusare nee aliter litem declinare valuerit. Quod
si idem dominus alium super hujusmodi sollicitaverit, et liberum
sit ei absque enormi damno diem prorogare, si vocaverit domini
regis vicecomitem hominem quidem suum, venire non tenebitur ;
quia nee sic ad scaccarium posset excusari. Item si idem
dominus infirmitatis pondere pressus, testamentum coram suis
condere voluerit, et ad hoc cum aliis fidelibus suis ipsum evo-
caverit, excusabitur. Item si dominus ejus, vel uxor, vel filius
debita carnis solverit, et hic debita funeris obsequia procuraverit,
excusari merebitur. Sunt et aliae plures excusationes absentiae
vicecomitis, necessariae quidem et legibus determinatae, quas non
abdicamus vel excludimus, immo, cum sufficientes visae fuerint a
majoribus, libenter suscepimus ; sed has quae menti meae se ad
praesens obtulerunt, quasi frequentiores, exemplicausa subjecimus.
B. Videor ex praedictis perpendere, quod miles, vel quilibet
alius discretus possit a rege vicecomes vel alius ballivus creari,
etiamsi nil ab ipso possideat, sed solum ab aliis.
M. Debetur haec praerogativa dignitatis publicae potestati,
ut cujuscunque sit, cuicunque vir aliquis in regno militet vel
ministret, si regi necessarius visus fuerit, libere possit assumi, et
regiis obsequiis deputari.
D. Ex hoc etiam cerno verum esse quod dicitur,
' An nescis longas regibus esse manus ? '

22o Henry II. [part
Sed jam nunc, si placet, ad agenda vicecomitis manum mittere
non differas; ad haec enim, te monente, totam attentionis indus-
triam jam collegi ; sciens ex his excellentem scaccarii scientiam,
sicut praedictum est, debere requiri.
M. Gratulor te memorem praemissorum ; unde fateor lan-
guenti pene calamo te stimulos addidisse. Noveris autem quod
vicecomes, nisi facto prius examine debitisque de quibus sum-
monitus est solutis, residere non debet ad compotum : cum au
tem accesserit et jam resederit, alii vicecomites excludantur ; et
resideat solus cum suis, ad interrogata responsurus. Provideat
autem ut, ipsa die vel praecedente, debitoribus sui comitatus
innotuerit qua die sit ad compotum sessurus ; vel etiam circa
domum scaccarii, vel vicum, vel villain, voce praeconia ipsis de-
nunciet se tunc vel tunc sessurum. Tunc sedentibus et audien-
tibus omnibus, thesaurarius, qui sicut dictum est, ratione officii
sui sibi videtur adversari, quaerat, si paratus est reddere com
potum ; quo respondente ' praesto sum,' inferat thesaurarius,
' die igitur imprimis si eleemosynae, si decimae, si liberationes
constitutae, si terrae datae sic se habent hoc anno sicut in prae-
terito.' Quod si similiter se habere responderet ; tunc scriptor
thesaurarii praeteritum annalem rotulum diligenter in hiis
constitutis scribendis sequatur, contuente simul thesaurario, ne
forte manus scriptoris aberret. Et quia satis in titulo de officio
scriptoris thesaurarii de ordine scripturae dixisse me memini
hiis ad praesens supersedeo.
D. Die ergo, si placet, de hiis quae jamdudum usque ad
agenda vicecomitum distulisti, quid scilicet sit, quasdam terras
a rege dari blancas, quasdam numero ; hoc enim me sollicitavit
ab initio.
M. Satis, ut credo, tibi constat ex praedictis, quid sit quas
dam firmas solvi blancas quasdam numero. Firma quidem
blanca solvitur, cum ipsa facto examine dealbatur.
V. Quid sit quosdam fundos dari blancos, quosdam numero.
Quis insuper fuerit hujus institutionis auctor, et quae insti-
tuendi ratio, satis innotuit. Porro firmam numero solvi diximus,
cum tantum numerando non examinando de ipsa satisfit. Cum
ergo rex fundum aliquem alicui contulerit simul cum hundredo
vel placitis quae ex hoc proveniunt, dicunt fundum ilium illi
blancum collatam : a"c cum retento sibi hundredo per quod firma
dealbari dicitur, simpliciter fundum dederit, non determiuans
cum hundredo vel blancum, numero datus dicitur. Oportet
autem ut de fundo collato breve regis, vel cartam ejus, in termino
Sancti Michaelis cui collatus est ad scaccarium deferat ut viceco-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 221
miti computetur; alioquin in magno annali rotulo non scribetur,
nee vicecomiti computabitur ; scribetur autem sic : post elemo-
sinas et decimas et liberationes utriusque generis constitutas,
in capite lineae, ' in terris datis illi N. xx. 1. bl. ibi, et illi N.
xx. 1. numero ibi.' Adverte etiam quod, si forte inter terras
datas inveneris, ' illi vel illi x. 1. bl.' vel ' numero ibi de praestito
regis ;' cum is qui commodati vel praestiti beneficio gavisus est
fati debita solverit, nisi per gratiam regis, non uxori, non liberis,
non alicui nomine ejus, propter praestitum reclamandi locus
relmquitur ; similiter si dictum fuerit, ' illi x. quamdiu regi
placuerit.' VI. Quae sint constituta Vicecomiti computanda, eleemosynae
scilicet et decimae, liberationes utriusque generis, et terrae datae.
D. Quid est, quod dixisti liberationes-utriusque generis ?
M . Liberationum quaedam sunt indigentium ; cum ex solo
caritatis intuitu ad victum et vestitum alicui a rege denarius
diurnus vel duo vel plures constituuntur, Quaedam vero sunt
servientium, ut has pro stipendiis suscipiant ; quales sunt cus
todes domorum, aeditui regii, tibicines, luporum comprehen-
sores, et hujusmodi. Heae sunt igitur diversi generis libe
rationes quae diversis ex causis solvuntur, inter constituta
tamen computantur. Et nota quod licet liberum sit regi quibus-
libet indigentibus has liberationes conferre ; ex antiqua tamen
institutione solent his assignari, qui in curia ministrantes, cum
redditus non habeant, in corporum suorum invaletudinem deci-
dunt, et laboribus inutiles fiunt. His omnibus per ordinem
annotatis, quaerit thesaurarius a vicecomite, si quid expenderit
de firma comitatus per brevia regis praeter constituta ; tunc
seriatim missa sibi regis brevia tradit clerico cancellarii, qui
lecta in publicum eadem liberat thesaurario, ut ipse secundum
formam in brevibus conceptam in scripturam rotuli sui oppor-
tuna verba ministret : ipse namque sicut dictum est praescribit,
et alii conscribentes ab eodem accipiunt. Hoc facto, ostendit
vicecomes si quid expenderit, non per brevia, sed per constitutam
scaccarii legem, sibi computandum ; qualia sunt liberationes
probatorum regis, et item ea quae mittuntur in justitiis et ju
diciis explendis.
VII. Quae sint per solam consuetudinem scaccarii computanda,
hoc est, sine brevi.
Adverte autem, justitias hic usualiter nuncupari prolati in
aliquos viros juris executiones : judicia vero, leges candentis

222 Henry II. [part
ferri vel aquae. Liberationes igitur probatorum hae ratione.
fiunt. Propter innumeras regni hujus divitias, et item propter
innatam indigenis crapulam, quam semper comes libido sequitur,
contingit in ipso frequenter furta fieri manifesta vel occulta, nee
non et homicidia et diversorum generum scelera, addentibus
stimulos moechis, ut nihil non audeant vel non attentent qui
suis se consiliis subjecerunt. Cum autem a regiis ministris
regni pacem excubantibus, reus horum famosus aliquis compre-
henditur, propter numerosam seeleratorum multitudinem, ut
vel sic perversis terra purgetur, consentiunt et in hoc interdum
judices, quod si quis hujusmodi de se crimen confitens, sceleris
ejusdem consortes provocare voluerit, et objectum alii vel aliis
crimen commisso duello probare valuerit, mortem quam meruit
effugiat, et cum impunitate sui corporis, exiens tamen totius
regni fines, demereatur et abjuret ingressum. Quidam autem
conventione cum judicibus prius facta, licet objecta probaverint,
non tamen immunes abscedunt, sed effugientes suspendium vel
aliud turpe genus mortis quam de se confessi meruerint, muti-
latione tamen membrorum puniti, miserabile spectaculum fiunt
in populo, et temerarios ausus consimilium terribilibus com-
pescunt exemplis. Quia igitur objecto et probato ejusdem
criminis reatu vitam sibi salvare potest, et item quia ad regis
utilitatem proculdubio sit quicquid ad regni pacem videtur
accedere, regis probator dicitur. A die vero qua ad probationem
suscipitur, usque ad expletum promissum, vel usque quo defe
cerit, ad victualia de fisco percipit quaque die denarium unum,
qui vicecomiti per solam consuetudinem scaccarii computatur.
Quod si probator ille jussus fuerit ad alia loca transferri, ut
convenientibus illic judicibus opportunius promissum expleat,
vel forte deficiens scelerum suorum poenam condignam excipiat,
solum id quod in vehiculis illuc conducendis et victualibus illi
ministrandis invenit, vicecomiti computabitur per consuetudi
nem ; cetera vero non nisi per breve regis. Sunt praeterea in
quibusdam comitatibus plures, qui ratione fundorum suorum in
condemnatos ultrices manus mittunt; ut alios suspendio, alios
membrorum detruncatione, vel aliis modis juxta quantitatem
perpetrati sceleris puniant. Sunt et quidam comitatus, in
quibus sic coudemnandi, non nisi numerata de fisco pecunia,
puniuntur. Quicquid igitur ad haec judicia vel justitias effectui
mancipandas detestabilis avaritiae hominibus, qui haec pro san
guinis effusione suscipiunt, a vicecomite numerator, per consue
tudinem scaccarii sibi computatur ; hoc est, non per breve regis.
Est et aliud quod per consuetudinem solum vicecomiti debeat
computari : cum regis thesaurus de loco in locum majorum con-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 223
sideratione deferendus, vehiculis et hujusmodi minoribus indi-
guerit : praecipiente thesaurario vel camerariis, vel servientibus
eorum ad haec missis, vicecomes de firma sua quod oportuerit
invenit, et hoc ipsum vicecomiti sine brevi computatur ; per-
hibente tamen super hoc testimonium coram majoribus ipso
thesaurario vel quolibet praedictorum qui haec fieri mandaverit;
et tunc dicetur in rotulo, ' in hiis vel illis necessariis thesauri,
hoc vel illud, per hunc vel ilium.' Item si piscis regius, rumbus
vel cetus vel alius hujusmodi, comprehenditur, quod in his sali-
endis et aliis necessariis ministrandis a vicecomite mittitur, sine
brevi computatur. Item quod in excolendis dominicis vineis
regis, et hiis vindemiandis, vel vasis et aliis necessariis minis
trandis expenditur, sine brevi per fidem vicecomitis computatur ;
de qua fide, si semel aut saepius, qualiter fiat, infra dicetur.
Haec sunt igitur quae ad praesens nobis occurrunt, vicecomiti
per solam consuetudinem computanda. Nunc de ceteris quae ad
compotum de corpore comitatus pertinent prosequamur.
VIII. Quo ordine computanda sunt Vicecomiti quae in operibus
missa sunt per breve regis numero non determinans.
Fit interdum ut praecipiat rex vicecomiti per breve suum,
quod in castris firmandis vel in aedificiis et hujusmodi in-
struendis de firma sua necessaria ministret, per visum duorum
vel trium virorum quorum nomina in ipso brevi exprimuntur ;
et addat in fine verbum breve sed computantibus necessarium ;
'et computabitur tibi ad scaccarium.' Cum igitur ventum fuerit
ad compotum vicecomitis, veniunt simul qui electi sunt custodes
operum, et fide in publica ab ipsis praestita, quod secundum
conscientiam suam ad regis utilitatem in ipso opere nominata
summa provenerit, fiat inde breve regis ad scaccarium sub
testimonio praesidentis et alterius quem praeceperit, in quo
summa ilia de qua testati sunt, et item nomina custodum ex
primantur ; et tunc demum vicecomiti computabitur. Quod si
per haec missa consummatom regis opus fuerit, primum illud
breve de necessariis ministrandis quod vicecomiti directum est,
et hoc ultimum quod ad scaccarium fit, in forulo marescalli de
compotis factis recluduntur. Si quid autem restat de ipso opere
faciendum, vicecomes quod sibi directum est breve usque ad
idem opus completum penes se reservabit ; ut hinc sit ei aucto
ritas operi perficiendo necessaria ministrare ; reliquum vero in
forulo de.quo dictum est recludetur. Cum enim scribatur in
annali : ' in operatione ilia centum libras ;' oportet consequenter
apponi ' per breve regis, et per visum horum N. ;' quod si non
exstaret breve regis, numerum ipsum et nomina custodum con-

224 Henry II. [part
tinens, falsa videri posset scriptura rotuli dicentis ' per breve
regis.' D. In hoc verbo sic mihi satisfactum est, ut hiis ad quae
requirenda jam ora laxaveram, sponte supersedeam. Cum enim
vicecomiti delatum sit breve regis de necessariis ad hoc vel illud
opus inveniendis, et sit adjectum ; ' et computabitur tibi ad
scaccarium ;' vel hoc, 'inveni de firma tua/ quod ejusdem pene
est auctoritatis, superfluum videbatur, ut super alio brevi solli-
citus esset ; nee enim intelligebam, quod in ipso brevi numerus
esset exprimendus, ut sic eodem verborum tenore authentico
respondeat annali.
IX. Quod non absolvitur quis a debito per breve Regis numerum
non exprimens, etiamsi causam determinet.
M. Intellige similiter quod in scaccarii negotiis secus est
quam in aliis : dicitur enim in plerisque, quod expressa nocent,
non expressa non nocent : verum hic expressa juvant et non
expressa fatigant : verbi gratia ; si tenetur quis regi in centum
libris, et breve ejus deferat ad scaccarium, ut quietus sit de de
bito quod ei debet, addat etiam ' toto,' et causam simul exprimat
sed non numerum; non propter hoc absolvetur, sed magis per
hoc dilationem usque ad aliam summonitionem promerebitur.
Oporteret enim scribi in rotulo, ' in perdonis per breve regis illi
N. centum libras ;' sed quia non videtur omnino dimissum quod
nondum est in brevi expressum, cogetur is multo labore quaerere
per quod mereatur absolvi : ergo in hiis non expressa fatigant.
D. Salva sit reverentia praesidentis et assidentium, hic non
videtur per omnia regis mandato satisfactum ; nee enim quietus
est quem quietum esse mandavit, addens etiam causam pro qua
sibi tenebatur.
M. Immo salva sit in hiis scrupulosae mentis tuae subtilitas.
Nosse quidem debueras, quod ei qui lege plurimum indiget, ejus
ignorantia non subvenit. Is ergo qui regi tenetur, qualiter ab
hoc absolvi plene possit, hoc est, secundum legem de hiis con-
stitutam, diligenter inquirat ; quod si non fecerit, non praesi
denti sed sibi imputet ; nee enim licet praesidenti ab eo quod
detulit in brevi iota mutare : cum ergo per hoc quietus non sit,
festinet quod expedit impetrare.
D. Cerno quod haec maxime propter hoc observantur, ut
scripturae rotuli non obloquantur. Sed jam nunc prosequere de
ceteris. M. Cum igitur omnia fuerint annotata, quae vel constituta
sunt, vel per brevia regis, vel per consuetudinem scaccarii com
putanda, sic compotus velut infectus relmquitur, et ad alia

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 225
convertuntur; nee enim 'et quietus est' vel ' et debet' in annali
scribetur, per quae scilicet compotus consummatus dicitur,
donee de omnibus quae in summonitione continentur satis-
fecerit ; cujus rei causa satis ex consequentibus liquere poterit.
Post compotum de corpore comitatus, hoc est, de principali firma,
qui sicut praedictum est usque in finem infectus relinquitur,
post modicum interstitium ponitur compotus de veteri firma
comitatus, hoc est quae casu aliquo de anno praeterito re-
manserat ; ita tamen, si vicecomes qui tunc ministravit mutatus
fuerit ; quod si idem perseverat etiam hoc anno, de veteri firma
ante inchoatum compotum de nova satisfaciet ; et diligenter et
distincte scribetur de veteri in principio, et consequenter de
nova. Ad haec noveris mutatum vicecomitem de firma veteri
summonendum, sicut quemlibet aliorum debitorum ; non de
parte ejus sed de universo ; quia firma est cujus solutio dif-
ferri non debet ; sed debitum firmae veteris, quo tenetur is
qui adhuc ministrat, suffieit sub hoc praetextu verborum sum-
monuisse, ' quicquid debes de veteri firma et nova.' De quo
satis supra dictum est in titulo de summonitionibus.
X. De excidentibus et occupatis, quae usitatius dicimus de
purpresturis et escaetis.
Post haec autem, facto intervallo quasi sex linearum, sequitur
compotus de excidentibus et occupatis, quae nos usitatius dicimus
'de purpresturis et escaetis.' In medio quidem lineae fit prae-
notatio litteris capitalibus, 'de purpresturis et escaetis ;' in capite
vero inferioris sic scribitur ; ' idem vicecomes reddit compotum
de firma purpresturarum et escaetarum, scilicet de x. 1. de hoc
et de xx. 1. de illo,' et ita deinceps, sicut ex rotulo perlustrantium
judicum ante conceptum est in annali, ' summa c. 1.' Dehinc in
fine ejusdem lineae ubi summa est, scribitur, ' in thesauro xx. 1.
in tot taleis, et debet quater xx. 1. ;' vel, ' in thesauro liberavit,
et quietus est.' Horum autem scribendorum ordinem magis
oculata fide quam verborum quantalibet argumentosa descrip-
tione cognosces.
D. Quae sint haec excidentia, vel occupata, et qua ratione
fisco proveniunt, nisi plenius aperueris, non video.
M. Fit interdum per negligentiam vicecomitis vel ejus ministro
runi, vel etiam per continuatam in longa tempora bellicam tem-
pestatem, ut habitantes prope fundos qui coronae annominantur,
aliquam eorum portionem sibi usurpent et suis possessionibus
ascribant. Cum autem perlustrantes judices per sacramentum
legitimorum virorum haec deprehenderint, seorsum a firma
comitatus appretiantur et vicecomitibus traduntur ut de eisdem
Q

226 Henry II. [part
seorsum respondeant ; et haec dicimus purpresturas vel occu-
pata ; quae quidem cum deprehenduntur, a possessoribus sicut
praedictum est tolluntur et abhinc fisco cedunt. Verum si is a
quo tollitur occupatum auctor est facti, simul etiam nisi rex ei
pepercerit, pecuniariter gravissime punietur ; quod si non auctor
sed haeres auctoris fuerit, ad poenam sufficit fundi ejusdem sola
revocatio. Ex quo sane, sicut ex aliis pluribus, regis miseri
cordia comprobatur ; dum patris tam enormis excessus non
punitur in filio, qui usque ad factam inquisitionem publicae
potestatis jactura ditabatur.l Porro escaetae vulgo dicuntur quae
decedentibus his qui de rege tenent in capite, cum non exstet
ratione sanguinis haeres, ad fiscum relabuntur. De his autem
simul cum purpresturis compoti fiunt sub una scripturae serie ;
sic tamen ut singulorum nomina per ordinem exprimantur. At
cum paterfamilias miles vel serviens, de rege tenens in capite,
fati debita solverit, relictis tamen liberis, quorum primogenitus
minor est annis, redditus quidem ejus ad fiscum redeunt ; sed
hujusmodi non simpliciter escaeta dicitur, sed escaeta cum
haerede ; unde nee haeres ab haereditate, nee ab ipso haereditas
tollitur; sed simul cum haereditate sub regis custodia consti
tutas tempore pupillaris aetatis de ipsa haereditate, per regis
officiales, tam ipse quam ceteri liberi necessaria percipiunt.
Cetera vero, quae de ipsa proveniunt, regiis usibus cedunt.
De his autem seorsum compoti fiunt; quia non perpetuo, sed
quodam temporali jure fisco debentur. Cum enim haeres, nunc
minor, legitimae aetatis adeptus beneficia, s'bi suisque disponere
noverit, quod jure sibi paterno debetur a regia munificentia
suscipiet, quidam gratis, per solam. scilicet gratiam principis,
quidam promissa summa aliqua ; de qua cum compotus fiet,
dicetur in annali ; ' ille vel ille reddit compotum de centum libris
de relevio terrae patris sui ; in thesauro hoc, et debet hoc :' de hoc
autem ultra in annali compotus non fiet ; cum ad fiscum post hoc
non redeat. Verum dum in manu regis est, de hoc sic scribetur in
annali ; ' ille vicecomes reddit compotum de firma illius honoris,'
^si baronia est ; ' in thesauro hoc ; et in procuratione liberorum
illius hoc, per breve regis ;' quod ibi ad scaccarium per consue
tudinem fiet ; ' et debet hoc,' vel ' et quietus est.' Quod si minor
est possessio haec, ut sit fundus unus vel duo vel tres, sic
dicetur ; ' ille vicecomes' vel4lTe-~N.' cui forte rex ejusdem rei
custodiam deputavit ' reddit compotum de firma terrae illius N.
quae fuit illius N., quam rex habet in manu sua,' vel ' quae est in
manu regis cum haerede ; in thesauro hoc ; et debet hoc ;' vel ' $t
quietus est.' Attende praeterea, quod honor ille vel fundus dum
in manu regis cum haerede fuerit, omnes eleemosynae et libera-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 227
tiones indigentium, a prioribus dominis solo caritatis intuitu
constitutae, his quibus debentur cum integritate solvuntur, et
ad scaccarium custodi computantur : liberationes vero servi-
entum, qui dominis suis ad explenda quaelibet obsequia neces-
sarii visi sint, et ob hoc constituuntur, dum rex possidet, volun-
tariam habent solutionem. Cum autem in manu haeredis
devoluta fuerit haereditas, oportet eum patris inhaerere vesti-
giis; ut scilicet quoad usque vixerint hii quibus haec a patre
suo constituta sunt vita comite percipienda, illis satisfaciat, et
post haec si voluerit, eorum utatur vel non utatur obsequiis.
D. Dixisti, si bene memini, quod si quilibet de rege tenens in
capite decedens minorem annis haeredem reliquerit ; tandem
idem relictus post legitimae aetatis tempora, quidam gratis,
quidam promissa pecunia, quod ' sibi debetur a rege suscipit.
Quod autem sic solvitur, relevium dicis. Die ergo si cujuslibet
fundi qui de rege est in capite, relevium sub consimili summa
debeat exigi ; vel si sub dissimili, quare sic ?
M. In propriam te videor armasse perniciem. Ex praedictis
enim alia conjiciens armatis me vexas quaestionibus. Noveris
autem quod releviorum quae regi debentur, secundum dissimiles
possidentium status dissimilis summa consurgit : quidam enim
de rege tenent in capite quae ad coronam pertinent, baronias
scilicet majores seu minores ; si ergo pater possessor hujusmodi
mortuus fuerit, relicto haerede, qui jam adultus sit, non secun
dum constitutam de his summam regi satisfaciet, sed secundum
quod a rege poterit obtinere. Quod si minor aetate fuerit
haeres, in custodia constitutus legitimam aetatem praesto-
labitur ; tunc autem, vel gratis sicut dictum est, vel secundum
beneplacitum regis sicut adultus, haereditatem paternam nan-
ciscetur : si vero decesserit quis tenens tunc de rege feodum
militis, non quidem ratione coronae regiae, sed potius ratione
baroniae cujuslibet quae quovis casu in manum regis delapsa est ;
sicut est episcopatus vacante sede ; haeres jam defuncti si adultus
est pro feodo militis c. solidos numerabit, pro duobus x. libras,
et ita deinceps juxta numerum militum quos domino debuerat
antequam ad fiscum devoluta fbret haereditas. Quod si minor
annis haeres relictus fuerit, quae de haereditate ejus perveniunt
ratione custodiae tempore pupillaris aetatis fisco provenient, sicut
dictum est : relictus a patre jam adultus pro singulis feodis mili
tum c. solidos solvet, vel etiam infra, hoc est 1. solidos si dimidium
militis feodum possederit, et sic deinceps. Nee te lateat quod
ejus quem in custodia per aliquot annos habueris et possessionis
ejus fructum, cum ad aetatem legitimam pervenerit, relevium
repetere non valebis. 
Q 2

228 Henry II. [part
D. In hae parte pro pupillis lex judicat, quod piis mentibus
bene sedet, decernit.
M. Sic est ; sed de propositis prosequamur. Item est et
tertium genus excidentium vel escaetarum, quod fisco provenit
jure perpetuo. Cum aliquis de rege tenens in capite perpetrati
sceleris sibi conscius, sive sit ei objectum, sive non, relictis tamen
omnibus per fugam vitae consulit : vel si super eodem objecto
convictus vel confessus, terra simul et vita judicatur indignus ;
omnia quae sui juris fuerant mox infiscantur, et redditus omnes
annuo, immo et perpetuo, jure ad scaccarium a vicecomite per-
solvuntur, et quod ex mobilibus eorum venditis provenit, regi
eedit. Similiter si cujuscunque conditionis vir vel cujuscunque
domini servus aut liber, metu arctioris assisae quam rex propter
sceleratos constituit, a sede sua fugerit, et per constitutes ac
lege definitos terminos juri se non obtulerit vel excusaverit, vel
etiam si acclamante in ipsum vicinia suspectus et postmodum
compreheneus, per legem assisae constitutam reus sceleris con
victus fuerit; omnia ejus mobilia fisco cedunt, immobilia vero
dominis suis. Mobilium vero pretia per manum vicecomitis ad
scaccarium deferuntur, et in annali sic annotantur ; ' idem vice
comes reddit compotum de catallis fugitivorum vel mutilatorum
per assisam de loco illo ; scilicet de hoe v., de illo x.,' et sic
deinceps per singula carjita, expressis eorum nominibus et
summis quae de catallis singulorum exsurgunt; fiet autem in
fine summa omnium ; et circa finem ejusdem lineae in qua
summa est, scribetur, 'in thesauro xl. 1. in tot vel tot taleis, et
debet x. 1.,' vel ' et quietus est.' Haec sunt, frater, quorum supra
meminimus, quae ad scaccarium a vicecomite deferenda sunt,
etiamsi summonitio nulla praecesserit. Sic et thesaurus effossa
tellure vel aliter inventus. Item cum quis laicum fundum
habens, vel civis etiam, publicis inservit usuris ; si hic intestatus
decesserit, vel etiam his quos defraudavit non satisfaciens, testa-
mentum de prave acquisitis visus est condidisse, sed eadem non
distribuit, immo penes se reservavit ; quia sic perquisitis incum-
bens animum possidendi deseruisse non creditur, pecunia ejus et
omnia mobilia mox infiscantur ; et non summonita per officiales
ad scaccarium deferuntur; haeres autem jam defuncti fundo
paterno et ejus immobilibus sibi vix relictis gaudeat.
D. Ex praemissis, quae de foeneratoribus dicta sunt quaestio
gravis animum pulsat, quam vellem, si placet, plenius expediri;
dixisti enim, ' cum quis laicum fundum habens, vel etiam civis
publicis inservit usuris etc. ;' ex quibus verbis personarum
quaedam distinctio inter sic delinquentes fieri posse videtur ;
et alia sit clericorum, alia laicorum conditio, cum pares sint in

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 329
delicto. Item ex eo quod additur, ' publicis inservit usuris,' credi
potest esse quasdam non publicas, quibus si quis adhaeserit, an
legi publicarum subjaceat prorsus ignoro.
M. Frustra credidi brevibus et communibus tibi satisfacien
dum ; cum ex hujusmodi quaestionem elicias cujus absolutio
peritorum quosdam hucusque latuit. Verum quod dicis, 'ex
verbis tuis, clericorum et laicorum sic delinquentium videtur
esse dispar conditio, cum pares sint in delicto,' non approbo :
sicut enim in gradibus sic et in culpis dissident ; juxta verbum
illud ; ' quanto gradus altior, tanto casus gravior ;' in bonis etiam
et meritoriis operibus, ut quibusdam visum est, dispares sunt :
laici enim, qui voti necessitati minus tenentor, ampliorem
gratiam promereri videntur ; sicut in perversis actibus, hii qui
voto religionis inserviunt, gravius offendunt. Sed de his hactenus.
Habes autem ex praecedentibus unde tuae quaestionis pars prima
valeat absolvi. Ex eo enim quod clericus usuris inserviens
dignitatis suae privilegium demeretur, parem laico sic delin
quent! poenam sibi mereatur, ut ipso videlicet de medio sublato
omnia ejus mobilia fisco debeantur. Ceterum sic a prudentibus
accepimus. In sic delinquentem clericum vel laicum Christia-
num regia potestas actionem non habet, dum vita comes fuerit :
superest enim poenitentiae tempus ; sed magis ecclesiastico
judicio reservatur, pro sui status qualitate condemnandus : cum
autem fati munus expleverit, sua omnia, ecclesia non reclamante,
regi cedunt : nisi, sicut dictum est, vita comite digne poenituerit,
et testamento condito quae legare decreverit a se prorsus
alienaverit. Restat itaque, ut quas publicas dicamus usuras et
quas non publicas expediamus ; deinde si pari lege teneantur, qui
in utrisque delinquunt. Publicas igitur et usitatas usuras dici
mus, quando more Judaeorum in eadem specie ex conventione
quis amplius percepturus est quam commodavit; sicut libram
pro marca, vel pro libra argenti duos denarios in septimana
de lucro praeter sortem : non publicas autem sed tarrlen
damnabiles, cum quis fundum aliquem vel ecclesiam pro com
modate suscipit, et manente sortis integritate, fructus ejus,
donee sors ipsa soluta fuerit, sibi percipit. Hoc genus
propter laborem et sump turn qui in agri cui turis solent impendi,
licentius visum est; sed proculdubio sordidum est et inter
usuras computandum merito. Quod si creditor avarus et in
ruinam animae suae pronus in scripto sic exprimi dignum
duxerit, ut dicatur ; ' notum sit omnibus, quod ego N. debeo
N. centum marcas argenti ; et pro his centum marcis invadiavi
ei terram illam pro x. 1. ; quousque ego, vel haeres meus, solvam
ipsi vel haeredi suo praedictas centum marcas : ' cum post

230 Henry II. [part
mortem creditoris ad regis vel principalis Justiciarii notitiam
hujus famosae cartae tenor pervenerit : imprimis foedus foenoris
quaestus condemnabitur, et creditor scripto suo deprehensus
foenerator, mobilibus suis indignus judicabitur. Quod si is
cujus fundus est a rege quomodolibet obtinuerit, ut sic dis-
tractus sibi restituatur, in sorte tota domino regi tenebitur,
etiamsi creditor per biennium vel amplius possederit, regis
tamen munificentia de summa sortis illius taxare consuevit,
maxime propter singularis gratiae munus, in quo fidelibus suis
debito praelationis tenetur, et tunc quia creditoris seu foenera-
toris, qui sui fidelis enormi jactura ditatus fuerat, ratione pub
licae potestatis bona omnia percepturus est. Sunt et pleraque
alia quae singulariter ad fiscum pertinent, quae non facile sub
una scripturae serie redigi possunt ; quia non constituta sed
casualia sunt. De hiis tamen excidentibus hujus tertii generis,
non supra post firmas, sed infra post omnia placita compoti fiunt,
ante catalla fugitivorum ; ut ipsa quoque locorum positione vide
antur pro enormibus culpis delinquentium ad fiscum pertinentia.
D. Miror super his quae dixisti ; non enim cum prioribus
stare posse videntur. Cum enim ascriptitiorum dominis liberum
sit, non solum illos transferre, verum etiam quibuscunque modis
distrahere, sicut supra dictum est ; et non tantum catallorum
sed et corporum merito domini reputentur ; mirandum est cum
dominus rerum et hominis rei nil delinquat in legem, quare
possessione sua privetur : videri enim justum posset, ut regis
constitutio in personam delinquentis puniret excessum, mobilia
vero cum ipsis fundis in usus dominorum cederent.
M . Movet te quod me movet ; verum in his longam fieri moram
superfiuum credo, cum ab inceptis negotiis aliena sint. Ut tibi
satisfiat ; propter solam regis assisam sic esse cognoscas ; nee
enim est qui regiae constitutioni, quae pro bono pacis fit, obviare
praesumat. Quod si dominis catalla suorum per assisam con-
demnatorum provenirent, forte quia cupiditatis humanae fervida
sitis in medio posita est, propter modicum quaestum quidam in
necem suorum etiam innocentium grassarentur : ea propter rex
ipse, cui generalis est et a Deo credita cura subditorum, hoc ita
decrevit ut sic rei legi satisfacientes corpore puniantur, et
retentis sibi ipsi mobilibus, domesticis hostibus, hoc est, dominis
suis, non exponantur: verum sicut jam diximus, sola regis
institutio urgente necessitate pro bono pacis facta, hujus quaes-
tionis principalis solutio est.
D. Video quod non sine causa fit. Nunc, si placet,
prosequere. Verum restat in praecedentibus quiddam, quod
vellem altius, si placet, expediri. Dixisti enim, quod fugitivo-

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 231
rum et mutilatorum per assisam mobilia summonita ad scacca
rium deferuntur, et in annali suo loco scribuntur : quid autem
de praedonum vel furum catallis fieri debet non dixisti; si
scilicet ad regem pertineant, vel cui de jure cedere debeant.
M. Praedonum, qui et fures manifesti dicuntur, et latenter
furantium, conditio dissimilis est ; porro tam horum quam
illorum duo sunt genera, ex quorum singulis catalla diversis
diverso modo proveniunt. Praedonum quidem sicut et furum
quidam exleges sunt, quos usitatius utlagatos dicimus, quidam
non : utlagati vero vel exleges fiunt, quando legitime citati non
comparent, et per legitimos et constitutos terminos exspectantur
et etiam requiruntur, nee juri se offerunt. Horum itaque catalla
sicut et vita in manibus comprehendentium ipsos esse noscuntur,
nee ad regem pertinere qualibet ratione possunt : praedonum
autem bona qui nondum in hanc miseriae summam delapsi sunt,
si comprehendantur, ad fiscum proveniunt : furum autem ad
vicecomitem sub quo deprehensi et puniti sunt. Quod si vice
comes furis causam ad curiam deduci dignam duxerit, ut ibi
judicetur, nihil ipsis sed totum regi debetur, quod fur ille
possedit. Si vero furem proprium quis insecutus fuerit, et in
curia prima domini regis, vel etiam in comitatu ipsum com-
prehenderit, et reum furti adjudicata lege probaverit ; de catallis
furis, si ad id suffeeerit, ablata primum laeso restituantur,
praecedente, si placet domini regis Justiciario, de summa abla-
torum fide ejus qui petit, vel sacramento : postmodum autem
ex provida studiosorum pacis institutione, idem de bonis furis
tantundem accepturus est in laboris et sumptus sui solatium,
quantum prius dolo furis amiserat. Haec autem duplex et
prudenter procurata solutio ab antiquis solta et persolta vel
prosolta non immerito dicta est : primo enim quod ablatum
fuerat et solvitur et ob hoc solta dicitur : deinceps pro laboris et
sumptus impendio quod adjicitur pro vel persolta nuncupatur.
His in hunc inodum expletis, quod fuerat in bonis rei residuum
fisco proveniet.
D. Et haec necessaria visa sunt ; sed nunc juxta promissum,
de censu nemorum, si placet, prosequere.
M. Gratulor quod te tam dictuum virtutem quam dicendorum
ordinem memoriter tenuisse conspicio. Superest igitur ut votis
tuis satisfacere pro viribus non omittam.
XI. De Censu nemorum.
Post compotum purpraesturarum et escaetarum sequitur com
potus de censu nemorum, brevis satis et expeditus, sub hoc
tenore verborum : ' idem vicecomes vel ille alius N. reddit com-

232 Henry II. [part
potum de xx. 1., de censu illius nemoris vel forestae de Norham-
tescira ; in thesauro liberavit, et quietus est.' Sunt tamen
quaedam forestae de quibus decimae constitutorum censuum
ecclesiis majoribus solvuntur ; sicut de Wiltescira et de Hampte-
scira ecclesiae Sarisburiensi, de Norhamtescira vero ecclesiae
Lincolniensi : cujus solutionis causam sic accepi ; quod enim de
forestis solvitur pene totum vel ejus maxima pars ex placitis et
exactionibus provenit ; sic igitur per datas decimas illicit! quae
stus utcumque redimi posse visi sunt. De his autem sic compoti
fiunt : ' ille vel ille reddit compotum de xx. 1., de censu forestae
illius ; in thesauro xviii. 1. ; ' et in capite proximae lineae in
ferioris sic ; ' et in decimis constitutis illi ecclesiae xl. s. ;' deinde
in fine ejusdem lineae paulo seorsum ab alia scriptura sic, ' et
quietus est.' Intellige etiam semel tibi dictum, quod omnia
debita et item ea quae in thesauro soluta fuerint seorsum ab
alia scriptura collocanda sunt ; ut juvanti animo et discurrenti
oculo facilius occurrant ; quoniam ex solvendis summonitiones,
et ex jam solutis absolutiones, fiunt. Post diligentem firmae
principalis veteris sive novae compotum, et item post compotum
purpraesturarum et escaetarum, et census nemorum, quae omnia,
sicut dictum est, annuo jure solvuntur, sequitur compotus de
placitis [et] conventionibus ; in quo primum post modicum
intervallum in medio lineae praenotatio fit quorum scilicet
judicum haec sint.
XII. De Placitis et Conventionibus ; quo ordine de his compoti
fiunt, cum exacta solvuntur.
Placita autem dicimus poenas pecuniarias in quas incidunt
delinquentes : conventiones vero oblata spontanea. Cum ergo de
hiis instat exactio, tunc primum clerico cancellarii traditur sum
monitio; qui seriatim de singulis urget vicecomitem, dicens; 'redde
de illo x. libras ; pro hae causa ; ' quod si in thesauro solvitur
quod requiritur, sic scribetur in annali ; ' N. reddit compotum de
x. 1. pro hae causa,' et ex ordine tota redigatur in scriptum, ' in
thesauro liberavit, et quietus est : ' si vero per breve regis quietus
est, ut, sicut diximus, numerus exprimatur in brevi, dicetur ; ' N.
reddit compotum de x. 1.,' et addat causam ; deinde paulo inferius
in ipsa linea, ' per breve regis ipsi N. x. 1., et quietus est ;' quod si
de c. summonitus sit, cum tamen summa debiti sit in annali x. 1.
et c. solverit in denariis, vel de c. breve regis impetraverit,
dicetur ; ' N. reddit compotum de x. 1. ; in thesauro centum
solidos, et debet c. solidos/ vel ' in perdonis per breve regis ipsi
N. c. solidos, et debet c. solidos.' Et nota, quod in omnibus
compotis de placitis et conventionibus singuli per se responde-

iv.] Dialogue de Scaccario. II. 233
bunt, ut scilicet onus debiti, si non satisfecerit, vel absolutionem
si universum solvent, suo nomine suscipiant, exceptis communi
bus assisis et Danegeldis et murdris ; de his enim vicecomes
compotum reddit, et super his ipse vel quietus in annali scribitur
vel in debito. Quod si mutatus fuerit vicecomes, nihilominus is
qui succedit ei de eisdem respondebit et de eis summonebitur ;
et nisi satisfecerit, per firmam quam soluturus est coercendus
est. Quisquis enim in onus ejusdem officii mutato succedit
vicecomite, ab ipso suscipit rescripta debitorum regis in ipso
comitatu; ut per hoc nosse valeat a quibus quae debeant
requiri, cum summonitionem ad se delatam susceperit. Ad
vicecomitem ergo spectat compotus communium, ad quem
solum pertinet coercio singulorum; et qui vicecomes fuerit,
dum compotus fit, vel quietus vel in debito hae ratione scri
betur. D. Teneo memoriter quid fieri debeat cum quis super aliquo
debito summonitus breve regis detulerit, quod numerum qui
requiritur exprimat. Quod si regis cartam de quietantia rerum
ejusdem generis ad scaccarium deferat ; ut sic dicatur; 'volo
igitur ut haec omnia teneat libere et quiete de placitis et
murdris,' et his et his, et hujusmodi ; nunquid in perdonis
erit ?
M. Erit revera ; sed non dicetur, ' in perdonis per cartam
regis/ vel ' per libertatem cartae,' hoc vel illud ; immo ' per breve
regis : ' quod si carta quidem non specificans sic contineat, ' libere
et quiete ab omni exactione et saeculari servitio praedicta possi-
deat ; ' non tamen ab his quae requiruntur per hoc quietus est
vel in perdonis scribetur : nolunt enim qui assident speciali
debito per generalem absolutionem derogari.
D. Perniciosa satis est ista subtilitas : qui enim a generibus
singulorum liber est, et a singulis generum meretur absolvi.
M. Verum est quod dicis ; neque nos dissentimus ; sed tamen
quid fiat dicimus, non quid forte fieri debeat. Igitur cum de
omnibus hiis quae in summonitione continentur, vel per nume-
ratam pecuniam vel per brevia regis satisfactum fuerit, hae lege
scripturae quae supra dicta est semper utendum est : verum cum
non solverit aliquis universum quod ab ipso requiritur, sed
partem ejus vel forte nihil, causa statim a vicecomite requirenda
est cur is solvendo non fuerit. Quod si respondent vicecomes,
quaesisse se diligenter ejus de quo agitur nee catalla invenire
potuisse ; inferet thesaurarius, ' cave tibi ; nam hujus rei fidem,'
scilicet quaesisse te nee invenire potuisse per quod satisfieri
posset, 'fide corporaliter praestita confirmabis;' quo respondente,
'praesto sum ;' in consummatum compotum fidei susceptio diffe-

234 Henry II. [part
retur ; ubi super multis consimilibus semel data sufficiat. De
hae tamen fide jam circa initia plura dicta sunt, et restant aliqua
suo loco dicenda.
XIII. De distinctions personarum quae sohendo non sunt ; de
quibus a Vicecomite fides offertur, et sub quo tenore verborum
fides detur.
Porro hic primum distinguendum est circa debitores et debita;
ut in quibus fides oblata locum habeat, et quibus non, tibi con-
stet : si enim miles, vel liber alius, vel ascriptitius, vel quaelibet
hujusmodi cujuscunque conditionis aut sexus persona, regi tene
tur in quovis debito, quod quidem poena sit pro excessu, non
oblatum spontaneum, fide ilia vicecomitis oblata et in fine susci-
pienda contentus erit thesaurarius ; et iterate scribetur debitor
in hoc annali, sicut in praeterito, vir vel mulier cujus actio per
inopiam inanis facta est ; verum secus est si debitor ille de quo
quaeritur civis est vel burgensis, si scilicet genere civis sit, vel
facta sibi necessitate commorantium civium legibus sponte se
subjecerit ; non enim sufficit vicecomiti, quod horum, si qui de
requisita summa non satisfaciunt, mobilia tantum solvat, vel quae
sisse se nee invenisse fidem offerat, ut sic ad scaccarium liberetur,
nisi eorum et domos et fundos et quoslibet urbium redditus in-
fiscet, et penes alios collocet, ut vel sic debita regi pecunia pro-
veniat ; quod si non inveniantur qui suscipiant, parcentibus sibi
invicem ejusdem conditionis hominibus, domos eorum serfs ob-
struat, et fundos diligenter excoli faciat. Si vero interim hii
solverint quae requiruntar, ad proprietaries ipsos per manum
ricecomitis sine molestia quae sui juris sunt reddent.
D. Mirari satis non possum, ubi culpa dispar non est,
Cur genus hoc hominum gravius lex nostra coercet.
M. Maxima pars possessionis eorum qui fundos habent et per
agriculturam sustentantur, in pecudibus, in animalibus et in
frugibus est, et item in hiis quae non facile cohabitantium noti-
tiam possunt effugere : at hiis qui mercimoniis inserviunt, et qui
parcentes sumptibus, multiplicandis possessionibus totis viribus
et modis omnibus insistunt, in numeratam pecuniam sollicitior
cura consistit. Per haec enim commercia facilius exercentur ;
et possunt haec in locis tutis et ignotis facile reponi : unde fit
ut saepe qui dives est, non patentibus his qua« latent, pauper
reputetur : propter haec igitur in hos gravius lex ilia decernit ;
quia superabundans pecuniarum puteus non de facili videtur
exhaustus. D. Quid assisa communis, et quis vel quo ordine de ipsa

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 235
respondeat, ex praedictis magna ex parte jam constat. Nunc si
placet de auxiliis, vel donis civitatum seu burgorum ; qualiter
ex hiis compoti fiant, et qui principaliter conveniendi vel
coercendi super his fuerint, edissere ; modus enim coercionis ex
praedictis jam patet.
M. Gaudeo te memorem praedictorum ; et hinc, fateor, me
magis animasti. Noveris itaque quod plurimum interest, si
donum vel auxilium civitatis per singula capita commorantium
in ea a Justitiis constituatur : vel si cives summam aliquam quae
principe digna videatur justiciariis offerant, et ab eis suscipiatur :
dispar enim in his duobus modus est coercionis ; si enim per
singulos a judicibus constitutum est donum, et quilibet eorum
solvendo non fuerit, lex praedicta de civibus non solventibus
servatur ; ut scilicet domibus et redditibus usque ad solutionem
privetur. At si dictum est a civibus, ' dabimus regi mille libras ; '
et haec summa digna suscipi judicetur ; ut statutis terminis eadem
exsurgat ipsi provideant. Quod si forte excusare coeperint, alle-
gantes quorundam inopiam qui in aliqua parte summae hujusmodi
tenebantur ; tunc diligenter, hoc est per fidem vicecomitis, in
quirendum est, si a tempore constituti per eosdem cives doni vel
auxilii hii tales exstiterint ut solvere non valerent ; quod si in-
ventum fuerit, provideant alios ex quibus summa prior exsurgat,
vel per commune distribuatur quod restat; verum si tempore
constitutionis abundabant, sed lege fortunae natura mobilis
nunc egeant, sustinendum est de hiis quousque per Dei gratiam
ditentur. D. Cerno quod in omnibus modum servantes semper regiis
commodis inhaeretis.
M. Memoriter tenes quid de civibus vel burgensibus non
solventibus sit agendum. Quod si forte miles aliquis vel liber
alius a sui status dignitate, quod absit, degenerans, multiplicandis
denariis per publica mercimonia, vel per turpissimum genus
quaestus, hoc est, per foenus, institerit,- et exacta sponte non
solvent, non per fidem tantum de non inventis vicecomes ab-
solvetar, verum cum haec praesidenti suggesserit, districtum ab
ipso mandatum suscipiet ut de summa quae ab illo requiritur
statutis terminis solvenda fidejussores inveniat ; quod si nolu
erit, omnes ejus redditus infiscentur ; ut in hae parte merito fiat
Hiis similis qui multiplicant quocunque modo rem.
D. Dignum revera est, ut a statu suo pro turpi quaestu
recedens degener miles, vel liber alius, praeter communem
liberorum legem puniatur. Sed jam nunc si placet edissere,
quae sunt quae pro catallis ejus qui regi tenetur debeant im-

236 Henry II. [part
putari, et utrum ab omnibus omnia tollenda sunt a vicecomite,
quousque summa quae requiritur exsurgat, quando scilicet prin
cipalis debitor exacta sponte non solvit.
XIV. Quae catalla debitorum vendenda non sunt, cu/m ipsi sponte
non solvunt, et quis in vendendis ordo sit observandus.
M. In pelagus me quaestionum impellis, nescio, Deus scit,
qua emersurum. Noveris itaque, quod sic iterum personarum
distinctio necessaria est, sicut ex consequentibus liquebit; vel-
lem tamen in hae parte mihi parceres, ne pluribus displicitura
proferre compellas.
D. Dum a legis constitutae tramite non exorbitaveris, justam
prudentis offensam non mereberis : quod si cui grave videbitur
quod lex statuit, ei qui condidit irascatur, non tibi.
M. Ab initio debitor tibi factus sum ex promisso. Hinc est,
quod volens teneor parere volenti vel petenti. Debitorum igitur
qui exacta sponte non solvunt, catalla, quae licite venduntur, sunt
eorum mobilia ac sese moventia ; qualia sunt aurum, argentum
et ex hiis vasa composita, lapides quoque pretiosi, et mutatoria
vestimentorum, et hiis similia ; item equorum utrumque genus,
usuales scilicet et indomiti ; armenta quoque boum et greges
ovium, et cetera hujusmodi ; frugum etiam et quorundam vic
tualium mobilis est natura, ut scilicet libere vendi possint,
deductis necessariis sumptibus debitoris ad sola victualia, hoc
est, ut necessitati, non superfluitati, et item ut naturae satisfiat
non crapulae ; nee soli debitori, sed uxori ejus ac filiis ac
familiae quam prius exhibuerat dum sibi viveret, huic necessaria
ministrantur. D. Quare dicis ' quorundam V
M. Victualia quae ab eis quotidianis usibus praeparantur et
quae sine sui mutatione esibus accommodantur, qualia sunt
panis et potus, nulla ratione vendi possunt ; victualium igitur
ea duntaxat, quae praeter usus necessarios ab ipsis dominis
reservanda fuerant ut venalia fierent, licite venduntur, qualia
sunt carnes sale conditae, casei, mella, vina, et his similia. Et
nota, quod si debitor ille qui solvendo non est, militiae cingulum
semel obtinuerit, venditis ceteris, equus tamen ei, non quilibet,
sed unus usualium, reservabitur ; ne qui dignitate factus est
eques, pedes cogatur incedere. Quod si miles ejusmodi fuerit,
Quem juvat armorum decor et juvat usus eorum,
et qui meritis exigentibus debeat inter strenuos eomputari, tota
sui corporis armatura cum equis ad id necessariis a venditoribus

iv.J Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 237
erit Uberrima ; ut, cum oportuerit, ad regis et regni negotia
armis et equis instructus possit assumi.
Si tamen hie idem cui lex in parte pepercit,
audita necessitate regis vel regni, delitescens se absentaverit,
vel ad hoc vocatus non venerit, sic tamen ut non propriis
sed regiis stipendiis militet, et evidenter absentiam suam non
excusaverit, nee ab his venditores temperabunt ; sed solo con-
tentus equo propter dignitatem militiae sibi relicto, juri com
muni vivat obnoxius. Caveat autem vicecomes ut venditores
suos praemonuerit in vendendis hunc ordinem observare ; mobilia
cujusque primo vendantur, bobus autem arantibus per quos
agricultura solet exerceri quantum poterint parcant; ne ipsa
deficiente debitor amplius in futurum egere cogatur. Quod si
nee sic quidem summa quae requiritur exsurgit, nee arantibus
parcendum est. Cum igitur omnia, quae ad ipsum specialiter
pertinent venalia venundata sunt ; si nondum satisfactum est,
ascriptitiorum ejus fundos adeant, et eorum catalla licite ven-
dant, ordinem simul et legem praedictam observantes ; haec
enim ad dominum pertinere noscuntur, sicut supra dictum est :
quo facto, sive sic de requisita summa satisfactum sit sive non,
venditores jubet lex nostra quiescere ; nisi forte scutagium sit
quod a domino requiritur ; pro scutagio namque si non solvent
qui regi tenetur dominus principalis, non tantum propria sed et
militum suorum et ascriptitiorum catalla passim venduntur;
ratio namque scutagiorum milites suos magna pro parte respicit ;
quia non nisi de militibus et ratione militiae regi debentur.
Vidi tamen ego ipse, cui nondum cana memoria est, pro singulis
debitis eorum qui non satisfaciebant, non solum propria sed
etiam militum suorum et ascriptitiorum catalla licite vendi.
Sed illustris regis constitutio in scutagiis tantum hoc observari
decrevit, ordine servato, ut prius propria, dehinc aliena, ven
dantur. Quod si milites ea quae de feodis suis proveniunt
domino solverint, et hoc oblata cautione probare voluerint, pro
hiis quae a dominis requiruntur catalla sua venundari lex
prohibet. XV. Quod Vicecomes a debitoribus debitoris illius qui Regi non
solvit debitam Begi summam suscipiat.
Item admonendus est vicecomes ut diligenter et sollicite
quantum poterit investiget, si quis in comitatu suo debitori
illi in solutionem sibi praestitae vel penes eum depositae
pecuniae teneatur : quod si inventum fuerit, a debitore illo
summa ilia quae ab ejus creditore qui regi tenetur requiritur,

238 Henry II. [part
exigatur, et ne ei super eodem respondeat auctoritate publicae
potestatis inhibeatur.
XVI. Quod Vicecomes a fundis ejus qui non solvit quod re
quiritur percipiat, etiamsi eosdem, ex quo regi teneri coepit,
quomodolibet alienaverit.
Item, si debitor a tempore quo regi teneri coepit, fundum
suum vel redditum alii locaverit, vel pignus pro pecunia de
derit, vel etiam, quod absurdum tibi forte videbitur, dominium
ejus per venditionem a se transtulerit ; si alias inventa non
sunt per quae regi satisfiat, quaecunque persona fuerit, quo-
cunque titulo possessionem nactus fuerit, nihilominus ex eodem
quod ad regem pertinet accipietur; salva proprietate domino
qui justo earn titulo coeperit possidere; nisi forte debitor ille
fundi venditi pretium ab initio sponte regi solverit ; tunc enim
tuta erit penes emptorem possessio. Hujus autem rei causam,
licet distorta modicum et regiae nimis utilitati serviens videtur,
evidentem tamen et satis justam secundum patrias leges com-
probabis. Quisquis enim in regiam majestatem deliquisse
deprehenditur, uno trium modorum juxta qualitatem delicti
sui regi condemnatur : aut enim in universo mobili suo reus
judicatur, pro minoribus culpis ; aut in omnibus immobilibus,
fundis scilicet et redditibus, ut eis exhaeredetur ; quod si pro
majoribus culpis, aut pro maximis quibuscunque vel enormibus
delictis, in vitam suam vel membra. Cum igitur aliquis
de mobilibus in beneplacito regis judicatur, lata in eum a
judicibus sententia per haec verba, ' iste est in misericordia regis
de pecunia sua;' idem est ac si 'de tota' dixissent. Laicorum
enim [sententiae] indefinitae, non his pro quibus totius est eas
accipi, hoc est particularibus, sed semper universalibus aequi-
pollent. Cum igitur fundi illius catalla quem debitor prius
distraxit in beneplacito principis adjudicata fuissent, et ipse de
requisita summa non satisfecerit, videri potest injustum ut rem
non suam, in fisci jacturam, alienaverit.
XVII. Quod non licet Vicecomiti debitam sibi pecuniam a non
solventibus suscipere ; et quid sit agendum si forte susceperit.
Item admonendus est vicecomes propter fidei religionem quae
ab ipso de non solventibus exigitur, immo quam ipse sponte
visus est obtulisse, ut sic a summonitione sibi facta liberari
valeat, ne a debitore quolibet qui regi non solvit, interim aliqua
quae sibi juste debebantur suscipiat. Non enim verisimile est,
non posse vicecomitem de catallis ejus invenisse, per quae regi

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 239
debita summa solvatur, qui ipsi vicecomiti sponte vel invitus
quod requiritur exsolvit. Si tamen ante datam fidem per se vel
per alium recordatus fuerit vicecomes de his aliqua se suscepisse,
vel etiam post datam, nondum tamen soluto scaccario diei illius,
hoc est dum compotus ejus recens est, et veniens in publicum
querula voce se suscepti tunc immemorem exstitisse, fide de his
oblata, confirmare voluerit, susceptam summam nomine debitoris
persolvens liberabitur. Si vero, quod absit, post fidem datam,
post solutum scaccarium, per alium hoc innotuerit, non jam
suscepta tantum solvens absolvetur : sed pro excessu suo in
regis beneplacito judicandus pecuniariter punietur. Postremo
vicecomitem commonuisse sufficiat, ut post susceptam summoni
tionem diligenter inquirat per viciniam, si vir qui solvendo non
est, uxorem ducens, vel mulier, ditiori nubens, vel quovis alio
modo ditescat, quatenus de requisitis satisfacere valeat : quod si
inventum fuerit, propter fidem vicecomitis solvere compellatur :
quod si nihil horum inventum fuerit, poterit tunc purgata con-
scientia de hiis rebus fidem dare, et imminentem rerum suarum
jacturam declinare.
XVIII. Qualiter vir pro uxore, vel uxor pro viro convenienda
est, cum ille vel ilia solvendo non est.
D. Nunquid vir pro uxore, quae regi tenebatur, et fati debita
jam solvit, vel pro viro suo mulier ei superstes conveniri debet ?
M. Satis audisti, quod ' qui adhaeret mulieri unum corpus
efficitur ;' sic Ttamen ut caput ejus sit. Merito ergo pro ea
conveniendus est ; quia mulier sui potestatem non habet sed vir.
Quod si vir ex ea prolem susceperit, cui ratione uxoris debeatur
haereditas, et mortua jam uxore nondum soluta regi debita
pecunia fuerit; vir ille nomine haeredis conveniendus et coer-
cendus est ; alias autem non. Porro mulier viro suo superstes
prolem habens, et in viduitate cum ipsa permanens, ratione
prolis, cui debetur haereditas, convenienda et coercenda est ; sic
tamen ut doti ejus parcatur, quia praemium pudoris est. Quod
si relictis liberis alii viro mulier adhaeserit, legitimus haeres
pro debito patris conveniendus est : verum si mulier quae
deliquit et regi tenetur, priore viro sine liberis mortuo, ad alium
se cum sua haereditate transtulerit, debitum ejus a viro re-
quirendum est. Hoc est igitur quod petisti. Et sic vir causa
uxoris, et uxor causa viri convenienda est. Certum autem
habeas, quod semper legitimus haeres qui debitori succedit, pro
illo conveniendus est : ut sicut in emolumentum sic in onus
subeat. Solus autem ascriptitius, et is qui sine haereditate
decedit, venditis catallis per extremam mortis aleam a debito

240 Henry II. [part
liberantur ; non tamen ab annali in quo debita haec annotantur
nisi per breve regis auferentur, cum scilicet de hiis a thesaurario
regi suggestum fuerit quod inutiliter in rotulo scribantur, cum
nullo pacto fieri possit ut ab hiis debita pecunia proveniat.
XIX. Quod non sit idem modus coercionis baronum regis,
et aliorum, in poenis pecuniariis.
Ad haec nosse te convenit, quod in debitis regiis requirendis
et debitoribus coercendis, baronum regis et ceterorum qui
passim pro suis excessibus pecuniariter regi puniuntur, par
conditio non est. Porro de hiis qui de rege nihil habent in
capite, lex praedicta servatur. At si de rege tenens baroniam,
audita summonitione, fidem in propria persona, vel manu gene-
ralis oeconomi quem vulgi senescallum dicunt, in manum vice
comitis dederit, sub hoc tenore verborum, quod de hae summa
et de hae summonitione grantum baronum scaccarii die compoti
sui faciet, sic vicecomes contentus sit.
XX. Quid faciendum cum Oeconomus, qui fidem dedit de
satisfaciendo, nan comparet.
Si vero die compoti voce praeconia requisitus non venerit,
nee per se nee per alium satisfecerit, vicecomes quod ad ipsum
pertinuit fecisse judicabitur, causa vero haec seorsum in memo-
randis scaccarii praecepto thesaurarii diligenter annotata in
finem scaccarii reservabitur ; ut tunc communicato consilio,
gravius qui sic deliquit puniatur. Quod si post consummatum
compotum vicecomitis sui venerit et satisfecerit ; de assidentium
gratia, et de legis indulgentia poterit absolvi ; verum necesse est
ut vicecomes fidem ejus in comitatu sub omnium oculis susci
piat : quia si forte qui dederit volens malignari, datam inficiari
voluerit, adversus eum ad omnem probationis summam recor-
datio comitatus sufficiet. Quod si alias sibi datam vicecomes
confessus fuerit, nihil egisse judicabitur ; unde mox de firma
sua requisita summa capietur, ut summonitioni satisfaciat in
hae parte dicenti, ' vel capientur de firma tua.'
XXI. Quid cum veniens non satisfaciat, si Miles est ; quid si
non Miles.
Si vero qui fidem se dedisse non diffitetur die nominata
venerit nee satisfecerit, si dominus est, ad scaccarium quamdiu
sederit detinebitur, fide data in manu marescalli, sicut supra
diximus, quod a leugata villae nisi baronum licentia non recedet :

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 241
soluto vero scaccario illius termini, si nondum satisfecerit, in
loco tuto sub libera custodia collocabitur, quousque rex ipse si
praesens fuerit, vel praesidens cum aliis assidentibus, quid de
ipso agendum fuerit decernat, qui fidem se dedisse de satisfaciendo
confessus, nullo modo satisfecit ; quod si miles vel alius ejus
oeconomus venerit, nee satisfecerit, pro fide laesa comprehendetur,
et marescallo custodiendus tradetur, post solutum scaccarium
licite vinculandus, et in carcerem mittendus, sive miles fuerit
sive non. Miles vero super debito proprio non satisfaciens,
cum tamen de satisfaciendo fidem dederit, post solutum scac
carium, non in carcere sed infra septa domus carceralis, libere
custodietur, fide corporaliter praestita quod inde sine regis vel
praesidentis licentia non recedet. Decrevit enim memorandae
nobilitatis rex illustris, ut quisquis militiae dignitate praefulget,
pro debito proprio, cum pauper a vicecomite simul et a vicinia
reputetur, in carcerem non mittatur, sed seorsum infra septa
domus carceralis libere custodiatur : verum quisquis mandato
domini fidem dederit, sicut praedictum est, vicecomiti, et veniens
non solvit; hunc comprehendi, et in carcerem soluto scaccario
mitti, sive miles sit sive non, lex statuit : et quoniam liberum
est cuilibet baroni, pro debito quod ab ipso requiritur, fidem
officialis opponere, ut sic interim vicecomitis importunitate careat,
et de rebus suis opportunius ipse disponat ; ne sic [in] immen-
sum regii mandati videatur auctoritas eludi, decretum est, ut
comprehenso illo qui laesae fidei reum se non satisfaciens judi-
cavit, statim a vicecomite servientes dirigantur, qui fundos
principalis domini perlustrantes, venditis quocunque modo catallis,
summam requisitam ad scaccarium ejusdem termini deferant ;
et tandem ille comprehensus pro laesa fide juxta possibilitatem
suam pecuniariam poenam luat, et amplius super eodem debito,
etiamsi dominus praeceperit, ad fidem dandam non admittatur.
XXII. Qualiter dominus puniendus est, qui sponte Militem
exposuit, ut possit interim liberari.
Principalis etiam dominus ne haec impune praesumpsisse
videatur, non per fidem suppositae personae sed solum per pro-
priani, dilationis beneficium promerebitur, si forte super eodem
debito ipsum iterato summoneri contigerit. Sunt tamen qui
credant ut de cetero super eodem debito nee etiam per fidem
propriam usque ad scaccarium a vicecomite dilationem obtineat ;
quod quidem beneficium dilationis magnum dicunt qui fisco
tenentur ; possunt enim interim de rebus suis mitius disponere
et dilatae per aliquot tempus solutioni necessaria praeparare ;
quin potius dicunt quod suscepta summonitione liceat vicecomiti
K

242 Henry II. [part
juxta communem aliorum legem statim in catalla ipsius manum
mittere. Hiis ego, fateor, prorsus non dissentio ; sed tamen
multis indiciis et testimoniis verisimile videatur, procurasse
dominum, ut miles suus his casibus exponeretur, quatenus posset
ipse vel sic interim liberari; hujus autem rei validissimum est
contra dominum argumentum, si copiosus, si rebus abundus, si
solutioni sufficiens a vicecomite simul et a vicinia judicetur.
D. Dignum revera est ut is indultam sibi gratiam demereatur,
qui in datoris ejus perniciem eadem abusus est.
M. Habes ex praecedentibus utcunque distinctum, quae ca
talla vendi debeant et quae non, et etiam in quibus personarum
discretio tenenda est et in quibus non ; tunc scilicet cum debi-
tores, qui in pecuniariis poenis regi tenentur, solvendo non
fuerint : restat, ut quid de oblatis spontaneis fieri debeat, cum
item non solverint, ostendamus.
XXIII. Quid de sponte offerentibus faciendum, cum et ipsi non
solvunt.
Noveris igitur, quod oblatorum regi quaedam in rem, quaedam
in spem, ofl'eruntur. In rem quidem off'erri dicimus, cum obla-
tum a rege suscipitur, et offerens consequenter pro quo obtulit
a rege suscipit ; ut si quis pro libertate aliqua, pro fundo, vel
pro firma, vel pro custodia cujusque qui minor est annis usque
ad annos legitimos habenda, vel pro quovis alio quod ad suam
utilitatem vel honorem accedere videatur, sponte regi c. libras vel
¦c. marcas offerat, et assentiente rege statim post oblatum suscipiat
optatum. De hiis igitur qui sponte se obligant, et qui conven-
tione cum principe facta possidere jam coeperint, lex nostra
decernit, ut quamdiu solvendo fuerint indultis sibi beneficiis
gaudeant et utantur. Quod si de regis debito summoniti solvere
desierint, statim careant impetratis ; sic tamen ut si manente
scaccario super eodem satisfecerint, ablata omnia sine molestia
sibi restitoantur. Et nota, quod qualiscunque persona, cujus
cunque etiam conditionis aut sexus fuerit, huic observantiae de
sponte oblatis semper erit obnoxia, ut scilicet summonitioni
satisfaciat vel impetrato careat, nisi rex ipse obsequii praestiti
vel paupertatis intuitu aliquid sibi praeter communem legem
indulgeat ; velut si de oblatore grandis summae, ad quodlibet
scaccarium, modicum quid ab ipso solvi constituat ; et hoc per
breve suum baronibus innotescat. In spem vero dicuntur offerri,
cum quis exhibendae sibi justitiae causa, super fundo vel redditu
aliquo regi summam aliquam offert; non tamen ut fiat, ne in
nos excandescas, et venalem penes eum justitiam dicas, immo

iv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 243
ut sine dilatione fiat. Noveris tamen non quaecunque sic offe-
runtur a principe suscipi, etiamsi modum videantur excedere :
gratis enim quibusdam justitiae plenitudinem exhibet, obsequii
praestiti vel solo caritatis intuitu ; quibusdam autem lege con
ditionis humanae nee prece nee pretio vult acquiescere, obstan-
tibus interdum eorum meritis qui possidere noscuntur ; vel forte
propriis postulantium meritis nequaquam hoc exigentibus, qui
vel in regnum vel in regem ipsum aliquid deliquisse culpantur :
de hiis autem sic constituit rex insignis, ut antequam rectum
habuerint, hoc est antequam per sententiam obtinuerint, vel re
sibi penitus abjudicata ab omni spe ceciderint, de oblatis nihil
solvant, sed sufficiat de hujusmodi vicecomiti respondere, ' rectum
nondum habuerunt.' Provideat tamen vicecomes ne per ipsum
debitorem stet, quo minus causa ejus executioni mandetur, si
scilicet juri se nolit offerre, ut hae arte promissa sibi pecunia
rex fraudetur. Cum enim hoc compertum fuerit, dolus ei non
subveniet, sed per omnia sic coercebitur ac si per sententiam
obtinuisset. Hujus autem spontaneae dilationis est signum,
cum breve regis penes se detinens eo non utitur. Solet tamen
cum his miserente principe mitius agi, qui post promissam
pecuniam a causa cadunt, ne spe sua frustrati, rebus etiam sine
emolumento spoliati, duplici contritione conterantur.
XXIV. Quid de Releviis sponte non solutis.
Sunt item tertii generis obventiones, quae non videntur prorsus
inter oblata computandae, sed magis fines ad scaccarium dicun-
tur ; cum scilicet de rege tenens in capite baroniam relicto
haerede decesserit, et idem haeres cum rege in quam potest
summam componit, ut paterni juris mereatur ingressum ; quem
finem relevium vulgo dicimus. Quod si baronia est, in regis est
beneplacito quae debeat esse summa relevii ; si vero de escaeta
fuerit, quae in manu regis deficiente haerede vel aliter inciderit,
pro feodo militis unius hoc tantum regi nomine relevii solvet,
quod esset suo domino soluturus, hoc est, centum solidos. Sunt
autem qui credant eos qui in releviis regi tenentur nee sum-
moniti solvunt, spontaneorum oblatorum legibus obnoxios; ut
cum solvendo non fuerint, careant impetratis : at verius dici
potest, ut sicut de pecuniariis poenis fit, sic fiat de releviis;
debita namque filiis ratione successionis haereditas a lege sponte
oblatorum videtur excludere.

R 2

244 Henry II. [part

XXV. Quid de avibus oblatis faciendum, et quo tempore
summonendae.
Item fit interdum ut aves regiae regi qualibet ex causa pro-
mittantur ; accipitres scilicet vel falcones. Quod si promittens
determinans dixerit, ' accipitrem instantis anni ' vel ' mutatum ;'
vel locum etiam exprimat, dicens ' Hibernensem/ ' Hispanenseni/
' Norrensem dabo ;' sic satisfaciat. Si vero nee qui promittit nee
cui promittitur determinaverit, in arbitrio promittentis erit, si
mutatum vel non sit soluturus. Sed si integer et sanus a regis
asturcariis judicetur, quacunque exclusus fuerit, suscipitur.
Porro si summonitus dignum suscipi ad scaccarium detulerit,
nee sit turn qui suscipiat ; etiamsi post hoc in annum vel bien-
nium vel amplius differatur summonitio, nisi quem maluerit,
mutatum scilicet vel hornum solvere non cogetur. Quod si sum
monitus solutionem quomodolibet differri procuraverit, juxta
numerum annorum quibus indulta sibi est dilatio, biennium
scilicet vel triennium vel deinceps, mutatum solvet. De hiis
autem contra terminum Paschae summonitio non fit ; quia
earum aestivo tempore rarus est usus ; tunc enim cavearum
antris inclusae diligenter custodiuntur, ut redeat deposita
vetustate pennarum decor, et eorum ut aquilae juventus renove-
tur : verum contra terminum Sancti Michaelis quae regi debentur
summonentur ; ut instante tunc hyeme regiis aptentur obsequiis.
In coercendis autem his qui sic se sponte obligant nee solvunt,
lex praedicta de sponte oblatis servatur.
XXVI. Be auro Beginae.
Ad haec noverint hii qui in pecunia numerata regi sponte se
obligant, quod reginae similiter tenentur, licet expre«sum non
fuerit. Quamvis autem non sit expreseum, est tamen promisso
compromissum ; ut cum regi centum vel ducentas marcas pro-
miserit, reginae pariter teneatur, pro centum marcis argenti regi
promissis, in una marea auri ; pro ducentis, in duabus marcis
auri ; et sic deinceps. In his autem perquirendis eadem lege
vicecomes per omnia utetur, qua in regiis usus est, non tamen
ante sed post. Cum ergo de regiis debitis summonitiones fiunt,
adest clericus reginae ad hoc constitutus, et addit in summoni
tione, ' de illo habeas centum marcas pro causa ilia, et ad opus
reginae unam marcam auri.' Summonita autem ad scaccarium
ab ejus officialibus ad hoc constitutis seorsum suscipiuntur.
Noveris etiam quod licet rex de promissa sibi pecunia mediam
partem dimiserit vel universam, vel etiam summonere distulerit,

Jv.] Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 245
de hiis tamen quae ad reginam pertinent, secundum quod sibi
visum fuerit per omnia fiet ; ut ea nolente neque dimittantur
neque differantur quae sibi debentur, sed summonita solvantur,
et non solventes praedicto modo coerceantur.
D. Nunquid de promissis regi citra centum marcas aliquid
reginae debetur?
M. Quibusdam sic videtur, ut usque ad x. marcas teneatur ;
ut scilicet is qui x. regi promiserit, in una uncia auri reginae
teneatur ; aliis non nisi de centum et supra ab initio promissis.
De his igitur ad praesens cum modestia sustine : quia re nondum
terminata, suspensa resolutio est. Litigat sane de his pars
reginae cum debitoribus ; et adhuc sub judice lis est. De
misericordia autem Judaeorum et de redemptione monetariorum,
sicut de sponte oblatis dictum est, sua portio secundum formam
praedictam reginae debetur.
D. Nunquid in pecuniariis et sponte oblatis, clericos et laicos
sine differentia lex una coercet ?
M. In sponte oblatis apud omnes lex una servatur ; ut sive
clericus sit sive laicus qui solvendo non fuerit, donee satisfecerit,
careat impetrato. Observatur etiam idem in omnibus aliis quae
quovis pacto regi debentur a clericis ; cum scilicet suae digni
tatis et liberae possessionis privilegium allegare neglexerint : de
allegautibus autem quid fieri debeat, a discretis et Deum
timentibus laicis, si placet, rescito ; hiis enim ad praesens ex
industria supersedeo, ne dicar meae conditionis hominibus
ultroneas leges et mitiora jura dictasse.
D. Dixisti, si bene memini, frequenter in manum regis
baronias vel fundos incidere ; vellem igitur si placet explicaves
quo ordine redditus escaetarum ad fiscum proveniant ; si uno
modo vel dissimiliter.
XXVII. Quod aliter defirmis, atque aliter de custodiis, respon
dendum, et sub alio tenore fides danda.
M. Cum in manum regis baronia vel magnum aliquid excidit,
mandato ejus vel praesidentis, ad hoc discreti utriusque ordinis
viri diriguntur, qui singula perlustrantes redditus eorundem in
summam redigunt, et de hae in scaccario -teneri vicecomitem vel
quemlibet alium constituunt : satisfaciens igitur de hae summa
is qui ad hoc constitutus est, in denariis vel brevibus vel taleis,
subsequente fide de legitimo compoto, meretor absolvi ; et de ea
sic scribetur in annali : ' ille vel ille reddit compotum de firma
honoris illius; in thesauro hoc ; et quietus est;' vel 'et debet.'
Verum cum rex escaetae suae custodiam fidei alicujus commiserit,

246 Henry II. [part
ut videlicet quod inde provenerit ad scaccarium solvat, post
factum compotum fides ilia sub praedicto verborum tenore non
dabitur: immo, quod quantum inde vel in denariis vel aliis
quibuscunque rebus suscepit tantum secundum conscientiam
suam ad scaccarium solvit ; exceptis his duntaxat victualibus,
quae, ipso nomine xeniorum non procurante, sibi collata sunt.
D. Nunquid custos ille de his redditibus victui necessaria
percipit 1
M. Licet scriptum sit ' non alligabis os bovi trituranti ;' tamen
nisi expresso regis mandato de his nihil percipiet ; propriis enim
stipendiis, quisquis ille fuerit, in his regi militabit : de hujus
modi autem sic in annali scribetur : ' ille vel ille reddit compotum
de exitu illius honoris per veredictum suum.' Cum igitur de
omnibus praedictis constitutis vel casualibus satisfactum fuerit,
et fuerint singula per ordinem authentice rotuli scripturae de-
putata, convocatis omnibus assidentibus ad principalis firmae
compotum consummandum, qui in summo rotuli annotatus est
redditur, et hoc ordine perficitur ; soluta hoc termino a vice
comite firma de qua examen factum est, in primis a calculatore
per numerales acervos in distantium virgarum spatiis distri-
buetur ; deinde facta detractione per combustionem, sicut supra
dictum est, eadem dealbatur, et appensa sibi taleola combus-
tionis, quae tamen vicecomiti non computatur, summa quae
relmquitur in taleam redigitur. Similiter et quod solutum
fuerat in termino Paschae, et dealbatum, in eadem talea. Sic et
combustio de eodem termino cum combustione finalis termini
mittitur ; ut una sit utriusque solutionis talea, et similiter una
combustionis : quo facto thesaurarius rotulum exactorium cujus
supra meminimus proferens, summam, quae de comitatu illo, per
acervos supra et seriatim disponi faeit ; ab hae igitur imprimis
quod solutum est in thesauro et dealbatum detrahitur ; deinde
quod rex de firma comitatus contulit aliquibus blancum ; post
haec iterum, quae alias soluta sunt per brevia regis vel aliter,
per acervos disponuntur, et haec per subtractionem xii. denario
rum e singulis libris dealbantur, sicut quae in thesauro solvuntur
dealbata per combustionem. Tunc ergo fit inferioris expensae
a superiore summa detractio ; et si penitus absolvi meruerit, in
fine compoti ejusdem litteris patentibus scribitur, ' et quietus est ;'
vel infra in capite lineae inferioris, 'et debet;' et tunc demum
consummate compoto, numerus solutorum in thesauro apponitur
ei quod jamdudum diximus scriptum in thesauro, et quod fuerat
hucusque sic ex industria relictum, ne forte cogatur abradere
qui scribit ; quod maxime circa numeros et nomina et causas
jamdudum vitandum diximus.

rv.J Dialogus de Scaccario. II. 247
XXVIII. Quod fides de legitimo compoto semel data sufficiat
per universum.
Consummate vero, sicut dictum est, de corpore comitatus com
poto, a marescallo fides vicecomitis sub forma praedicta semel
suscipitur, et sic absolutus dimittitur. Fuerunt tamen qui
crederent, de singulis per fidem firmandis sigillatim fidem a
vicecomite dandam ; ut quoties diceret sic esse aliquid quod
sola posset fide confirmari, toties fidem daret : sed a prudenti-
bus et legis Divinae peritis perniciosa satis visa est subtilitas,
cum semel fidem dederit se legitimum per omnia compotum
salva conscientia fecisse. Ea propter haec sententia post modi
cum meruit cum suo auctore contemni ; et una fide, hoc est,
semel data, contenti sunt ; quia in unius fidei confessione unum
sunt. D. Sentio, jam languente stylo, quod dicendorum finis adesse
festinat; verum licet instantis noctis crepuseulum et produL-
tioris operis labor prolixior ad alia nos evocent, et paululum
respirare compellant; vellem tamen, si fieri posset, ut suspen-
sam et hactenus fluctuantem in verbo tuo discipuli tui mentem
confirmares, ostendens quid sit, quod ab initio dixisse te recolo,
totam scilicet scaccarii descriptionem quaedam esse sacramen-
torum latibula, quae revelanda sunt cum omnium libri aperti
erunt et janua clausa.
M. Magnum est quod quaeris et alterius egens inquisitionis ;
nee his exponendis ex promisso debitor tibi factus sum. His
igitur ad praesens supersedeo, in alterius diei disputationem
eadem reservans : vereor quidem ne si pluribus onerato novam
sarcinam imponerem, sub pondere deficeres ; item si jam dictis,
et memoriae commendandis novarum rerum studia consuerem,
utraque te fastidire compellerem. Contentus ergo jam dictis
esto, ad quae me coegisti ; habes enim in his, quantum madidae
se potuit offerre memoriae, quaecunque circa scaccarii scientiam
potiora tibi visa sunt, initialiter utcunque distincta. Ceterum
ad singula, quae tractu temporis videri poterunt necessaria,
ungue tenus explananda, nee virtus hominis nee vita forte
sufficeret ; ex variis enim et insolitis casibus vel nulla fiet vel
adhuc incognita disciplina. Unde fit ut detractoriis Unguis hinc
potius exponar, dum succedente tempore pleraque dubia nee
dum audita proponi continget ; de quibus, aut consimilibus cum
hic nihil invenerint, incipiant illudere, dicentes, hic homo coepit
aedificare, et non potuit vel non novit consummare. His ego
non dissentio; pessimum namque magistrum meipsum secutus

248 Henry II.
sum ; feci tamen, te cogente, quod potui, duce carens et exem-.
plari ; de intacta namque rudique sylva regiis aedificiis missa
securi ligna secui, prudentioris architecti dolabro complananda.
Cum igitur ex hiis regiae domus structura surrexerit, is qui
dedit initia, primam licet non praecipuam gratiam niereatur.
Valeat rex illustris. Explicit.

PART Y.
SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS ; Richard and John.
A.D. 1189-1199. RICHARD I.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Baldwin, 1185-1190; Eeginald Fitz-
Jocelin, 1191 ; Hubert Walter, 1193-1205.
Chief Justices. Hugh Bishop of Durham and William Earl of Essex,
1189 ; Hugh Bishop of Durham and William Longchamp, Bishop of
Ely, 1 190; William Longchamp alone, 1190; Walter of Coutances,
Archbishop of Eouen, 1191-1193; Hubert Walter, Archbishop of
Canterbury, n 94-1 198; Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, Earl of Essex, 1198-
1199.
Chancellors. William Longchamp, Bishop' of Ely, 1189-1 197 ; Eustace
Bishop of Ely, 1197-1199.
ALTHOUGH Richard had not been fully acknowledged by
Henry II as his successor until a few days before his death, and
had never been formally received as such by the English baronage,
he succeeded without any difficulty in obtaining recognition, and
having bound himself by the usual oaths, wasanointed and crowned.
After the coronation (Sept. 3) he stayed a few months in Eng
land, and only once again visited the country, in 1194, after his
release from captivity, when he stayed from March 13 to May 12.
On both these occasions his chief employment was the raising of
money by the sale of public offices, the arranging of quarrels among
the barons and clergy, and the securing of his own position against
the machinations of John and Philip of France. The kingdom
was administered during his absence by four successive jus
ticiars, whose action, except so far as it was affected by the
king's constant demands for money, was that of independent

250 Richard 1. [part
sovereigns. Under these the constitutional arrangements organ
ised by Henry II worked with few impediments, and the reign
is accordingly a period, internally, of quiet growth. The first
of these ministers, William Longchamp, was a faithful servant
of Richard, but anti-English and unpopular with the baronage.
His attempts to assert the royal rights and jurisdiction by
taking possession of the castles and enforcing his own supremacy,
raised up a strong party against him, at the head of which was
Earl John, for whom Richard had provided in a most lavish
manner, and who, after Philip's return from the Crusade, acted
in concert with him. A short struggle followed, in which John
gained the advantage, and William Longchamp was deposed
from the justiciarship by the assembled baronage under the
direction of the Archbishop of Rouen who had himself been
authorised by Richard to attempt the settlement of the country.
The Archbishop of Rouen succeeded as justiciar, and held the
office until a few months before Richard's return from captivity.
His period of rule is characterised chiefly by the attempts made
by John to supplant his brother, and by the measures taken for
raising the king's ransom. The constitutional history of Eng
land receives little illustration from either of these periods.
Archbishop Hubert, however, who succeeded to the justiciarship
in 1 194, and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, who followed him in 1198,
were both able administrators, and attempted to unite faithful
service of the king with the maintenance and the development
in all respects of his father's system. The principle of rais
ing money by the use and amplification of judicial machinery
was carried by these ministers into new directions ; larger
charters were granted to the towns, and larger powers to the
itinerant judges, whilst at the same time the progress of the
country towards self-government was marked by the introduc
tion of the elective principle into the county court and the
employment of the jury in the assessment of property. It
would appear from the historians that although very large sums
of money were exacted by these means, some form of consti
tutional process in the granting of taxes was maintained, and
that although the people complained loudly of the imposts, they

v.] Excerpts. 25 1
were well able to bear them. Neither Hubert nor Geoffrey was
a popular minister, but neither can be accused of betraying the
interests of the country, and each exercised a good deal of repres
sive influence on Richard, as they did also on his successor.
Excerpts.
A.D. 1 189. Bened. Abb. ii. 78. Deinde Ricardus dux
Normanniae venit Lundonias, et congregatis ibi archiepiscopis
et episcopis, comitibus et baronibus et copiosa militum multitu-
dine, IIIti° nonas Septembris die Dominica . . . consecratus et
coronatus est in regem Angliae . . .
Ib. p. 81. Cum vero perventum esset ad altare, coram . . .
archiepiscopis et episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, clero
et populo, haec tria fecit Ricardus dux sacramenta. Juravit
itaque et vovit coram positis sacrosanctis Evangeliis et pluri-
morum Sanctorum reliquiis, quod pacem et honorem et reveren-
tiam omnibus diebus vitae suae portabit Deo et Sanctae Eccle
siae et ejus ordinatis. Deinde juravit quod rectam justitiam
exercebit in populo sibi commisso. Deinde juravit quod leges
malas et consuetudines perversas, si aliquae sunt in regno suo,
delebit et bonas custodiet.
lb. p. 85. Deinde dominus rex Ricardus venit ad abbatiam
quae dicitur Pipewella ... in crastino exaltationis Sanctae
Crucis. Ib. p. 87. In eodem concilio Ricardus rex constituit Dunel-
mensem episcopum et Willelmum de Mandavilla comitem Alba-
marliae justitiarios Angliae, quia Ranulfus de Glanvil jam senio
et labore confectus, qui justitiarius Angliae tempore regis
Henrici exstiterat, quaesivit a rege Ricardo licentiam eundi
Jerosolimam et accepit.
Ib. p. 90. Et eodem mense Ricardus rex deposuit a bailliis
suis Ranulfum de Glanvilla justitiarium Angliae et fere omnes
vicecomites et ballivos eorum ; et omnes redemit usque ad ulti-
mum quadrantem ; et quanto familiariores patri suo exstiterant,
tanto eos plus opprimebat. Qui autem non habebat quantum ab
eo exigebatur, statim capiebatur et in carcerem mittebatur ubi
erat fletus et stridor dentium, et alios vicecomites in loco depo-
sitorum instituit. Et omnia erant ei venalia, scilicet potestates,
dominationes, comitatus, vicecomitatus, castella, villae, praedia,
et cetera iis similia. . . . Praeterea idem Hugo Dunelmensis
episcopus dedit regi mille marcas argenti, ut esset justitiarius in
Anglia, et ut ab itinere Jerosolimitano remaneret. . . . Et ceteri

252 Richard I. [part
quicunque volebant, emebant a rege tam sua quam aliena jura.
Unde factum est quod rex infinitam adquisivit pecuniam, quan-
tam nullus antecessorum suorum habuisse dinoscitur.
Ric. Divisiexsis, p. 9. Willelmus Eliensis electus, datis
tribus millibus libris argenti, sigillum regis sibi retinuit, licet
Reginaldus Italus quartum millerium superobtulerit.
A.D. 1 191. Bened. Abb. ii. 213. Placuit ergo Johanni
fratri regis et omnibus episcopis et comitibus ac baronibus et
civibus Lundoniarum, quod cancellarius ille deponeretur a regi-
mine regni ; et quod loco illius fungeretur Rothomagensis archi
episcopus, sicut rex in litteris suis mandavit. Ita factum est ad
securitatem regni. Johannes comes frater regis, et archiepi
scopus Rothomagensis et omnes episcopi, comites et barones
regni qui aderant, concesserunt civibus Lundoniarum communam
suam et juraverunt quod ipsi earn et dignitates civitatis Lundo
niarum custodirent illibatas quam diu regi placuerit.
Ric. Divis. p. 53. Concessa est ipsa die et instituta com-
muniu Londoniensium, in qua universi regni magnates et ipsi
etiam ipsius provinciae episcopi jurare coguntur. Nunc primum
in indulta sibi conjuratione regno regem deesse cognovit Lon-
donia, quam nee rex ipse Ricardus, nee praedecessor et pater
ejus Henricus, pro mille millibus marcis argenti permisisset.
Quanta quippe mala ex conjuratione proveniant ex ipsa poterit
diffinitione perpendi, quae talis est, ' Communia est tumor plebis,
timor regni, tepor sacerdotii.'
A.D. 1 193. Rog. Hoveden, iii. 210. Auctoritate igitur
litterarum istarum (sc. regis de redemptione sua tractantis)
mater regis et justitiarii Angliae statuerunt quod universi, tam
clerici quam laici, quartam partem redditus sui de hoc anno
darent ad redemptionem domini regis, et tantum superadderent
de mobilibus suis, unde rex deberet eis grates scire : et de uno
quoque feodo militis viginti solidos, et de abbatiis ordinis Cister-
ciensis et de domibus ordinis de Semplingham, totam lanam
suam de hoc anno ; et universum aurum et argentum eccle
siarum, sicut rex in mandato suo praeceperat.
Ib. p. 202. Ricardus rex Angliae in captione Henrici
Romanorum imperatoris detentus, ut captionem illam evaderet,
consilio Alienor matris suae, deposuit se de regno Angliae et
tradidit illud imperatori sicut universorum domino, et investivit
eum inde per pilleum suum : sed imperator sicut praelocutum
fuit, statim reddidit ei, in conspectu magnatum Alemanniae et
Angliae, regnum Angliae praedictam, tenendum de ipso pro
quinque millibus librarum sterlingorum singulis annis de tributo

V-J Excerpts. 253
solvendis, et investivit turn inde imperator per duplicem crucem
de auro. Sed idem imperator in morte sua de omnibus his et
aliis conventionibus quietum clamavit ipsum Ricardum regem
Angliae et haeredes suos.
A.D. 1 194. Ib. p. 336. Et statim (sc. Feb. 10) per com
mune consilium regni definitum est quod comes Johannes
dissaisiaretur de omnibus tenementis suis in Anglia, et ut
castella sua obsiderentur.
Ib. p. 240. Tricesima die mensis Martii, feria quarta, Ri
cardus rex Angliae celebravit primum concilii sui diem apud
Notiugham; cui interfuerunt Alienor regina mater ejus, et
Hubertus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus qui in dextris regis sede-
bat in concilio illo, et Gaufridus Eboracensis archiepiscopus, qui
a sinistris ejus sedebat, et Hugo Dunelmensis et Hugo Lincolni
ensis et Willelmus Eliensis regis cancellarius et Willelmus Here-
fordensis et Henricus Wigornensis et Henricus Exoniensis et
Johannes Candidae Casae, episcopi ; et comes David fiater regis
Scotia e et Hamelinus comes de Warenna, et Ranulfus comes
Cestriae et Willelmus comes de Ferreres et Willelmus comes de
Salesbiria et Rogerus Bigot.
Eodem die rex dissaisivit Gyrardum de Camvilla de castello et
vicecomitatu Lincolniensi, et Hugonem Bardolf de vicecomitatu
Eboraci sirae et de castello Eboraci et de castello de Scardheburg,
et de custodia de Westmerilande ; et omnia supradicta exposuit
venditioni. Unde factum est, quod cum cancellarius conventio-
nasset se daturum regi pro vicecomitatu Eboraci sirae et pro
vicecomitatu Lincolniensi et pro vicecomitatu Nordhamtesirae
mille et quingentas marcas in principio conventionis, et singulis
annis de unoquoque praedictorum comitatuum centum marcas
de incremento ; Gaufridus Eboracensis archiepiscopus obtulit
regi tria millia marcarum pro vicecomitatu Eboracensi, et singulis
annis centum marcas de incremento ; et sic abjecto cancellario,
Eboracensis archiepiscopus obtinuit vicecomitatum Eboracensem
et ita factus est regis serviens et praecipitavit se in potentias

Tricesima prima die mensis Martii, scilicet pridie kalendas
Aprilis, rex Angliae celebravit secundum diem concilii sui ; in
quo ipse petiit sibi fieri judicium de comite Johanne fratre suo,
qui contra fidehtatem quam ei juraverat, castella sua occupaverat
et terras suas transmarinas et cismarinas destruxerat, et foedus
cum inimico suo rege Franciae contra eum inierat. Similiter et
de Hugone de Nunant, Coventrensi episcopo sibi fieri judicium
pottulavit, qui secreti sui conscius eum reliquerat, et regi

254 Richard I. [part
Franciae et comiti Johanni, inimicis suis, adhaeserat, omne
malum in pevuiciem regni sui machinans. Et judicatum est quod
comes Johannes et episcopus Coventrensis peremptorie scita-
rentur ; et si infra quadraginta dies non venerint nee juri stete-
rint, judicaverunt comitem Johannem demeruisse regnum, et
episcopum Coventrensem subjacere judicio episcoporum in eo
quod episcopus erat, et judicio laicorum in eo quod ipse vice
comes regis exstiterat.
Kalendis Aprilis, prima die ejusdem mensis, praedictus rex
Angliae celebravit tertium diem colloquii sui ; in quo constituit
sibi dari de unaquaque carucata terrae totius Angliae duos soli
dos, quod ab antiquis nominator Tenmantale. Deinde praecepit
quod unusquisque faceret sibi tertiam partem servitii militaris,
sicut singulus f'eodus apportat, ad transfretandum cum illo in
Normanniam. Deinde exigebat ab monachis ordinis Cistrensis
totam lanam suam de hoc anno ; sed quia hoc facere erat eis
grave et importabile, fecerunt cum eo finem pecuniarium.
Secunda die mensis Aprilis, Sabbato, celebravit diem quar-
tum et ultimum concilii sui; in quo omnes tam clerici quam
laici qui volebant sibi conqueri de archiepiscopo Eboracensi,
fecerunt querimonias multas de rapinis et injustis exactionibus :
sed archiepiscopus nullum dedit eis responsum. Deinde per
consilium et machinationem cancellarii, ut dicitur, Girardus de
Camvilla fuit retatus de receptatione praedonum qui rapuerunt
bona mercatorum euntium ad nundinas de Stanford ; et ab eo
recesserunt ad rapinam illam faciendam et de rapina ilia redie-
runt ad eum. Praeterea appellaverunt eum de laesione regiae
majestatis, in eo quod ipse ad vocationem Justitiarum regis
venire noluit, nee juri stare de praedicta receptatione raptorum,
neque eos ad justitiam regis producere ; sed respondit se esse
hominem comitis Johannis et velle in curia sua juri stare.
Praeterea appellaverunt eum quod ipse fuit in vi et adjutorio
cum comite Johanne et aliis inimicis regis ad castella regis de
Notingham et de Tikehil capienda. Girardus vero de Camvilla
negavit omnia quae objiciebantur ei ab illis ; et illi dederunt
vadium de prosequendo, et Girardus dedit vadium de defendendo
se per unum de liberis hominibus suis. Eodem die statuit
dominus rex diem corouationis suae apud Wintoniam in clauso
Paschae. A.D. 1 1 96. Rog. Hoveden, iv. 5. Eodem anno rex Angliae
misit Philippum Dunelmensem electum et abbatem de Cadamo
in Angliam, ad inquisitionem faciendam de prisis justitiariorum
et vicecomitum et ministroruni suorum. Cum autem praedictus
abbas de Cadamo in Dominica Passionis Domini pranderet cum

v.] Excerpts. 255
Huberto Cantuariensi archiepiscopo totius Angliae summo
justitiario, aegrotavit in mensa et quinto die sequenti obiit
Londoniis. Ib. Eodem anno orta est dissensio inter cives Londoniarum.
Frequentius enim solito, propter regis captionem et alia accidentia,
imponebantur eis auxilia non modica, et divites propriis par-
centes marsupiis volebant ut pauperes solverent universa. Quod
cum quidam legis peritus, videlicet Willelmus cum barba, filius
Osberti, videret, zelo justitiae et aequitatis accensus, factus est
pauperum advocatus, volens quod unusquisque tam dives quam
pauper secundum mobilia et facilitates suas daret ad universa
civitatis negotia.
Ib. iv. 12. Eodem anno Hubertus Cantuariensis archiepi
scopus totius Angliae primas et apostolicae sedis legatus et
totius Angliae summus justitiarius, saepe et multum sollicitavit
per internuncios suos dominum suum Ricardum regem Angliae
ut eum liberaret a regimine regni, ostendens ipsum non posse
sufficere regimini ecclesiae et regni. Cum igitur rex licet in-
vitus, eo quod non erat inventus similis illi qui conservaret leges
et jura regni, precibus tamen illius inclinatus, ilium a sollicitu-
dine regiminis regni removere vellet ; poenituit eum tale fecisse
regi mandatum, expertus quod in custodiendis illis est retributio
multa ; et, inspectis scriptis et computationibus auditis, mandavit
regi, quod infra biennium proximo praeteritum adquisierat ad
opus illius undecies centena millia marcarum argenti de regno
Angliae. A.D. 1 198. Rog. Hoveden, iv. 40. Eodem anno Ricardus rex
Angliae petiit per Hubertum Cantuariensem archiepiscopum, ut
homines regni Angliae invenirent ei trecentos milites uno anno
moraturos secum in servitio suo, vel tantam pecuniam ei darent
unde ipse posset per unum annum trecentos milites in servitio
suo retinere, videlicet unicuique militi tres solidos Anglicanae
monetae de liberatione in die : ad quod faciendum cum ceteri
omnes proni essent, non audentes resistere voluntati regis, solus
Hugo Lincolniensis episcopus, verus Dei cultor, abstinens se ab
omni opere pravo, respondit pro se, quod ipse in hoc voluntati
regis nequaquam adquiesceret, turn quia processu temporis in
ecclesiae suae detrimentum redundaret, turn quia successores sui
dicerent, ' Patres nostri comederunt uvam acerbam, et dentes
filiorum obstupescunt.'
Vita Magna S. Htjgonis, p. 248. . . . Coacta est vocante
archiepiscopo Cantuariense Huberto ad generale colloquium

256 Richard I. [part
universitas magnatom totius Angliae apud Oxenefordiam. Qui
bus archiepiscopus, qui vice regis publicis praesidebat negotiis,
regias proposuit necessitates ; qui, sumptibus et militantium
copiis inferior, contra regem dimicaret potentissimum, ad
suam exhaeredationem et perniciem totis nisibus aspirantem.
Postulat demum quatenus decernant in commune quo genere
auxilii domino suo in arctis posito valeant subvenire. Jam vero
praefinitum erat ab his qui secum regiis ex toto nutibus duce-
bant parendum, ut barones Angliae inter quos et episcopi cense-
bantur, trescentos milites regi exhiberent, qui suis sumptibus
ei per annum integrum contra hostes transmarinos indesinenter
militarent. Requisito super hoc in coetu illo assensu Lincolniensis epi
scopi, ipse tacitus secum deliberans paulisper, cum prius tam
primas Cantuariensis quam Londiniensis episcopus Ricardus, qui
et decanatus privilegio fungebatur inter episcopos, se suos et sua
regiae per omnia necessitati exposituros pronuneiassent, ita citius
respondit ; ' Nostis' ait ' 0 viri prudentes et nobiles qui in prae-
sentiarum adestis, me in partibus istis advenam esse, et de
simplicitate conversationis eremiticae ad offieium episcopale as-
sumptum. Cum igitur ecclesia dominae meae Sanctae Dei
genitricis Mariae meae dudum imperitiae ad regendum fuisset
commissa, consuetudines illius et dignitates, debita etiam et
onera solerter addidici ; in quibus conservandis sive exhibendis
hactenus fere per tredecim annos a rectis praedecessorum
meorum vestigiis non recessi. Scio equidem ad militare ser
vitium domino regi, sed in hae terra solummodo, exhibendum
Lincolniensem ecclesiam teneri ; extra metas vero Angliae nil
tale ab ea deberi. Unde mihi consultius arbitror ad nalale
solum repedare, et eremum more solito incolere, quam hic pon-
tificatum gerere et ecclesiam mihi commissam, antiquas im-
munitates perdendo, insolitis angariis subjugare.' Hoc ejus
responsum archiepiscopus satis aegre accipiens, suppressa paulu-
lum voce, trementibus pro indignatione labiis, a Saresbiriensi
episcopo nomine Hereberto inquirere coepit, quidnam et ipse
animi haberet super auxilio regi prospiciendo. Qui ad inquisita
sic. paucis respondit, ' Videtur mihi quia, citra ecclesiae meae
enorme praejudicium, aliud a me dici nequit vel fieri, quam quod
faciendum esse ex responsione domini Lincolniensis modo
audivi.' Ad haec nimium indignatus archiepiscopus, primum
in Lincolniensem verbis amarissimis stomachatus, soluto con-
cilio, nunciavit regi per ipsum caruisse effectu negotium illius.
Rog. Hoveden, iv. 46. Eodem anno Ricardus rex An
gliae cepit de unaquaque carucata terrae sive hyda totius

v.] Excerpts. 257
Angliae quinque solidos de auxilio, ad quos colligendos misit
idem rex per singulos comitatus Angliae unum clericum et
unum militem, qui cum vicecomite comitatus ad quem mitte-
bantur et legalibus militibus ad hoc electis, praestito juramento
quod fideliter exsequerentur negotium regis, fecerunt venire
coram se senescallos baronum illius comitatus, et de qualibet
villa dominum vel baillivum villae et praepositum cum quatuor
legalibus hominibus villae,' sive liberis sive rusticis; et duos milites
legaliores de hundredo ; qui juraverunt, quod fideliter et sine
fraude dicerent quot carucarum wannagia fuerint in singulis villis,
quot scilicet in dominico, quot in villenagio, quot in eleemosynis
viris religiosis collatis, quas ipsi donatores vel eorum haeredes
tenentur warantizare vel adquietare, vel unde viri religiosi
debent servitium facere ; et super singula carucarum wannagia
ponebant ex praecepto regis primo duos solidos, et postea tres
solidos ; et haec omnia in scriptum redigebantur ; et habebat
inde clericus rotulum unum et miles rotulum alteram, vicecomes
rotulum tertium, senescallus baronum rotulum quartum de
terra domini sui. Haec pecunia recipiebatur per manus duorum
legalium militum de singulis hundredis, et per manum ballivi
de hundredo ; et ipsi inde responderunt vicecomiti, et per prae-
dictos rotulos respondebat vicecomes inde ad scaccarium coram
episcopis, abbatibus, et baronibus ad hoc assignatis. Ad poenam
vero juratorum, qui aliquid contra juramentum suum celaverint
in hoc negotio, statutum erat, quod quicunque rusticus convictus
fuisset de perjurio daret domino meliorem bovem de caruca sua,
et insuper responderet de proprio ad opus domini regis tantum
pecuniae quantum fuisset declaratum per suum perjurium fuisse
celatum. Si vero liber homo convictus fuisset, esset in miseri
cordia regis, et insuper refunderet de proprio ad opus domini
regis quantum fuerit per eum celatum, sicut et rusticus.
Statutum etiam fuit, quod quilibet baro cum vicecomite
faceret districtiones super homines suos, et si per defectum
baronum districtiones factae non fuissent, caperetur de do
minico baronum quod super homines suos restaret reddendum,
et ipsi barones ad homines suos inde caperent : et libera feoda
ecclesiarum parochialium de hoc tallagio excipiebantur, et omnes
excaetae baronum quae fuerunt in manu domini regis communi-
caverunt. Serganteriae vero domini regis, quae non erant de
feodis militum, excipiebantur, sed tamen imbreviabantur, et
numerus carucatarum terrae et valentiae terrarum et nomina
servientium ; et omnes servientes illi summonebantur esse apud
Lundonias in octavis clausi Pentecostes, audituri et facturi prae-
ceptum domini regis. Ipsi vero qui electi fuerant et constituti
8

258 Richard I. [part
ad hoc negotium regis faciendum, statuerunt, per aestimationem
legalium hominum, ad uniuscujusque caruoae wannagium centum
acras terrae.
Ib. iv. 61. Eodem anno Hugo Bardulfi et magister Rogerus
Arundel et Gaufridus Hachet, quibus commissae fuerant Lincoln-
sire, Notinghamsire, Derebisire, Everwicsire, Norhumberlande,
Westmerilande,Cumberlande, Loncastre, itinerantes placitaverunt
placita coronae regis. . . . 'Et capientur coram eis electiones
magnae assisae per mandatum domini regis, vel ejus capitalis
Justitiae.' Ib. p. 63. His igitur et talibus vexationibus sive juste sive
injuste tota Anglia a mari usque ad mare redacta est ad inopiam.
Sed his nondum finitis, supervenit aliud genus tormenti ad con-
fusionem hominum regni, per Justitiarios forestarum regis in
Anglia, videlicet per Hugonem de Nevilla summum justitiarium
omnium forestarum regis in Anglia qui cognominatus est Cuvelu.
et per Hugonem Wac, et per Ernisium de Neville. Praedictis
igitur justitiariis forestarum itinerantibus praeceptum est ex
parte regis, ut per singulos comitatus per quos ipsi ituri essent,
convenirent coram eis, ad placita forestae, archiepiscopi, episcopi,
comites, et barones, et omnes libere tenentes, et de unaquaque
villa praepositus et quatuor homines, ad audienda praecepta
regis. . . .
Ib. iv. 66. Eodem anno quia viri religiosi noluerunt dare
regi quinque solidos de wanagio carucae sicut ceteri homines
regni faciebant, exiit edietom a rege ut quicunque in regno suo
forisfecisset clerico aut alii viro religioso non cogeretur satis-
facere illi ; sed si clericus aut alius vir religiosus forisfecisset
alicui laico, statim compelleretur ad satisfaciendum illi: unde
factum est, quod viri religiosi ad redemptionem coacti sunt.

A.D. 1 194. Form of Proceeding on the Judicial
Visitation.
The following. is a list of the agenda of the 'iter' of the jus
tices which began in September 1194. The general business of
the visitation is of the usual mixed kind, judicial and financial,
and should be compared with the Inquest of Sheriffs in 1 170, as
well as with the Assizes of 1166 and 1176. The introductory
clause is important, as directing the election of the grand jury ;

v.] Proceeding on the Judicial Visitation. 259
and the 20th capitulum, as instituting the coroner's office, also
strictly elective. The 21st directs that a sheriff shall not be
justice in his own county, and marks a distinct middle stage
between the assize of 11 66, in which the sheriffs share the office
of justice with the itinerant barons, and the 24th clause of
Magna Carta, which forbids them to hold pleas of the crown.
The application of jury inquest to the ascertaining of the king's
rights, in cap. 23, is also, like the inquest of 1170, a precedent
for similar acts under Henry III ; and this whole chapter, as
well as cap. 24, has great social as well as constitutional signi
ficance. The 25th article seems to show that a general review
of the whole financial system was contemplated, such as was
again attempted in 1196, but was prevented by the death of the
abbot of Caen (Hoveden, iv. 5 ; W. Newb. lib. v. c. 19), and was
possibly connected with the complaints and sedition of William
Fitz-Osbert. Forma procedendi in placitis Coronae Regis. j^wa*0*
In primis eligendi sunt quatuor milites de toto comitatu, qui
per sacramentum suum eligant duos legales miTites de quolibet
Hundredo vel Wapentacco, et illi duo eligant super sacra
mentum suum x. milites de singulis Hundredis vel Wapentaccis ;
vel, si milites defuerint, legales et liberos homines, ita quod illi
xii. in simul respondeant de omnibus capitulis de toto Hundredo
vel Wapentacco. Capitula placitorum Coronae Regis.
1. De placitis coronae novis et veteribus et omnibus quae 1
nondum sunt finita coram justitiariis domini regis. uAwJU^Xv {A/r*
2. Item de omnibus recognitionibus et omnibus placitis quae
summonita sunt coram justitiariis per breve regis, vel capitalis
justitiae, vel a capitali curia regis coram eis missa **!**
3. Item de eschaetis quae sint et quae fuerint postquam rex*'
arripuit iter versus terram Jerusalem ; et quae fuerunt tunc in
manu regis, et utrum sint modo in manu ejus, vel non : et de
omnibus eschaetis domini regis si a manu sua sint remotae,
quomodo et per quem et in cujus manus devenerint, et qualiter
et quis exitus inde habuerit, et quos, et quid valuerint, et quid
modo valeant ; et si aliqua excliaeta sit, quae ad dominum
regem pertineat, quae in manu ejus non sit.
4. Item de ecclesiis quae sunt de donations domini regis.
s 2

260 Richard I. [part
5. Item de custodiis puerorum quae ad dominum regem per
tinent. 6. Item de maritagiis puellarum vel viduarum, quae ad
dominum regem pertinent.
7. Item de malefactoribus et eorum receptoribus et eis con-
sentientibus. 8. Item de falsonariis.
9. Item de interfectoribus Judaeorum, qui sint ; et de vadiis
Judaeorum interfectorum, et catallis et terris et debitis et cartis ;
et quis ea habuerit, et quis quantum eis debuerit, et quae vadia
habuerint, et quis ea teneat, et quantum valeant, et quis exitus
inde habuerit et quos ; et omnia vadia et debita Judaeorum
interfectorum capiantur in manu regis ; et qui ad occisionem
Judaeorum fuerunt et non fecerunt finem cum domino rege vel
justitiariis suis, capiantur et non deliberentur nisi per dominum
regem vel justitiarios suos.
10. Item de omnibus auxiliis datis ad redemptionem domini
regis quis quantum promiserit et quantum reddiderit et quan
tum a retro sit.
n. Item de fautoribus comitis Johannis, qui finem cum
domino rege fecerunt et qui non.
12. Item de catallis comitis Johannis vel fautorum ejus, quae
ad usum domini regis non sunt conversa, et quantum vicecomites
receperunt, vel baillivi sui, et quis aliquid contra antiquas con
suetudines regni dederit.
13. Item de omnibus terris comitis Johannis, de dominicis et
wardis, et exchaetis, et de donis suis, et qua de causa data sunt ;
et ilia dona, et omnia dona comitis Johannis capiantur in manu
domini regis praeterquam ilia quae per regem confirmata sunt.
14. Item de debitis et finibus quae debentur comiti Johanni,
et qua de causa ; et omnia exigantur ad opus domini regis.
15. Item de foeneratoribus et eorum catallis, qui mortui sunt.
16. Item de vinis venditis contra assisam, et de falsis men-
suris tam vini quam aliarum rerum.
17. Item de cruciatis mortuis ante iter suum arreptum versus
Jerusalem, et quis eorum catalla habuerit et quae et quanta.
18. Item de magnis assisis, quae sunt de centum solidatis
terrae et infra.
19. Itemde defaltis.
20. Praeterea in quolibet comitatu eligantur tres milites et
unus clericus custodes placitorum coronae. ff1 /'""'j',' , :- ,',/-.,.« '¦
21. Et nullus vicecomes sit justitiarius in vicecomitatu suo,
nee in comitatu quem tenuerit post primam corbnationem
domini regis.

v.] Proceeding on the Judicial Visitation. 261
22. Praeterea tailleantur omnes civitates, et burgi et domi-
nica domini regis.
23. Justitiarii vero nominati una cum baillivis Willelmi
de Sanctae Mariae Ecclesia, et Gaufridi filii Petri et Willelmi
de Chimelli, et Willelmi Bruere et Hugonis Bardulfi, et
vicecomitum locorum, summoneri faciant milites in comitatu
in rotulo nominates,, ut ad diem et locum quem eis scire facient,
veniant, et coram eis jurare faciant illos quod legale posse
suum ponent ad wardas et exchaetas domini regis instaurandas, \
et appretiandas ad commodum domini regis, nee alicujus
odio, favore, vel gratia illud omittent : et quod praedicti milites
nominati super sacramentum suum eligent duodecim legales
milites, vel liberos et legales homines, si milites ad hoc inventi
non fuerint, per diversas partes singulorum comitatuum in
itinere praedictorum justitiarum, sicut expedire viderint : qui
similiter jurent quod ad wardas et excaetas de partibus illis
instaurandas -et appretiandas et affirmandas suum legale posse et
consilium et auxilium apponent ad commodum regis, ut prae
dictum est : et praedicti jurati supra sacramentum suum eligent
de liberioribus hominibus excaetarum et wardarum quot et
quales noverint esse sibi necessarios, ad praedicta domini regis
negotia sicut melius fieri potest ad commodum domini regis
exsequenda. Et sciendum est, quod praedictae wardae et ex-.
chaetae instaurabuntur de exitibus ex eis provenientibus usque
ad festum Sancti Michaelis, et etiam de exitibus ejusdem termini
Et si haec non sufficiunt, supplebitur deficiens de telonio domini
regis, ita quod illi qui tenebunt wardas et exchaetas illas ad
firmam, respondebunt inde a festo Sancti Michaelis et deinceps
tanquam de stauratis. Dominus autem rex illis qui wardas illas
et exchaetas ad firmam tenebunt, eas usque ad terminum suum
de anno in annum warentizabit ; ita quod licet dominus rex
aliquam illarum alicui dedisset, firmarius firmam suam tenebit
usque ad finem anni per firmam ei reddendam, cui earn rex
dederit, quam dominus rex inde perceperit. Justitia vero ex-
chaetae quam dederit remaneat domino regi, nisi dominus rex
illud nominatim dederit. Firmarius etiam cum firmam suam
dimiserit, instauramentum suum et omnia sua quae in firmis
posuerit, ultra instauramentum regis, libere et sine diminutione
habebit ; et inde habebunt litteras domini archiepiscopi patentee,
continentes tenorem cartae domini regis super hoc factae.
Inquiretur etiam diligentissime quantus sit assisus red
ditus per singula maneria in demenio, et quantum valeant omnia
alia in praedictis maneriis assisa, et quot sunt carucae, et quan
tum sin^-ulae valeant, non aestimantes eas ad pretium xx. soli-

262 Richard I. [part
dorum tantum, sed secundum quod terra fuerit vel bona vel
mala, crescat vel decrescat pretium. Illi vero qui firmas susci-
pient, firmas suas instaurabunt, ut praedictum est, secundum
pretium supradictum, de exitibus exchaetarum et wardarum.
Inquiratur etiam de quot bobus et averis singulae carucae
valeant instaurari, et quot et quantum instauramentum singula
maneria possint sustinere. Et tunc aperte et distincte in scrip
tum redigantur. Erit autem pretium bovis iv. solidi, et vaccae
similiter, et averi similiter : et ovis crispae x. denarii ; et ovis
lanae grossioris vi. denarii ; et suis xii. denarii, et yerris xii.
denarii : et cum firmarii firmas suas dimiserint, de praedicto
pretio respondebunt vel de animalibus pacabilibus in optione
firmariorum ; et cum omnia praedicta instaurata fuerint et
appretiata, omnia inbrevientur aperte et distincte et deferantur
ad scaccarium. Excipiuntur autem de hae assisa episcopatus et
abbatiae et terrae baronum qui proximi sunt aetati.
Inquiratur etiam per sacramentum praedictorum de omni
bus wardis et exchaetis quae non sunt in manu domini regis ; et
capiantur in manu domini regis, et de illis fiat sicut de aliis
exchaetis et wardis. 24. Capitula de Judaeis.
Omnia debita et vadia Judaeorum inbrevientur, terrae, domus,
redditus et possessiones. Judaeus vero, qui aliquid horum cela-
verit, sit in forisfactura domini regis de corpore suo et coneela-
mento, et de omnibus possessionibus suis et omnibus catallis
suis, nee unquam concelamentum Judaeo recuperare licebit.
Item provideantur vi. vel vii. loca in quibus facient praestita
sua; et provideantur ii. legales Christiani, et ii. legales Judaei.
et ii. legales scriptores ; et coram illis, et clerico Willelmi de
Sanctae Mariae ecclesia et Willelmi de Chimilli fiant praestita,
et cartae praestitorum fiant in modum chirographi ; et altera
pars remaneat Judaeo sigillata sigillo illius cui pecunia traditur ;
et altera pars remaneat in area communi, in qua sunt tres serrurae,
unde duo Christiani habent unam clavem, et duo Judaei unam, et
clericus Willelmi de Sanctae Mariae ecclesia et magistri Willelmi
de Chimilli habeat tertiam ; et praeterea tria sigilla, et qui
claves habuerint sigilla apponent. Clerici autem praedictorum
Willelmi et Willelmi habeant rotulum de transcriptis omnium
cartarum, et sicut cartae mutabuntur mutetur et rotulus ; de
singulis cartis dentur tres denarii ; medietas a Judaeo, et
medietas ab eo cui pecunia creditor : unde duo scriptores
habeant duos denarios et custos rotuli tertium ; et de cetero
nullum fiet praestitum, nulla Judaeis fiet solutio, nulla fiet

v.] Proclamation for the Preservation of the Peace. 263
cartarum mutatio, nisi coram praedictis vel majori parte, si
omnes interesse nequiverint. Et praedicti duo Christiani habe
ant unum rotulum de recepta Judaeorum solutionis eis de cetero
faciendae ; et duo Judaei unum, et custos rotuli unum.
Item quilibet Judaeus jurabit super rotulum suum quod
omnia debita sua, et vadia, et redditus, et omnes res et posses-
siones suas inbreviari faciet, et quod nihil celabit, ut praedictum
est. Et si scire poterit quod aliquis aliquid celaverit, illud
justitiis ad eos missis secreto revelabit, et quod falsonarios car
tarum et retonsores denariorum, ubi eos scient, detegent et
monstrabunt, et de falsis cartis similiter.
25. Praeterea inquisitio quae quaerenda erat de prisis et tenseriis
omnium ballivorum domini regis, tam justitiarum quam vice
comitum et constabulariorum et forestariorum et eorum servien-
tium, post coronationem domini regis Ricardi primam, et quare
prisae illae captae fuerunt, et per quem, et de omnibus catallis,
donis, et promissis factis occasione saisinae factae de terris
comitis Johannis, et fautorum suorum, et quis ea receperit, et
quae, et quantum, — dilationem cepit per mandatum Huberti
Cantuariensis archiepiscopi^ tunc temporis capitalis justitiarii
regis. — (Hoveden, iii. 262-267.)

A.D. 1 1 95. Proclamation for the Preservation of
the Peace.
Archbishop Hubert as chief justice issued in 1195 the follow
ing order, the wording of which is partly taken from the Assize
of Clarendon of 11 66, but which is further a remarkable instance
of the continuity of tone in this department of law from the
earliest times ; as is shown by the enforcement of the hue and
cry, and the appointment of knights to receive the oaths for the
maintenance of the peace. The latter is probably the germ of
the office of Conservator of the Peace. Knights were assigned to
maintain the peace in 1253 and 1264 : in the reign of Edward I
a custos of the peace was, occasionally at least, elected by the
county. The conservators of the peace were, according to the
1st Edward III. c. 16, assigned, as in the Act before us, and
nominated by the Crown. ' The statute 34 Edw. III. c. 1 gave
them the power of trying felonies, and then they acquired the
more honourable title of Justices of the Peace.' — Blackstone,
Gomm. i. 350.

264 Richard I. [part

A.D. 1195. E dictum Regium.
*
Eodem anno praedictus archiepiscopus, totius Angliae justi
tiarius, misit per totam Angliam hujusmodi formam juramenti,
videlicet : — Quod omnes homines regni Angliae pacem domini
regis pro posse suo servabunt ; et quod nee latrones nee robatores
nee eorum receptatores erunt, nee in aliquo eis consentient ; et
quod cum hujusmodi malefactores scire poterunt, illos pro toto
posse suo capient et vicecomiti liberabunt, qui nullo modo
deliberentur nisi per dominum regem vel capitalem Justitiam
suam ; et si illos capere non poterunt, eos ballivis domini regis,
quicunque fuerint, scire facient. Levato autem clamore inse-
quendi utlagos, robatores, latrones, aut eorum receptatores,
omnes sectam illam plene facient pro toto posse suo ; et si quem
viderint vel manifestum fuerit sectam illam non fecisse, vel sine
licentia se ab ea subtraxisse, eos tanquam malefactores ipsos
capient et vicecomiti liberabunt, non deliberandos nisi per regem,
aut ejus capitalem Justitiam. Milites vero ad hoc assignati
facient venire omnes de ballia sua coram se a quindecim annis
et ultra ; et jurare facient quod pacem domini regis, ut supra-
dictum est, servabunt ; et quod nee utlagi, nee robatores, nee
latrones, nee eorum receptatores erunt, nee in aliquo eis consen
tient ; et quod sectam, ut praedictum est, plenam facient ; et
quod si cum malefactione aliquem ceperint, militibus in ballia
sua super se positis et ad hoc assignatis, eum liberabunt, qui
eum vicecomiti liberabunt custodiendum ; similiter, si aliquem
viderint vel eis notum fuerit, levato clamore insequendi male
factores praedictos, qui sectam non fecerit, vel a secta ilia se
subtraxerit sine licentia, eum tanquam malefactorem ipsum
capient, et militibus praedictis liberabunt, vicecomiti liberandum
et custodiendum ut ipsum malefactorem; nee liberandum nisi
per praeceptum domini regis vel ejus capitalis Justitiae. —
(R. Hoveden, iii. 299.)

Charters op Towns granted by Richard I.
Amongst the privileges sold by Richard I to every class of
his subjects, none were more important than those which were
obtained by the boroughs in their charters. These were gene
rally drawn on the model of the charters of Henry II : but were

v.] Charters of Towns granted by Richard I. 265
far more widely diffused ; and in the later years of the reign
contain in some instances a clause empowering the towns to
elect their own reeves. The estabHshment of the communa of
the citizens of London, which is recorded by the historians to
have been specially confirmed by the barons and justiciar on
the occasion of Longchamp's deposition from the justiciarship, is
a matter of some difficulty, as the word communa is not found
in English town charters, and no formal record of this act of
confirmation is now preserved. The communa of the French
towns was a municipal constitution founded on a sworn con
federacy of the citizens and subsequently confirmed by charter.
With this the idea the English merchant-guild had some features
in common although it was established for mercantile rather than
political purposes : and the word communa seems to be used by
Glanvill as equivalent to merchant- guild. In its more general
meaning however it must be understood to signify a corporate
identity of the municipality, which it may have claimed before,
and which may even have been occasionally recognised, but was
now firmly established ; a sort of consolidation into a single
organised hody of the variety of franchises, guilds, and other
departments of local jurisdiction. It was connected with, and
perhaps implied by, the nomination of a Mayor, who now
appears for the first time. It is however too transitional a term
to be defined with certainty; and the later application of the
word communitas, like that of the still later corporation, is some
times obscure ; meaning primd facie the whole corporate town,
but sometimes only the magistracy by whom the corporate rights
were exercised. A.D. 1 190. Charter of Richard I to Winchester.
Ricardus, Dei gratia, rex Angliae, dux Normanniae, etc.
archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, justiti
ariis, vicecomitibus, ministris et omnibus baillivis et fidelibus suis
totius terrae suae salutem. Sciatis nos concessisse civibus nostris
Wintoniae de gilda mercatorum, quod nullus eorum placitet
extra muros civitatis Wintoniae de ullo placito praeter placita
de tenuris exterioribus, exceptis monetariis et ministris nostris.

266 Richard I. [part
Concessimus etiam eis quod nullus eorum faciat duellum, et
quod de placitis ad coronam nostram pertinentibus se possint
diratiocinare secundum antiquam consuetudinem civitatis. Haec
etiam eis concessimus, quod cives Wintoniae de gilda mereatorum
sint quieti de theloneo et lestagio et pontagio in feria et extra,
et per portus maris omnium terrarum nostrarum, citra mare et
ultra ; et quod nullus de misericordia pecuniae judicetur nisi
secundum antiquam legem civitatis quam habuerunt tempore
antecessorum nostrorum ; et quod terras et tenuras suas et
vadimonia et debita omnia juste habeant, quicunque eis debeat ;
et de terris suis et tenuris quae infra urbem sunt, rectum eis
teneatur secundum consuetudinem civitatis ; et de omnibus
debitis suis quae accommodata fuerint apud Wintoniam et de
vadimoniis ibidem factis, placita apud Wintoniam teneantur.
Et si quis in tota terra nostra theloneum vel consuetudinem ab
hominibus Wintoniae de gilda mereatorum ceperit, postquam
ipse a recto defecerit, vicecomes de Suthantonia vel praepositus
Wintoniae namium inde apud Wintoniam capiat. Insuper
etiam ad emendandam civitatem eis concessimus, quod omnes
sint quieti de jeresgieve et de scotteshale, ita quod si vicecomes
noster vel aliquis alius baillivus scotthale faciat. Has praedictas
consuetudines eis concedimus et omnes alias libertates et liberas
consuetudines quas habuerunt temporibus antecessorum nostro
rum quando meliores vel liberiores habuerunt ; et si aliquae
consuetudines injustae levatae fuerint in guerra, cassatae sint;
et quicunque petierint civitatem Wintoniae cum mercatu suo,
de quocunque loco sint, sive extranei sive alii, veniant, morentur
et recedant in salva pace nostra, reddendo rectas consuetudines,
et nemo eos disturbet super hanc cartam nostram. Quare
volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod ipsi et haeredes eorum
haec omnia praedicta haereditarie habeant et teneant de nobis et
haeredibus nostris. Testibus, W. Rothomagensi archiepiscopo,
R. Bathoniensi, H. Coventrensi episcopis, Bertranno de Verdun,
Johanne Marescallo, Willelmo Marescallo. Datum per manum
Johannis de Alenconio archidiaconi Lexoviensis, vicecancellarii
nostri, apud Nunancurte, XIV. die Martii, anno primo regni
nostri. — (Foedera, i. 50.)
AD. 1 194. Charter of Richard I to Lincoln.
Ricardus, Dei gratia, rex Angliae, dux Normanniae et
Aquitanniae, comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbati
bus, comitibus, baronibus, justitiariis, vicecomitibus, ministris et
omnibus fidelibus suis, tam Francis quam Anglis, salutem.

v.] Charters of Towns. 267
Sciatis nos concessisse civibus nostris Lincolniae quod nullus
eorum placitet extra civitatem Lincolniae de aliquo placito
praeter placita de tenuris exterioribus, exceptis monetariis et
ministris nostris. Concessimus etiam eis quietantiam murdri
infra civitatem et in portsocha, et quod nullus eorum faciat
duellum, et quod de placitis ad coronam pertinentibus se possint
disrationare secundum consuetudinem civium civitatis Lundoni
arum, et quod infra civitatem illam nemo capiat hospitium per
vim vel per liberationem marescalli. Hoc etiam concessimus
quod omnes cives Lincolniae sint quieti de theloneo et lestagio
per totam Angliam et per portus maris, et quod nullus de mi
sericordia pecuniae judicetur nisi secundum legem quam habent
cives nostri Lundoniarum ; et quod in civitate ilia in nullo
placito sit miskenninga ; et quod burwaremot semel tantum in
hebdomada teneatur ; et quod terras et tenuras et vadia sua et
debita sua omnia juste habeant, quicunque eis debeat. Et de
terris suis et tenuris quae infra civitatem sint, rectum eis tenea
tur secundum consuetudinem civitatis ; et de omnibus debitis
suis quae accommodata fuerint apud Lincolniam, et de vadiis
ibidem factis, placita apud Lincolniam teneantur. Et si quis in
tota Anglia theloneum vel consuetudinem ab hominibus Lin
colniae ceperit, postquam ipse a recto defecerit, praepositus
Lincolniae namium apud Lincolniam capiat. Insuper etiam ad
emendationem illius civitatis illis concefsimus, quod sint quieti
de bridtol, et de childwite, et de gieresgieve, et de seothale, ita
quod praepositus nee alius ballivus scothalam faciat. Has prae-
dietas consuetudines eis concessimus et omnes alias libertates et
liberas consuetudines, quas habuerunt vel habent cives nostri
Lundoniarum quando meliores vel liberiores habuerint, secun
dum libertates Lundoniarum et leges civitatis Lincolniae.
Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod ipsi et haeredes
eorum haec omnia praedicta habeant et teneant haereditarie de
nobis et haeredibus nostris, reddendo per annum novies viginti
libras numero de Lincolnia cum omnibus pertinentiis ad scacca
rium nostrum, duobus terminis, ad Pascham scilicet et ad
festum Sancti Michaelis per manum praepositi Lincolniae. Et
cives Lincolniae faciant praepositum quem voluerint de se per
annum, qui sit idoneus nobis et eis. Testibus hiis ; H. Can-
tuariensi archiepiscopo ; Willelmo Marescallo ; Gaufrido filio
Petri ; Hugone Bardulfi. Datum per manum Willelmi Eliensis
episcopi cancellarii nostri apud Wintoniam, etc. — (Foedera,
i- 52-)

268 John. [part

A.D. 1199-1216. JOHN.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Hubert Walter, 1193-1205 ; Stephen
Langton, 1207-1216.
Chief Justices. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, 1199-1213; Peter des Roches, Bishop
of Winchester, 1214-1215 ; Hubert de Burgh, 1215-1216.
Chancellors. Hubert Walter, 1 199-1205 ; Walter Grey, 1 205-1 213 ;
Peter des Roches. 1213-1214; Walter Grey, 1214 ; Richard de
Marisco, 1 2 14-12 16.
Whether the account given by Matthew Paris of the election
of John be true or false, it is certain that he succeeded to his
brother's throne without any threat of opposition. The claim
which he derived from Richard's final disposition of his states
was strengthened by the support of the queen mother, and the
adherence of a numerous party which he had propitiated during
the late reign ; and the absence of any feeling in favour of
Arthur left the great ministers, and the baronage generally, no
other course than to accept him as king. He, like Richard,
issued no coronation charter, but took the usual oaths.
The administration of the country was managed by Arch
bishop Hubert and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter the Justiciar, during
John's early years, on the same principles as it had been during
Richard's reign ; it is to them that we must ascribe the main
tenance of such constitutional forms as continued to exist, and
of the peace of Englaud. The amount of restraint which they
exercised on John may be calculated, if we consider that imme
diately on the death of Hubert his quarrel with the Church
broke out, whilst the death of the Justiciar in 12 13 coincides
with the beginning of the national struggle for liberty under the
barons. But these ministers were not able to control altogether
the tyrannical instincts of the king. His constant presence in
England and his interference with the machinery of administra
tion prevented them frorh combining, as they had done in
Richard's reign, heavy taxation with the use and development
of principles of self-government ; and from standing between

v.] Excerpts. 269
the people and the king, at the cost of their own popularity.
Close acquaintance with John disgusted the English, who had not
realised the more distant faults of Richard.
Independently, however, of personal considerations, the reign
was a critical one. That of Richard had witnessed the separa
tion of the royal interest from that of the people ; that of John
brought the interest of the people into the closest harmony with
that of the baronage. The baronage was now composed, to a
very great extent, of men whose fortunes had been made under
the influence of Henry II, whose traditions were opposed to
feudalism, and whose relations with Normandy were much less
close than those of the older nobility. The first signs of the
working of these causes are to be found in the default of any
attempt to recover Normandy after its forfeiture and loss. The
English barons were either averse to such an attempt, as in
volving foreign service, a fact which shows that their own stake
in the duchy was but small ; or incredulous of John's intention
to make the effort, as they might justly be, when he was so ready
to commute their service for money ; or they saw no hope of
success under a sovereign whose ability they underrated, whilst
they estimated his sincerity at its true value. It would appear
that the families which still had possessions on both sides the
Channel either divided their estates, or, balancing their con
flicting interests as well as they could, chose to forfeit a part
rather than to fight for John.
In the ecclesiastical disputes, which are the next feature
of the reign, John had to contend with the greatest of all
the successors of S. Peter, and with a spirit in the national
Church which was unquestionably maintained by the knowledge
of the great power and success of the Pope in other parts of
Christendom. The barons refrained from taking advantage of
these peculiar difficulties, nor did their overt opposition to the
kino- begin until his relations with the papacy had changed. As
soon as the papal authority begins to back the royal tyranny,
the barons determine to resist ; and the Church having re
covered, in Archbishop Langton, its natural leader, resumes its
ordinary attitude as the supporter of freedom.

270 John. [part
The country saw that the submission of John to Innocent
placed its liberty, temporally and spiritually, at his mercy ; and
immediately demanded safeguards. These demands were drawn
up on the ancient plan of a request for the restoration of good
customs, and on the model of the charter of Henry I. The
crisis, delayed by John's expedition to France in 12 14, and by
his attempts to dissolve the alliance made against him on his
return, occurred early in the following year. Friends and
enemies contributed their counsel and consent to the granting
of the great Charter. The king's attempts to rid himself of the
new obligation, and the support given to them by the Pope in
opposition to the rights of the Church and nation, resulted in u
determined attempt to dethrone him by foreign aid : a scheme
which owed its only prospect of success to the personal hatreds
which John had inspired, but which was so strong in that re
spect that, had it not been for the king's death, England would
have most probably carried out a change in dynasty, the possible
issues of which, both for herself and the world in general, are
incalculable. It seems paradoxical to state that neither John's tyranny nor
its overthrow could have taken the form they took without the
reforms of Henry II, but such seems to have been really the
case. The technical principle on which here, as often else
where, so much that owes its existence to very different causes
seems to turn, is the freedom of the vassals from service abroad :
and this point comes into prominence during the thirteenth
centuiy in a way that would have been impossible but for
the decay of feudalism, begun and developed under Henry II,
and precipitated by the separation of Normandy from England
under John. Excerpts.
A.D. 1199. Matt. Paris (ed. Wats), p. 197. Dux Nor-
manniae Johannes transfretavit in Angliam et apud Sorham
applicuit octavo kalendas Junii ; et in crastino, in vigilia vide
licet Dominicae Ascensionis, Londonias venit ibidem coronandus.
Congregatis itaque in adventu ejus archiepiscopis, episcopis.
comitibus et baronibus atque aliis omnibus qui ejus coro-

v.] Excerpts. 271
nationi interesse debuerant ; archiepiscopus stans in medio
omnium dixit, ' Audite universi. Noverit discretio vestra quod
nullus praevia ratiorie alii succedere habet in regnum, nisi ab
universitate regni unanimiter invocata Sancti Spiritus gratia
electus, et secundum morum suorum eminentiam praeelectus,
ad exemplum et similitudinem Saul primi regis inuncti, qnem
praeposuit Dominus populo Suo, non regis filium nee de regal i
stirpe procreatum ; similittr post eum David Jessae filium ;
hunc quia strenuum et aptum dignitati regiae, ilium quia sanc
tum et humilem ; ut sic qui cunctos in regno supereminet
strenuitate, omnibus praesit et potestate et regimine. Verum
si quis ex stirpe regis defuncti aliis praepolleret, pronius et
promptius in electionem ejus est consentiendum. Haec idcirco
diximus pro inclyto comite Johanne, qui praesens est frater
illustrissimi regis nostri Pdcardi jam defuncti, qui haerede caruit
ab eo egiediente, qui providus et strenuus et manifesto nobilis.
quem nos, invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, ratione tam merito-
rum quam sanguinis regii unanimiter elegimus universi.' Erat
autem archiepiscopus vir profundi pectoris et in regno singularis
columna stabilitatis et sapientiae incomparabilis ; nee ausi sunt
alii super his adhuc ambigere, scientes quod sine causa hoc non
sic diffiniverat. Verum comes Johannes et omnes hoc accepta-
bant, ipsumque comitem in regem eligentes et assumentes ex-
clamant dicentes ' Vivat rex.' Interrogatus autem postea archi
episcopus Hubertus quare haec dixisset, respondit se praesaga
mente conjecturare et quibusdam oraculis edoctum et certifi-
catum fuisse, quod ipse Johannes regnum et coronam Angliae
foret aliquando corrupturus et in magnam confusionem prae-
cipitaturus ; et ne haberet liberas habenas hoc faciendi, ipsum
electione non successione haereditaria eligi debere affirmabat.
Archiepiscopus autem imponens capiti ejus coronam unxit eum
in regem apud Westmonasterium, scilicet in ecclesia principis
apostolorum, Dominicae Ascensionis die, sexto kalendas Junii,
Philippo Dunelmensi episcopo appellante sed non obtinente,
ne coronatio ilia fieret in absentia Gaufridi archiepiscopi
Eboracensis. In hae coronatione rex Johannes triplici involutus
est sacramento ; quod videlicet sanctam ecclesiam et ejus ordi-
natos diligeret et earn ab incursione malignantium indemnem
conservaret, et quod, perversis legibus destructis, bonas substi-
tueret, et rectam justitiam in regno Angliae exerceret. Deinde
adjuratus est ab eodem archiepiscopo ex parte Dei et districte
prohibitus ne honorem hunc accipere praesumeret nisi in mente
habeat opere quod juraverat adimplere. Ad hoc ille respondens
promisit se per auxilium Dei, bona fide, ea quae juraverat serva-

272 John. [part
turum. . . . Et sic brevissimam in Anglia moram faciens, ea quae
statuenda erant in regno cum consilio magnatum rite peregit.
A.D. 1 200. Rog. Hoveden, iv. 107. Interim Johannes rex
Angliae transfretavit de Normannia in Angliam et cepit de
unaquaque carucata totius Angliae tres solidos de auxilio 
Procedente autem tempore, Johannes rex Angliae, bonorum
virorum fretus consilio restituit praenominato archiepiscopo
(Gaufrido) archiepiscopatum suum et statuit ei diem veniendi in
curia sua ad monstrandum quare non transfretavit cum illo ad
faciendam pacem cum rege Franciae, quando summonitus erat,
et quare non permiserat servientes suos capere denarios caru
carum de terra sua sicut in aliis partibus regni factum est :
et quare verberaverat servientem vicecomitis Eboraci ; et ad
reddendum regi tria millia marcarum argenti quae ipse debuit
Pdcardo regi Angliae fratri suo.
Rad. Coggeshale (ed. Mart, and Dur., p. 860). Ad An
gliam regreditur, auxilium ab omni regno expostulans 
Exiit ergo edictum a justitiariis regis per universam Angliam,
ut quaelibet caruca arans tres persolveret solidos, quae nimirum
gravis exactio valde populum terrae extenuavit, cum antea gravis
exactio scutagii praecessisset ; nam ad scutum duae marcae
persolvebantur, cum nunquam amplius quam viginti solidi ad
scutum exigerentur.
A.D. 1201. Rog. Hovedex, iv. 160, 161. Statim ipost
Pascha praecepit rex ut comites et barones Angliae essent apud
Portesmu ad Pentecosten, parati equis et armis ad transfretandum
cum illo  Interim comites Angliae convenerunt ad collo
quium inter eos habitum apud Leicestre, et ex communi consilio
mandaverunt regi quod non transfretarent cum illo, nisi ille
reddiderit eis jura sua. Rex autem malo usus consilio petebat
ab eis castella sua. . . .
Ib. p. 163. In hebdomada Pentecostes cum barones Angliae
essent congregati apud Portesmue ad transfretandum cum rege,
rex cepit de quibusdam illorum pecuniam quam expenderent
in servitio suo, et permisit eos domum redire.
A.D. 1203. Matt. Paris, p. 209. In die Sancti Nicolai apud
Portesmuthe (rex) applicuit. Deinde in comites et barones
occasiones praetendentes quod ipsum inter hostes reliquerant
in partibus transmarinis, unde castella et terras suas pro eorum
defectu amiserat, cepit ab eis septimam partem omnem mobi
lium suorum.
A.D. 1204. Matt. Paris, p. 209. In crastino Circumcisionis
convenerunt ad colloquium apud Oxoniam rex et magnates

v.] Excerpts. 273
Angliae, ubi concessa sunt regi auxilia militaria, de quolibet
scuto scilicet duae marcae et dimidia ; nee etiam episcopi et ab-
bates sive ecclesiasticae personae sine promissione recesserunt.
A.D. 1205. Matt. Paeis, p. 212. Circa Pentecosten rex
Johannes congregavit exercitum grandem quasi mare transi-
turum ; et prohibente sibi Cantuariensi archiepiscopo et aliis
multis, apud Portesmue navium multitudinem copiosam coadu-
nari fecit. Deinde rex cum parvo comitatu, idibus Julii, naves
ascendit, et velis patentibus Neptuno se committens, mutate
consilio, die tertia apud Stodtlandt juxta Warrham applicuit.
Reversus autem rex cepit de comitibus, baronibus, militibus, et
viris religiosis pecuniam infinitam, occasiones praetendens quod
noluerunt ipsum sequi ad partes transmarinas ut haereditatem
amissam recuperaret.
A.D. 1207. Ann. Waverl. (ed. Luard), p. 258. Rex Jo
hannes post reditum suum a transmarinis, convocatis episcopis,
abbatibus et prioribus, comitibus et baronibus et magnatibus
regni, celebravit concilium Londoniis in octavis Circumcisionis ;
ibique convenit episcopos et abbates, ut permitterent personas
et beneficiatos ecclesiarum dare regi certam summam reddituum
suorum. In quod cum non consentirent praelati ecclesiarum,
data est dilatio usque ad sequens concilium celebrandum Oxoniae
in octavis Puriticationis beatae Mariae; ibique congregata in-
finita multitudine praelatorum ecclesiae et magnatom regni,
exegit ab episcopis et abbatibus quod prius exegerat ab eis.
Sed consilio inito, omnes tain Cantuarienses quam Eboracenses
metropolitani unanimiter responderunt, Anglicanam ecclesiam
nullo modo sustinere posse quod ab omnibus saeculis prius fuit
inauditum. Rex ergo saniori usus consilio exactionem illam
penitus relaxavit. Postea generaliter statuit per universum
regnum, ut omnis homo de cujuscunque feudo juraret pretium
catellorum suorum de immobili et mobili, et de his daret deci
mam tertiam partem regi, ad reouperandam haereditatem suam
in Normannia et in aliis terris suis. Ad quam colligendam
misit ministros suos per universos comitatus Angliae : ab hae
exactione liber erat ordo Cisterciensis. . .
Matt. Paris, p. 221. Solus Gaufridus archiepiscopus Ebora
censis nou consentiens sed plane contradicens clanculo recessit
ab Anglia.
A.D. 1208. Matt. Paris, p. 226. Prima die Lunae in
Passione Domini quae tunc contigit decimo kalendas Aprilis,
sub generali interdicto totam Angliam incluserunt.
T

274 John. [part
Ann. Waverl. p. 260. Rex igitur hoc edicto generaliter pro-
nun ciato per Angliam, miro modo turbatus, praecepit confiscari
per universum regnum suum omnes possessiones episcoporum
et clericorum et virorum religiosorum, et omnia bona ecclesi
astica, et misit per singulas provincias ministros suos tam
clericos quam laicos ad confiscanda bona ecclesiarum. Qui
circueuntes regionem saisiaverunt bona clericorum mobilia et
immobilia intra et extra, committentes curam rerum illarum
in singulis villis vicinis hominibus, per quorum manus clerici
perciperent de rebus suis necessaria.
A.D. 1209. Matt. Paris, p. 228. Papa Innocentius . . . de
consilio fratrum suorum cardinalium ad exstirpandum radicitus
ecclesiae scandalum, Londoniensi, Elyensi, et Wigorniensi epi
scopis dedit in mandatis, ut regem memoratum nominatim ex-
communicatum pronunciarent.
A.D. 1 2 10. Ann. Waverl. p. 264. Johannes rex sub prae-
textu recuperandae Normanniae et aliarum terrarum suarum
quibus eum rex Franciae Philippus spoliaverat, inaestimabilem
et incomparabilem fecit pecuniae numeratae exactionem, nullis
viris clericis vel laicis, nulli religioni cujuscunque ordinis
parcens. Matt. Paris, p. 230. Deinde (sc. mense Septembri) Lon-
donias cum festinatione properans, fecit omnes Angliae praelatos
in sua praesentia convenire. Venerunt autem ad hanc gene
ralem convocationem abbates, priores, abbatissae, Templarii,
Hospitalarii, custodes villarum ordinis Cluniacensis et aliarum
regionum transmarinarum cujuscunque dignitatis et ordinis ;
qui omnes ad tam gravem compulsi sunt redemptionein ac re
rum ecclesiarum dilapidationem, quod summa extortae pecuniae
excrevisse fertur ad centum millia librarum sterlingorum. Albi
quoque monachi de regno Angliae, aliis exceptis, quadraginta
millia librarum argenti in hoc tallagio, vellent nollent, cassatis
privilegiis regi persolverunt.
A.D. 121 1. Matt. Paris, p. 230. Rex Johannes cepit a
militibus qui exercitui in Wallia non interfuerunt de quolibet
scuto duas marcas argenti. . . .
Ib. p. 231. Habuit autem rex hae interdicti tempestate con-
siliarios iniquissimos, quorum nomina pro parte hic ponere non
omittam : — Willelmus . . . frater regis et comes Saresburiensis,
Albericus de Ver comes Oxoniensis, Gaufridus Filius Petri
Angliae Justitiarius ; tres episcopi curiales, Philippus Dunelmen-
sis, Petrus Wintoniensis et Johannes Norwicensis ; Ricardus de

v.] Excerpts. 275
Marisco regis cancellarius, Hugo de Nevilla protoforestarius,
Willelmus de Wrotham custos portuum maris, Robertus de
Veteri ponte et Yvo frater ejus, Brienus de Insula, et Gaufridus
de Luci, Hugo de Bailul, et Bernardus frater ejus, Willelmus de
Cautelu et Willelmus filius ejus, Fulco de Cantelu, et Reginaldus
de Cornhelle vicecomes Cantiae, Robertus de Braibroc et Hen
ricus filius ejus, Philippus de Ulecotes, et Johannes de Bassing-
burne, Philippus Marci castellanus de Notingham, Petrus de
Maulei et Robertus de Gaugi, Gerardus de Atie et Ingelardus
nepos ejus, Fulco [de Breaute,] et Willelmus Briuere, Petrus
filius Hereberti et Thomas Basset, et alii multi quos longum
esset enumerare ; qui regi in omnibus placere cupientes, con
silium non pro ratione sed pro voluntate dederunt.
Ann. Waverl. p. 266. Post festum Sancti Jacobi venerunt
in Angliam Pandulfus et Durandus, nuncii domini papae, ad
faciendam pacem inter regem et archiepiscopum.
Ib. p. 268. Die Martis proxima post festum Sancti Bartho-
lomaei venientes nuncii domini papae apud Norhamton, scilicet
Pandulfus et Durandus coram rege convocatis omnibus comi
tibus et baronibus Angliae, dominum regem alloquuntur. . . .
Rex, ' Quid magis 1 ' Pandulfus, ' Absolvimus omnes unani
miter comites, barones, milites, francos, clericos, laicos et omnes
Christianae fidei per terras tuas tibi subjectas, a fidelitatibus suis
et homagio.' . . . Pandulfus vero discessit et transfretavit.
A.D. 1 2 12. Matt. Paris, p. 232. Rex autem cum talia
audisset (sc. de proditione provisa) perturbatus est valde et
animo consternates, atque cum intellexisset magnates Angliae a
sua esse fidelitate absolutos, majorem litteris sibi destinatis fidem
adhibuit. Unde propositum utiliter commutans jussit omnem
exercitum ad propria remeare, veniensque ad urbem Londoni
arum misit nuncios ad magnates universos sibi de fidelitate
suspectos, exigens obsides ab eis, ut probaret qui vellent et qui
nollent ejus obtemperare praeceptis. Illi vero, regiis jussionibus
resistere non audentes, remiserunt filios, nepotes, et cognatos ad
libitum regis, et sic indignatio ejus aliquantulum conquievit.
Veruntamen Eustachius de Vesci et Robertus Filius Walteri de
proditione memorata accusati, et regi nimis suspecti, recesserunt
ab Anglia, Eustachius videlicet in Scotiam, et Robertus ad Gal-
lias divertentes. . . .
Tunc papa gravi moerore propter desolationem regni Angliae
confectus, de consilio cardinalium, episcoporum, et aliorum
virorum prudentium, sententialiter definivit ut rex Anglorum
Johannes a solio regni deponeretur, et alius, papa procurante,
T 2

276 John. [part
succederet qui dignior haberetur. Ad hujus quoque sententiae
executionem scripsit dominus papa potentissimo regi Francorum
Philippo, quatenus in remissionem omnium suorum peccaminum
hunc laborem assumeret, et rege Anglorum a solio regni expulso,
ipse et successores sui regnum Angliae jure perpetuo possi-
derent. A.D. 1213. Ib. p. 233. Mense Januario redierunt a curia
Romana Stephanus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus, Willelmus
Londoniensis et Eustachius Elyensis episcopi, et, habito in
partibus transmarinis concilio, regi Francorum et episcopis
Gallicanis cum clero et populo sententiam, quae in regem
Anglorum Romae pro contumacia lata fuerat, solemniter pro-
mulgarunt. Ib. p. 235. Convenerunt apud Doveram decima tertia die
Maii, videlicet die Lunae proxima ante Ascensionem Domini,
Rex et Pandulfus, cum comitibus, baronibus et turba multa
nimis, ubi in . . . pacis formam unanimiter consenserunt.
Ib. p. 236. . . . Convenerunt iterum rex Anglorum et Pan
dulfus cum proceribus regni apud domum militum Templi
juxta Doveram, decimo quinto die Maii, in vigilia scilicet
Dominicae Ascensionis, ubi idem rex juxta quod Romae fuerat
sententiatum resignavit coronam suam cum regnis Angliae et
Hiberniae in manus domini papae, cujus tunc vices gerebat
Pandulfus. . . .
Ib. p. 239. . . . Stephanus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus,
Willelmus Londoniensis, Eustachius Elyensis, Hugo Lincol
niensis, Aegidius Herefordensis episcopi, cum ceteris clericis
et laicis causa interdicti exulantibus, . . . apud Doveram
XVII0 kalendas Augusti applicantes, in die beatae Margaretae
virginis Wintoniam ad regem venerunt . . . ilium absolverunt.
Et haec absolutio facta fuit in capitulo Wintoniensi. In hae
autem absolutione juravit rex, tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis,
quod sanctam ecclesiam ej usque ordinatos diligeret, defenderet
et manuteneret contra omnes adversarios suos pro posse suo ;
quodque bonas leges antecessorum suorum et praecipue leges
Edwardi regis revocaret, et iniquas destrueret, et omnes
homines suos secundum justa curiae suae judicia judicaret,
quodque singulis redderet jura sua. . . .
In crastino autem misit rex litteras ad omnes vicecomites
regni Angliae, praecipiens ut de singulis dominicorum suorum
villis quatuor legales homines cum praeposito apud Sanctum
Albanum pridie nonas Augusti facerent convenire, ut per illos
et alios ministros suos de damnis singulorum episcoporum et
ablatis certitudinem inquireret, et quid singulis deberetur. . . .

v.] Excerpts. 277"
Interfuerunt concilio apud Sanctum Albanum Galfridus Filius
Petri et episcopus Wintoniensis cum archiepiscopo et episcopis
et magnatibus regni, ubi cunctis pace regis denunciata ex ejus
dem regis parte firmiter praeceptiim est, quatenus leges Henrici
avi sui ab omnibus in regno custodirentur, et omnes leges ini-
quae penitus enervarentur. Denunciatum est praeterea vice
comitibus, forestariis, aliisque ministris regis, sicut .vitam et
membra sua diligunt, ne a quoquam aliquid violenter extor-
queant, vel alicui injuriam irrogare praesumant, aut scotalla
alicubi in regno faciant, sicut facere consueverunt.
Rad. Coggeshale, p. 872. Rex Angliae parato navigio in
Pictaviam barones Northanhumbrenses invitavit ut secum
transfretarent ; at illi pari animo eademque sententia contra-
dixerunt, asserentes non in hoc ei obnoxios esse secundum munia
terrarum suarum, sed in expeditionibus Anglicanis se nimis
exhaustos et vehementer attenuates. Rex igitur indignatus
collectis militum copiis ipsos atterere voluit, sed tandem archi
episcopus eum rationabiliter arguens impetum. ipsius compescuit.
Matt. Paris, p. 240. Eodem anno octavo kalendas Sep-
tembris convenerunt in civitate Londoniarum apud Sanctum
Paulum Stephanus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus cum. episcopis,
abbatibus, prioribus, decanis et baronibus regni. ... In hoc
colloquio, ut fama refert, archiepiscopus memoratus, convocatis
seorsum quibusdam regni proceribus, coepit affari eos secretius
in hunc modum; 'Audistis' inquit 'quomodo ipse apud Win
toniam regem absolvi, et ipsum jurare compulerim quod leges
iniquas destnieret et leges bonas, videlicet leges Edwardi, revo-
caret et in regno faceret ab omnibus observari. Inventa est
quoque nunc carta quaedam Henrici primi regis Angliae per
quam, si volueritis, libertates diu amissas poteritis ad statom
pristinum revocare.' ....
Ann. Waverl. pp. 277, 278. Dominus Nicolaus, episcopus
Tusculanensis et cardinalis .... quinto kalendas Octobris veniens
legatus in Angliam, quinto nonas Octobris apud Londoniam homa
gium domini Johannis suscepit. ... In festo Sancti Nicolai per
praeceptiim Nicolai legati et archiepiscopi congregati sunt apud
Redinges omnes ecclesiastici praelati certissime sperantes ali-
quam restitutionem . . . infecto negotio . . . remearunt.
Walt. Covent. ii. 217. Dissensio orta est inter Johannem
regem Angliae et quosdam de proceribus pro scutagio quod
petebat ab illis qui non ierant, nee miserant cum ipso in
Pictaviam. Dantibus enim illud plurimis, contradixerunt ex
Aquilonaribus nonnulli, illi videlicet qui anno praeterito regem

278' John. [part
ne in Pictaviam transiret impedierunt, dicentes se propter terras
quas in Anglia tenent non debere regem extra regnum sequi nee
ipsum euntem scutagio juvare. E contra rege id tanquam
debitum exigente eo quod in diebus patris sui necnon et fratris
sic fieret, res ulterius processisset nisi legati praesentia obsti-
tisset. A.D. 12 14. Matt. Paris, pp. 249, 252, 253. Nicolaus Thus-
culanensis episcopus et apostolicae sedis legatus in die aposto-
lorum Petri et Pauli in ecclesia cathedrali (Sancti Pauli) relaxavit
sententiam solemniter interdicti. . . . Rex Anglorum Johannes
expletis agendis suis in partibus transmarinis rediit in Angliam
XIV0 kalendas Novembris. Sub eadem tempestate convenerunt
ad colloquium apud Sanctum Eadmundum comites et barones
Angliae quasi orationis gratia, licet in causa aliud fuisset. Nam '
cum diu simul et secretius tractare coepissent, producta est in
medium carta quaedam regis Henrici primi, quam idem barones
a Stephano Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, ut praedictum est, in
urbe Londoniarum acceperant. . . . Itaque convenerunt uni
versi ad ecclesiam Sancti Eadmundi, et incipientibus majoribus
juraverunt super majus altare, quod si rex leges et libertates jam
dictas concedere diffugeret, ipsi ei guerram tamdiu moverent ut
ab ejus fidelitate se subtraherent, donee eis per cartam sigillo suo
munitam confirmaret omnia quae petebant. Atque in hoc
tandem communiter consenserunt, ut post Natale Domini simul
omnes ad regem venientes, libertates praescriptas sibi peterent
confirmari ; atque interim in equis sibi et armis taliter provi-
derent, quod, si forte rex a proprio vellet juramento, quod bene
credebant, resilire, propter suam duplicitatem, ipsi protenus per
captionem castrorum suorum eum ad satisfactionem compel-
lerent. A.D. 1215. Matt. Paris, pp. 253-255. . . Rex tenuit curiam
suam ad Natale Domini apud Wigorniam vix per spatium unius.
diei ; deinde cum festinatione Londonias veniens apud Novum
Templum hospitio sese recepit. Venientesque ad regem ibi supra-
dicti magnates, in lascivo satis apparatu militari, petierunt
quasdam libertates et leges regis Eadwardi cum aliis libertatibus
sibi et regno Angliae et ecclesiae Anglicanae concessis confirmari,
prout in carta regis Henrici primi et legibus praedictis asscriptae
continentur. . . . Audiens autem rex . . . postulabat inducias
usque ad clausum Pascha. . . . Rex autem interim volens sibi
praeeavere in posterum, fecit sibi soli contra omnes homines
fidelitatem per totam Angliam jurare, et homagia renovare ; et
ut sibi melius provideret, in die Purificationis beatae Mariae

v.] Excerpts. 279
Crucem Domini suscepit  In hebdomada Paschae con
venerunt apud Stamford magnates. . . . Aestimati autem sunt
in exercitu illo duo millia militum, praeter equites servientes et
pedites. . . . Fuerunt autem principes . . . Robertus Filius
Walteri, Eustachius de Vesci, Ricardus de Percy, Robertus de
Ros, Petrus de Bruis, Nicolaus de Stutevilla, Saerus comes Win
toniensis, Ricardus comes de Clare, Henricus comes de Hereford,
R. comes Bigod, Willelmus de Munbrey, Rogerus de Creissi,
Ranulfus filius Roberti, Robertus de Ver, Fulco Filius Warini,
Willelmus Mallet, Willelmus de Monte Acuto, Willelmus de
Bello campo, Simon de Kyme, Willelmus juvenis Marescallus,
Willelmus Mauduit, Rogerus de Monte Begonis, Johannes filius
Roberti, Johannes filius Alani, G. de Laval, O. Filius Alani,
W. de Hobrug, 0. de Vallibus, G. de Gant, Mauricius de Gant,
R. de Brakele, R. de Muntfichet, W. de Lanvalei, G. de Mande-
ville comes Essexiae, Willelmus frater ejus, Willelmus de
Huntinfeld, Robertus de Greslei, G. Constabularius de Meutum,
Alexander de Pointun, Petrus Filius Johannis, Alexander de
Sutuna, Osbertus de Bobi, Johannes Constabularius Cestriae,
Thomas de Multune, Conanus Filius Heliae, et alii multi. . . .
Stephanum Cantuariensem archiepiscopum capitalem consenta-
neum habuerunt. Erat autem rex eo tempore apud Oxoniam. . . .
Die Lunae .... proxima post octavas Paschae barones me-
morati in villa de Brakeleie pariter convenerunt  (Rex)
misit ad eos archiepiscopum Cantuariensem et Willelmum
Marescallum comitem de Penbrock . . . sciscitans ab eis quae
essent leges et libertates quas quaerebant. At illi nunciis . . .
schedulam porrexerunt quae ex parte maxima leges antiquas et
regni consuetudines continebat. . . . Tunc archiepiscopus cum
sociis suis schedulam illam ad regem deferens capitula singula
coram ipso memoriter recitavit. . . . Cum itaque Archiepi
scopus et Willelmus Marescallus regem ad consensum inducere
nullatenus potuissent, ad jussionem regis ad barones sunt
reversi. . . . Magnates . . . constituerunt Robertum Filium
Walteri principem militiae, . . . et sic . . . versus Norham-
tunam acies direxerunt . . . infecto negotio ad castrum de
Bedeforde perrexerunt. . . . Venerunt itaque ad eos ibidem
nuncii ab urbe Londoniarum, secretius eis indicantes, quod si
vellent urbis ingressum habere cum festinatione illuc venirent.
... Ad Wares usque venerunt. . . . Nono kalendas Junii . .
Londoniensium civitatem sine aliquo tumultu intraverunt. . . .
Et a civibus jam dictis accepta securitate, miserunt litteras ad
comites, barones et milites illos qui adhuc per Angliam regi,
licet ficte, adhaerere videbantur. . . . Haec autem in parte

280 John. [part
eorum nomina sunt qui nondum juraverunt libertates piaedictas ;
— Willelmus Marescallus comes de Penbrock, Ranulfus comes
Cestrensis, Willelmus comes Saresbiriensis, Willelmus conies
Warennae, Willelmus comes Albemarlensis, H. comes Cornubiae,
W. de Albineto, Robertus de Veteri Ponte, Petrus Filius
Hereberti, Brienus de Insula, G. de Luci, G. de Furnival,
Thomas Basset, Henricus de Braibrock, Johannes de Bassinge-
burne, Willelmus de Cantelu, Henricus de Cornhulle, Johannes
Filius Hugonis, Hugo de Nevile, Philippus de Albineio, Johannes
Marescallus, Willelmus Bruwerre. Hi omnes cum mandatum
baronum accepissent, maxima pars eorum Londonias profecti,
confoederati sunt magnatibus supradictis, regem penitus relin-
quentes. . . . Statuerunt regi diem ut veniret contra eos ad
colloquium in pratum inter Stanes et Windlesores situm, decimo
quinto die Junii. Convenerunt itaque . . . Tandem igitur
cum in varia sorte tractassent, rex Johannes, vires suas baronum
viribus impares iutelligens, sine difficultate leges . . . et liber
tates concessit.
Matt. Paris, p. 264. Rex ... ad Vectam insulam latenter
confugit . . . misit ad curiam Romanam Pandulfum . . . ut
baronum propositum auctoritate apostolica irritarent. . . Papa
. . . cartam . . . cassavit . . . Anagniae, IX. kalendas Septembris.
Ib. p. 276. Summus pontifex barones . . . excommunicavit
nominatim et in specie. . . . Laterani, "XVII. kalendas Januarii.
Ann. Waverl. p. 283. Interim applicuerunt in Anglia
alienigenae barbari et magna multitudo diversarum linguarum
errorem regis pertinaciter confoventes. His autem visis, super-
dicti magnates obstinationem regis punire desiderantes, com
muni consilio Lodowicum filium regis Franciae in principem
Anglicanae insulae unanimiter elegerunt. . . . Tunc temporis
Johannes rex omnia castella et munitiones habebat sub manu
sua, sub custodia tamen alienigenarum, qui frequenter peram-
bulabant terram vastantes earn et praedam ubicunque poterant
capientes. A.D. 1216. Ann. Waverl. pp. 285, 286. In mense Maio
. . . XII. kalendas Junii, Lodowicus . . . venit primo in
Angliam. . . . Mense Octobri, scilicet XIV. kalendas Novembris,
rex Johannes ... in fata discessit apud castrum de Newerc. . .

v ] Summons to Arms. 281
A.D. 1205. Writ for the levying oe a Force for the
Defence op the Kingdom.
This Act, although only an occasional expedient for the de
fence of the country, has considerable interest as proceeding
from the ' Commune Consilium regni.' In its material aspect it
is an advance on the Assize of Arms, which had directed the
arming of the whole population according to a fixed scale, for
the same purpose. The first provision bears on the military
tenants only ; the plan of raising a force by the contribution of
the knights had been tried by Henry II in 1 157: 'circa festi-
vitatem S. Johannis Baptistae, rex Henricus praeparavit maxi
mam expeditionem, ita ut duo milites de tota Anglia tertium
pararent ad opprimendum Guallenses terra et man.' R. de
Monte. But although the following document is feudal in form,
it bears distinct traces of connexion with the older militia
system : it is clearly intended that the whole population should
be armed to resist invasion, and we learn from Gervase that the
organisation of the communa in arms was to be carried out by
local constables ; the penalties for neglect or treachery carry us
back to the laws of Ethelred (p. 73); and the whole act should
be compared with the statement of the Berkshire custom in
Domesday Book (above, p. 96). The ancient fyrd was the
folkmoot in arms : the feudal levy was the Norman baronage
performing the service due by tenure. The process now going
on was a consolidation of the whole into the form which it took
later under the writs of Henry III and Edward I for a general
arming of the nation, addressed to each of the greater vassals
separately, and, for the assembling of the lesser ones, to the
sheriffs. Rex, etc. Vicecomiti Rotelandae, etc. Scias quod provisum
est cum assensu archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, comitum, ba
ronum et omnium fidelium nostrorum Angliae, quod novem
milites per totam Angliam invenient decimum militem bene
paratum equis et armis ad defensionem regni nostri; et quod
illi novem milites inveniant decimo militi qualibet die ii. solidos
ad liberationem suam. Et ideo tibi praecipimus quod, sicut

282 John. [part
teipsum et omnia tua diligis, provideas quod decimi milites de
ballia tua sint apud Londonias a die Paschae in tres septimanas,
bene parati equis et armis, cum liberationibus suis sicut prae
dictum est, parati ire in servitium nostrum quo praeceperimus
et existere in servitio nostro ad defensionem regni nostri quan
tum opus fuerit. Provisum est etiam quod si alienigenae in
terram nostram venerint, omnes unanimiter eis occurrant cum
forcia et armis sine aliqua occasione et dilatione, auditis rumori-
bus de eorum adventu. Et si quis miles vel serviens vel alius
terram tenens inventus fuerit, qui se inde retraxerit, dummodo
tanta non fuerit gravatus infirmitate quod illuc venire non pos
sit, ipse et haeredes sui in perpetuum exhaeredabuntur, et
feodum suum remanebit domino fundi ad faciendum inde volun-
tatem suam ; ita quod exhaeredatus vel haeredes sui nunquam
inde aliquam habeant recuperationem. Si qui vero milites, ser
vientes, vel alii qui terram non habent, inventi fuerint qui se
similiter retraxerint, ipsi et haeredes sui servi fient in per
petuum, reddendo singulis annis iiii. denarios de capitibus suis,
nee pro paupertate omittant ad praedictum negotium venire
cum illud audierint, quia ex quo ad exercitum venerint, pro-
videbitur unde sufficienter in servitio nostro poterunt susten-
tari. Si vero vicecomes vel ballivus vel praepositus illos qui
se retraxerint nobis per breve vel per scriptum vel viva voce
non ostenderint, dicti vicecomes vel ballivus vel praepositus
remanebit in misericordia nostra de vita et membris. Et ideo
tibi praecipimus quod sub festinatione haec omnia proclamari
facias in foris per totam balliam tuam, et in mercatis et
nundinis et alibi, et ita te de negotio illo faciendo intromittas
quod ad te pro defectu tui capere non debeamus. Et tu ipse
sis apud Londonias ad praefatum terminum, vel aliquem dis-
cretum ex parte tua mittas, et facias tunc nobis scire nomina
decimorum militum, et habeas ibi hoc breve. Teste me ipso
apud Wintoniam III die Aprilis. — (Patent Rolls, i. 55.)

A.D. 1205. Summons to a great Council.
Rex episcopo Sarisburiensi. Mandamus vobis rogantes qua
tenus omni occasione et dilatione postpositis, sicut nos et
honorem nostrum diligitis, sitis ad nos apud Londonias die
Dominica proxima ante Ascensionem Domini, nobiscum trac-
taturi de magnis et arduis negotiis nostris et communi regni
nostri utilitate, quoniam super hiis quae a rege Franciae per

v.] Assessment of an Aid. 283
nuncios nostros et suos nobis mandata sunt, unde per Dei
gratiam bonum speramus provenire, vcstrum expedit habere
consilium et aliorum magnatum terrae nostrae quos ad diem
ilium et locum fecimus convocari ; vos etiam ex parte nostra et
vestra abbates et priores conventuales totius diocesis vestrae
citari faciatis ut concilio praedicto nobiscum intersint, sicut
diligunt nos et communem regni utilitatem. — (Report on the
Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. i.")

A.D. 1207. Writ for the Assessment of the
Thirteenth.
The 'thirteenth' was exacted by John, notwithstanding the
debate and the opposition of the clergy, at the council of Oxford,
February 9, 1207. It appears from the Annals of Waverley
(above, p. 273) that a fixed sum was originally demanded and
refused ; and that the king withdrew the demand, but sub
stituted for it the present exaction. The process of assessment
differs from that adopted by Henry II and Richard I (above,
pp. 160, 257), excluding the action of the juries, and adopting
a plan, which was probably the earlier practice, of a more in
quisitorial character. The system of assessment by jury reappears
in the next reign.
A.D. 1207. Rex omnibus, etc. Sciatis quod per commune
consilium et assensum concilii nostri apud Oxoniam, pro visum
est ad defensionem regni nostri et recuperationem juris nostri [et]
concessum est, quod quilibet laicus homo totius Angliae de cujus
cunque feodo sit, qui habet in Anglia redditus et catalla, det
nobis in auxilium de unaquaque mercata redditus sui annualis
xii. denarios, et de unaquaque cujuslibet maneriei catalli mobilis
quod habuit in octavis Purificationis Beatae Mariae, scilicet ad
terminum concilii, xii. denarios, et sic secundum plus et minus.
Et omnes senescalli et ballivi comitum et baronum jurabunt
coram Justitiis nostris de valentia reddituum et catallorum
mobilium dominorum suorum et de suis propriis similiter.
Et quilibet homo praeter comites et barones jurabit de suis
propriis redditibus et catallis secundum quod Justitiae nostri
ad hoc transmissi utilitati nostrae melius viderint expedire.
Et si aliquis convictus fuerit quod ad evitandum commodum
nostrum fraudulenter amoverit catalla sua, vel in aliquo loco

284 John. [part
celaverit, vel in alicujus alterius potestate posuerit, vel minus
quam valuerint appretiaverit, . omnia catalla ejus capientur ad
opus nostrum quieta et corpus ejus in prisonam nostram ponc-
tur donee per nos deliberetur. Quodlibet autem hundredum in
comitatu vestro imbrevietur per se et quaelibet parochia in
quolibet hundredo per se, ita quod Justitiae nostri sciaut de
qualibet villa per se respondere. Cum autem Justitiae nostri
auxilium istud in quolibet hundredo, civitate, vel villa assederint,
statim transcribere facient a rotulis suis omnes particulas auxilii
assisi, et liberentur vicecomiti colligendum per terminum quin-
denae in quindenam cum omni festinatione, et Justitiae nostri
rotulos suos salvo penes se custodiant donee ad nos eos afferant.
Statutum est etiam quod omnes clerici nostri et omnes Justitiae
nostri et clerici eorum et omnes qui se in aliquo de negotio isto
intromittent, jurabunt quod fideliter ex toto posse suo hoc nego
tium facient, sicut constitutum est et quod pro nulla re hoc
omittent. Praecipimus autem super vitam et membra quod
quilibet denarius bonus et de legali pondere capiatur quamvis
non sit novus, tam ad opus nostrum quam ad omnium aliorum
regni nostri. Ad hoc autem auxilium in comitatu vestro assi-
dendum mittimus loco nostro Robertum de Berkele, Ricardum
de Mucegros, Willelmum de Falesia, magistrum R. de Glocestre,
Walterum de Aura, Ad. filium Nigelli, etc. Et vobis praecipi
mus quod eis de hoc tanquam nobis sitis intendentes. T. me
ipso apud Norhamton, XVII. die Februarii. — (Patent Rolls,
i. 72.)

A.D. 1213. John's concession of the Kingdom
to the Pope.
This act of submission was made to Pandulf at Dover, on
the 15th of May, 12 13; and renewed to Nicolas Bishop of
Tusculum at London on the 3rd of October with a golden
bulla, and with the actual performance of liege homage here
promised to the Pope.
Johannes, Dei gratia, rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae, dux
Normanniae, et Aquitanniae, comes Andegaviae, omnibus
Christi fidelibus praesentem cartam inspecturis, salutem. Uni-
versitati vestrae per hanc cartam nostram sigillo nostro munitam
volumus esse notum, quia cum Deum et matrem nostram sanc-
tam ecclesiam offenderimus in multis et proinde Divina miseri-

v.] Gift of the Kingdom to the Pope. 285
cordia plurimum indigere noscamur, nee quid digne offerre
possimus pro satisfactione Deo et ecclesiae debita facienda,
nisi nos ipsos et regna nostra humiliemus : — Volentes nos ipsos
humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro nobis humiliavit usque ad mortem,
gratia Sancti Spiritus inspirante, non vi inducti nee timore
coacti, sed nostra bona spontaneaque voluntate ac communi
consilio baronum nostrorum, offerimus et libere concedimus
Deo et Sanctis apostolis Ejus Petro et Paulo et sanctae Romanae
ecclesiae matri nostrae, ac domino nostro papae Innocentio
ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum Angliae et
totum regnum Hiberniae, cum oihni jure et pertinentiis suis,
pro remissione peccatorum nostrorum et totius generis nostri
tam pro vivis quam defunctis ; et amodo ilia a Deo et ecclesia
Romana tanquam feodatarius recipientes et tenentes, in prae
sentia prudentis viri Pandulfi, domini papae subdiaconi et
familiaris, fidelitatem exinde praedicto domino nostro papae
Innocentio, ejusque catholicis successoribus et ecclesiae Romanae,
secundum subscriptam formam facimus et juramus, et homa
gium ligium in praesentia domini papae, si coram eo esse
poterimus, eidem faciemus ; successores et haeredes nostros
de uxore nostra in perpetuum obligantes, ut simili modo
summo pontifici qui • pro tempore fuerit, et ecclesiae Romanae,
sine confradictione debeant fidelitatem praestare et homagium
recognoscere. Ad indicium autem hujus perpetuae nostrae
obligationis et concessionis volumus et stabilimus, ut de pro
priis et specialibus redditibus praedictorum regnorum nostro
rum, pro omni servitio et consuetudine quod pro ipsis facere
deberemus, salvo per omnia denario beati Petri, ecclesia Ro
mana mille marcas sterlingorum percipiat annuatim, scilicet in
festo Sancti Michaelis quingentas marcas et in Pascha quin-
gentas marcas ; septingentas scilicet pro regno Angliae et tre-
centas pro regno Hiberniae : salvis nobis et haeredibus nostris
justitiis, libertatibus, et regalibus nostris, quae omnia, sicut
supradicta sunt, rata esse volentes perpetuo atque firma, obliga-
mus nos et successores nostros contra non veniie. Et si nos vel
aliquis successorum nostrorum hoc attemptare praesumpserit,
quicunque fuerit, ille, nisi rite commonitus resipuerit, cadat a
jure regni, et haec carta obligationis et concessionis nostrae
semper firma permaneat. Form of the oath of fealty.
Ego Johannes, Dei gratia, rex Angliae et dominus Hiberniae,
ab hae hora inantea fidelis ero Deo et beato Petro et ecclesiae
Romanae ac domino meo papae Innocentio ejusque successoribus

286 John. [part
catholice intrantibus : non ero in facto, dicto, consensu ve! con
silio, ut vitam perdant vel membra, vel mala captione capiantur.
Eorum damnum, si scivero, impediam et removere faciain si
potero : alioquin quam citius potero, intimabo vel tali personae
dicam quam eis credam pro certo dicturam. Consilium quod
mihi crediderint, per se vel per nuncios suos seu per litteras
suas, secretum tenebo et ad eorum damnum nulli pandam, me
sciente. Patrimonium beati Petri et specialiter regnum Angliae
et regnum Hiberniae, adjutor ero ad tenendum et defendendum
contra omnes homines pro posse meo. Sic Deus me adjuvet
et haec sancta Evangelia.
Teste me ipso apud domum Militiae Templi juxta Doveriam,
coram domino H. archiepiscopo Dublinensi, domino J. Norwy
censi episcopo; G. Filio Petri comite Essexiae justitiario nostro
W. comite Saresberiensi fratre nostro ; W. Marescallo comite
Penbroeiae ; R. comite Boloniensi ; W. comite Warenniae
S. comite Wintoniae ; W. comite Arundelli ; W. comite de Fer
reriis ; W. Briwer ; Petro filio Hereberti ; Warino filio Geroldi
XV0 die Maii, anno regni nostri XIVto. — (Foedera, i. in, 112.)

A.D. 1 2 13. Summons to a great Council.
After making submission to the legate at Dover, May 15th,
John remained in Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, preparing for
an expedition to France, on which, as he was still excommuni
cate, the barons refused to accompany him. Archbishop Langton
landed at Dover July 16th, and absolved the king at Winchester
on the 20th, he having sworn to make restitution to the Church,
and, moreover, renewed his coronation oath. Having summoned
a council to meet at S. Alban's on the 4th of August, he made
a second attempt to induce the barons to embark. This was
defeated by the determination of the nobles of Northern Eng
land, who had benefited the most by the legal measures of
Henry II, and whose descendants formed the bulk of the Lan
castrian party of later constitutional history. Whilst the council
of S. Alban's was learning from the justiciar the extent of the
rights to which John had sworn, and the archbishop was
instructing the barons at S. Paul's in the laws of Henry I
(Aug. 25th), John was preparing for a journey to the North

v.] Grant of Freedom of Election. 287
to punish the recalcitrant nobles. The archbishop hastened to
Nottingham and prevailed on him to take judicial steps ; but he
proceeded as far as Durham (Sept. 14th), whence he returned
equally rapidly to meet the legate and renew his submission
(Oct. 3rd) at London. The following document is a summons
for a council at Oxford, of whose proceedings there is no record :
it is the first writ in which the ' four discreet men' of the county
appear as representatives ; the first instance of the summoning s
of the folkmoot to a general assembly by the representative
machinery already used for judicial purposes. The four men
and the reeve had from time immemorial represented the town
ship in the shiremoot ; now the four men and the sheriff repre
sent the shiremoot in the national council.
Rex Vicecomiti Oxon. salutem. Praecipimus tibi quod
omnes milites baillivae tuae, qui summoniti fuerunt esse ajiud
Oxoniam ad nos a die Omnium Sanctorum in quindecim dies
venire facias cum armis suis ; corpora vero baronum sine armis
similiter : et quatuor discretes homines de comitatu tuo illuc
venire facias ad nos ad eundem terminum ad loquendum nobis-
cum de negotiis regni nostri. Teste me ipso apud Wyttefi. VII.
die Novembris.
Eodem modo scribitur omnibus vicecomitibus. — (Report on
the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 2.)

A.D. 1214. Grant of freedom of Election to Churches.
The winter of 1213 was spent in comparative quietness,
and early in February, 12 14, John went abroad. He returned
on the 15th of October. During this time the damages of the
Church were assessed and the Interdict relaxed (June 29th).
The king was met on his return by the news that the barons at
S. Edmund's had sworn to demand the charter of Henry I, and
were prepared after Christmas to force him to grant their claims.
It was probably as an attempt to separate the clergy from the
barons that he issued the following charter on the 21st of
November. It was reissued on the 15th of January, 1215, and

288 John. [part
confirmed by the Pope ; but it failed to sow dissension in the
national party.
The right of the chapters to elect their bishops, and of the
monasteries to elect their abbots, although strictly canonical,
had long been lost sight of in England. In the eighth and
ninth centuries several case3 of election to bishoprics may be
found, in which, the national Church being stronger than the
, heptarchic king, the choice was probably free. But under the
West-Saxon kings the appointments were generally made in the
Witenagemot, and under the Normans by the king in his great
courts. The form of election was restored under Henry I,
the great Roger of Salisbury being, it is said, the first bishop
canonically chosen ; but the process took place under the eye
of the king or justiciar, and was only nominally free. This was
(taken in connexion with the royal claims to the revenue of a
see during its vacancy, a vacancy which the king could prolong
at his pleasure) a very heavy grievance ; and it was probably
with a view of propitiating Archbishop Langton that the reform
was now proposed.
Carta Johannis Regis ut liberae sint electiones totius
Angliae.
Johannes Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae, dux
Normanniae et Aquitanniae, comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis,
episcopis, comitibus, baronibus, militibus, ballivis et omnibus
has litteras visuris vel audituris salutem. Quoniam inter nos et
venerabiles patres nostros Stephanum Cantuariensem archiepi
scopum totius Angliae primatem et Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae
Cardinalem, WTillelmum Londoniensem, Eustachium Elyensem,
Aegydium Herefordensem, Joscelinum Bathoniensem et Glasto-
niensem, et Hugonem Lincolniensem episcopos, super dampnis
et ablatis tempore interdicti, per Dei gratiam de mera et libera
voluntate utriusque partis plene convenit ; volumus non solum
eis quantum secundum Deum possumus satisfacere, verum etiam
toti ecclesiae Anglicanae salubriter et utiliter in perpetuum
providere : inde est quod qualiscunque consuetudo temporibus
nostris et praedecessorum nostrorum hactenus in ecclesia Angli
cana1 fuerit observata, et quicquid juris nobis hactenus vendi-
caverimus in electionibus quoruincunque praelatorum, nos ad

v.] Articles of the Barons. 289
petitionem ipsorum pro salute animae nostrae et praedecesso
rum ac successorum nostrorum regum Angliae, liberaliter mera
et spontanea voluntate, de communi consensu baronum nostro
rum, concessimus et constituimus et hae praesenti carta nostra
confirmavimus, ut de cetero in universis et singulis ecclesiis et
monasteriis cathedralibus et conventualibus totius regni nostri
Angliae, liberae sint in perpetuum electiones quorumcunque
praelatorum majorum et minorum ; salva nobis et haeredibus
nostris custodia ecclesiarum et monasteriorum vacantium quae
ad nos pertinent. Promittimus etiam quod nee impediemus nee
impediri permittemus per nostros nee procurabimus, quin in
singulis et universis ecclesiis et monasteriis memoratis, postquam
vacaverint praelaturae, quandocunque voluerint, libere sibi prae-
ficiant electores pastorem ; petita tamen prius a nobis et hae
redibus nostris licentia eligendi, quam non denegabimus, nee
differemus. Et si forte, quod absit, denegaremus vel differremus,
procedant nihilominus electores ad electionem canonicam facien
dam : et similiter post celebratam electionem noster requiratur
assensus, quem similiter non denegabimus nisi aliquid rationa-
bile proposuerimus et legitime probaverimus, propter quod non
debeamus consentire. Quare volumus et firmiter inhibemus ne
quis vacantibus ecclesiis vel monasteriis contra hanc nostram
concessionem et constitutionem in aliquo veniat vel venire prae-
sumat. Si quis vero contra hoc aliquo unquam tempore venerit,
maledictionem Omnipotentis Dei et nostram incurrat. Hiis
testibus, Petro Wintoniensi episcopo, Willelmo Mariscallo comite
Penbrokiae, Willelmo comite Warenniae, Randulfo comite Ces-
triae, Saherio comite Wintoniae, Gaufrido de Mandevilla comite
Gloucestriae et Essexiae, Willelmo comite de Ferreriis, Willelmo
Brewer, Warino filio Geroldi, Willelmo de Cantilupo, Hugone
de Nevilla, Roberto de Ver, Willelmo de Huntingfeld. Data per
manum magistri Ricardi de Marisco, Cancellarii nostri, apud
Novum Templum Londoniis, vicesimo primo die Novemhris
anno regni nostri sexto decimo. — (Statutes of the Realm, Char
ters of Liberties, p. 5.)

A.D. 1 2 15. Articles of the Barons.
On the feast of the Epiphany, 1 2 15, the barons made known
their claims to the king. John, after attempting by personal
solicitation to break up the party, promised an answer after
Easter. He then reissued the charter to the clergy (Jan. 15th);
u

290 John. [part
directed the oath of fealty and homage to be taken throughout
England ; and enlisted himself as a Crusader ; both parties in
the meantime consulting the Pope. On the 27th of April, the
day fixed for the king's answer, the barons assembled in force at
Brackley. The king, who was at Oxford, sent to ask the details
of their claims ; and whilst refusing to grant them, proposed
(May 10th) an arbitration to be made by the pope and eight per
sons, four chosen by himself and four by the barons. But before
this was done they had (May 5th), at Reading or at Wallingford,
renounced their allegiance to John, and begun to attack the
royal castles. On the 24th of IVbay they were received at
London, and the king's remaining friends began to negotiate
with them. A meeting was agreed on for the 9th of June, but
postponed to the 15th, when the barons presented the following
Articles, and the Great Charter, in which the king accepted the
terms, was executed.
Ista sunt Capitula quae Barones petunt et dominus Rex concedit,
1. Post decessum antecessorum haeredes plenae aetatis habe
bunt haereditatem suam per antiquum relevium exjjrimendum
in carta.
2. Haeredes qui infra aetatem sunt et fuerint in custodia,
cum ad aetatem pervenerint habebunt haereditatem suam sine
relevio et fine.
3. Custos terrae haeredis capiat rationabiles exitus, con
suetudines, et servitia, sine destructione et vasto hominum
et rerum suarum, et si custos terrae fecerit destructionem et
vastum, amittat custodiam ; et custos sustentabit domos, parcos,
vivaria, stagna, molendina et cetera, ad terram illam pertinentia,
de exitibus terrae ejusdem ; et ut haeredes ita maritentur ne
disparagentur et per consilium propinquorum de consanguini-
tate sua.
4. Ne vidua det aliquid pro dote sua, vel maritagio, post
decessum mariti sui, sed maneat in domo sua per xl. dies post
mortem ipsius, et infra terminum ilium assignetur ei dos; et
maritagium statim habeat et haereditatem suam.
5. Rex vel ballivus non saisiet terram aliquam pro debito
dum catalla debitoris sufficiunt ; nee plegii debitoris distrin-
gantur, dum capitalis debitor sufficit ad solutionem ; si vero
capitalis debitor defecerit in solutione, si plegii voluerint, habeant

v.] Articles of the Barons. 291
terras debitoris donee debitum illud persolvatur plene, nisi
capitalis debitor monstrare poterit se esse inde quietum erga
plegios. 6. Rex non concedet alicui baroni quod capiat auxilium
de liberis hominibus suis, nisi ad corpus suum redimendum,
et ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem, et ad
primogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam, et hoc faciet per
rationabile auxilium.
7. Ne aliquis majus servitium faciat de feodo militis quam
inde debetur.
8. Ut communia placita non sequantur curiam domini regis
sed assignentur in aliquo certo loco ; et ut recognitiones capi
antur in eisdem comitatibus, in hunc modum ; ut rex mittat
duos justiciarios per iiii01" vices in anno, qui cum iiii01" militibus
ejusdem comitatus electis per comitatum, capiant assisas de
nova dissaisina, morte antecessoris, et ultima praesentatione, nee
aliquis ob hoc sit summonitus nisi juratores et duae partes.
9. Ut liber homo amercietur pro parvo delicto secundum
modum delicti, et pro magno delicto secundum magnitudinem
delicti, salvo continemento suo ; villanus etiam eodem modo
amercietur, salvo waynagio suo ; et mercator eodem modo,
salva marcandisa, per sacramentum proborum hominum de
visneto. 10. Ut clericus amercietur de laico feodo suo secundum
modum aliorum praedictorum, et non secundum beneficium
ecclesiasticum. 11. Ne aliqua villa amercietur pro pontibus faciendis ad
riparias, nisi ubi de jure antiquitus esse solebant.
1 2. Ut mensura vini, bladi, et latitudines pannorum et rerum
aliarum, emendetur ; et ita de ponderibus.
13. Ut assisae de nova dissaisina et de morte antecessoris
abbrevientur ; et similiter de aliis assisis.
14. Ut nullus vicecomes intromittat se de placitis ad coronam
pertinentibus sine coronatoribus ; et ut comitatus et hundreda
sint ad antiquas firmas absque nullo incremento, exceptis domi-
nicis maneriis regis.
15. Si aliquis tenens de rege moriatur, licebit vicecomiti vel
alii ballivo regis seisire et imbreviare catallum ipsius per visum
legalium hominum, ita tamen quod nihil inde amoveatur, donee
plenius sciatur si debeat aliquod liquidum debitum domino regi;
et tunc debitum regis persolvatur, residuum vero relinquatur
executoribus ad faciendum testamentum defuncti; et si nihil
regi debetur omnia catalla cedant defuncto.
16. Si aliquis liber homo intestatus decesserit, bona sua per
u 2

292 John. [part
manum proximorum parentum suorum et amicorum et per
visum ecclesiae distribuantar.
17. Ne viduae distringantur ad se maritandum, dum volu
erint sine marito vivere ; ita tamen quod securitatem facient
quod non maritabunt se sine assensu regis, si de rege teneant,
vel dominorum suorum de quibus tenent.
18. Ne constabularius vel alius ballivus capiat blada vel alia
catalla, nisi statim denarios inde reddat, nisi respectum habere
possit de voluntate venditoris.
19. Ne constabularius possit distringere aliquem militem ad
dandum denarios pro custodia castri, si voluerit facere custo-
diam illam in propria persona vel per alium probum hominem, si
ipse earn facere non possit per rationabilem causam ; et si rex
eum duxerit in exercitum, sit quietus de custodia secundum
quantitatem temporis.
20. Ne vicecomes, vel ballivus regis, vel aliquis alius, capiat
equos vel carettas alicujus liberi hominis pro cariagio faciendo,
nisi ex voluntate ipsius.
21. Ne rex vel ballivus suus capiat alienum boscum ad castra
vel ad alia agenda sua, nisi per voluntatem ipsius cujus boscus
ille fuerit.
22. Ne rex teneat terram eorum qui fuerint convicti de
felonia, nisi per unum annum et unum diem, sed tunc reddatur
domino feodi.
23. Ut omnes kidelli de cetero penitus deponantur de Tamisia
et Medewaye et per totam Angliam.
24. Ne breve quod vocatur praecipe de cetero fiat alicui de
aliquo tenemento unde liber homo amittat curiam suam.
25. Si quis fuerit disseisitos vel prolongatus per regem sine
judicio de terris, libertatibus, et jure suo, statim ei restituatur ;
et si contentio super hoc orta fuerit, tunc inde disponatur per
judicium xxv. baronum ; et ut illi qui fuerint dissaisiti per
patrem vel fratrem regis rectum habeant sine dilatione per
judicium parium suorum in curia regis ; et si rex debeat habere
terminum aliorum cruce signatorum, tunc archiepiscopus et
episcopi faciant inde judicium ad certum diem, appellatione
remota. 26. Ne aliquid detur pro brevi inquisitionis de vita vel mem-
bris, sed libere concedatur sine pretio et non negetur.
27. Si aliquis tenet de rege per feodi firmam, per sokagium,
vel per burgagium, et de alio per servitium militis, dominus rex
non habebit custodiam militum de feodo alterius, occasione
burgagii vel sokagii, nee debet habere custodiam burgagii,
sokagii, vel feodi firmae ; et quod liber homo non amittat

v.] Articles of the Barons. 293
militiam suam occasione parvarum sergantisarum, sicuti de illis
qui tenent aliquod tenementum reddendo inde cuttellos vel
sagittas vel hujusmodi.
28. Ne aliquis ballivus possit ponere aliquem ad legem
simplici loquela sua sine testibus fidelibus.
29. Ne corpus liberi hominis capiatur, nee imprisonetur,
nee dissaisietur, nee utlagetur, nee exuletur, nee aliquo modo
destruatur, nee rex eat vel mittat super eum vi, nisi per judi
cium parium suorum vel per legem terrae.
30. Ne jus vendatur vel differatur vel vetitum sit.
3 1 . Quod mercatores habeant salvum ire et venire ad emen-
dum vel vendendum, sine omnibus malis toltis per antiquas et
rectas consuetudines.
32. Ne scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in regno, nisi per
commune consilium regni, nisi ad corpus regis redimendum, et
primogenitum filium suum militem faciendum, et filiam suam
primogenitam semel maritandam ; et ad hoc fiat rationabile aux
ilium. Simili modo fiat de taillagiis et auxiliis de civitate Lon
doniarum, et de aliis civitatibus quae inde habent libertates ;
et ut civitas Londoniarum plene habeat antiquas libertates et
liberas consuetudines suas, tam per aquas, quam per terras.
33. Ut liceat unicuique exire de regno et redire, salva fide
domini regis, nisi tempore werrae per aliquod breve tempus
propter communem utilitatem regni.
34. Si quis mutuo aliquid acceperit a Judaeis plus vel minus,
et moriatur antequam debitum illud solvatur, debitum non usu-
rabit quamdiu haeres fuerit infra aetatem, de quocumque
teneat ; et si debitum illud inciderit in manum regis, rex non
capiet nisi catallum quod continetur in carta.
35. Si quis moriatur et debitum debeat Judaeis, uxor ejus
habeat dotem suam ; et si liberi remanserint, provideantur eis
necessaria secundum tenementum ; et de residuo solvatur debi
tum salvo servitio dominorum ; simili modo fiat de aliis debitis ;
et ut custos terrae reddat haeredi, cum ad plenam aetatem per-
venerit, terram suam instauratam secundum quod rationabiliter
poterit sustinere de exitibus terrae ejusdem de carucis et wain-
nagiis. 36. Si quis tenuerit de aliqua eskaeta, sicut de honore
Walingefordiae, Notingeham, Bononiae, et Lankastriae, et de
aliis eskaetis quae sunt in manu regis et sunt baroniae, et obierit,
haeres ejus non dabit aliud relevium vel faciet regi aliud servi
tium quam faceret baroni ; et ut rex eodem modo eam teneat
quo baro eam tenuit.
37. Ut fines qui facti sunt pro dotibus, maritagiis, haeredi-

294 John. [part
tatibus, et amerciamentis, injuste et contra legem terrae, omnino
condonentur ; vel fiat inde per judicium xxv. baronum, vel per
judicium majoris partis eorumdem, una cum archiepiscopo et
aliis quos secum vocare voluerit, ita quod, si aliquis vel aliqui de
xxv. fuerint in simili querela, amoveantur et alii loco illorum
per residuos de xxv. substituantur.
38. Quod obsides et cartae reddantur, quae liberatae fuerunt
regi in secnritatem.
39. Ut illi qui fuerint extra forestam non veniant coram jus-
ticiariis de foresta per communes summonitiones, nisi sint in
placito vel plegii fuerint ; et ut pravae consuetudines de forestis
et de forestariis, et warenniis, et vicecomitibus, et rivariis,
emendentur per xii. milites de quolibet comitatu, qui debent
eligi per probos homines ejusdem comitatus.
40. Ut rex amoveat penitus de balliva parentes et totam
sequelam Gerardi de Atyes ; quod de cetero balliam non
habeant; scilicet Engelardum, Andream, Petrum, et Gyonem
de Cancellis, Gyonem de Cygoniis, Matthaeum de Martiny, et
fratres ejus ; et Galfridum nepotem ejus et Philippum Mark.
41. Et ut rex amoveat alienigenas milites stipendiarios balis-
tarios, et ruttarios, et servientes qui veniunt cum equis et armis
ad nocumentum regni.
42. Ut rex faciat justiciarios, constabularies, vicecomites, et
ballivos, de talibus qui sciant legem terrae et eam bene velint
observare. 43. Ut barones qui fundaverunt abbatias, unde habent cartas
regum vel antiquam tenuram, habeant custodiam earum cum
vacaverint. 44. Si rex Walenses dissaisierit vel elongaverit de terris vel
libertatibus, vel de rebus aliis in Anglia vel in Wallia, eis statim
sine placito reddantur; et si fuerint dissaisiti vel elongati de
tenementis suis Angliae per patrem vel fratrem regis sine judicio
parium suorum, rex eis sine dilatione justiciam exhibebit, eo
modo quo exhibet Anglicis justiciam de tenementis suis Angliae
secundum legem Angliae, et de tenementis Walliae secundum
legem Walliae, et de tenementis marchiae secundum legem
marchiae ; idem facient Walenses regi et suis.
45. Ut rex reddat filium Lewelini "
et praeterea omnes obsides de Wallia,
et cartas quae ei liberatae fuerunt in
securitatem pacis, 
46. Ut rex faciat regi Scottorum
de obsidibus reddendis, et de liberta
tibus suis, et jure suo, secundum for-
mam quam facit baronibus Angliae, . . .

nisi aliter esse debeat per
cartas quas rex habet, per
judicium archiepiscopi et
aliorum quos secum vo
care voluerit.

v.] Articles of the Barons. 295
47- Et omnes forestae quae sunt aforestatae per regem tem
pore suo deafforestentur, et ita fiat de ripariis quae per ipsum
regem sunt in defense
48. Omnes autem istas consuetudines et libertates quas rex
concessit regno tenendas quantum ad se pertinet erga suos.
omnes de regno tam clerici quam laici observabunt quantum ad
se pertinet erga suos.
Haec est forma securitatis ad observandum pacem et liber
tates inter regem et regnum. Barones eligent xxv. barones
de regno quos voluerint, qui debent pro totis viribus suis obser
vare, tenere, et facere observari, pacem et libertates quas
dominus rex eis concessit et carta sua confirmavit ; ita videlicet
quod si rex, vel justiciarius, vel ballivi regis, vel aliquis de
ministris suis, in aliquo erga aliquem deliquerit, vel aliquem
articulorum pacis aut securitatis transgressus fuerit, et delictum
ostensum fuerit iiiior baronibus de praedictis xxv. baronibus, illi
iiii01" barones accedent ad dominum regem, vel ad justiciarium
suum, si rex fuerit extra regnum, proponentes ei excessum :
petent ut excessum ilium sine dilatione faciat emendari ; et si
rex vel justiciarius ejus illud non emendaverit, si rex fuerit
extra regnum, infra rationabile tempus determinandum in carta,
praedicti iiii°r referent causam illam ad residuos de illis xxv.
baronibus, et illi xxv. cum communa totius terrae distringent et
gravabunt regem modis omnibus quibus poterunt, scilicet per
captionem castrorum, terrarum, possessionum, et aliis modis
quibus poterunt, donee fuerit emendatum secundum arbitrium
eorum, salva persona domini regis et reginae et liberorum
suorum ; et, cum fuerit emendatum, intendant domino regi
sicut prius ; et quicumque voluerit de terra jurabit se ad prae
dicta exsequenda pariturum mandatis praedictorum xxv. baro
num, et gravaturum regem pro posse suo cum ipsis; et rex
publice et libere dabit licentiam jurandi cuilibet qui jurare
voluerit, et nulli umquam jurare prohibebit ; omnes autem illos
de terra qui sponte sua et per se noluerint jurare xxv. baronibus
de distringendo et gravando regem cum eis, rex faciet jurare
eosdem de mandato suo sicut praedictum est. Item si aliquis
de praedictis xxv. baronibus decesserit, vel a terra recesserit,
vel aliquo modo alio impeditos fuerit, quo minus ista praedicta
possint exsequi, qui residui fuerint de xxv. eligent alium loco
ipsius pro arbitrio suo, qui simili modo erit juratus quo et
ceteri. In omnibus autem quae istis xxv. baronibus commit-
tuntur exsequenda, si forte ipsi xxv. praesentes fuerint et inter
se super re aliqua discordaverint, vel aliqui ex eis vocati nolint
vel nequeant interesse, ratum habebitur et firmum quod major

296 John. [part
pars ex eis providerit vel praeceperit, ac si omnes xxv. in hoc
consensissent ; et praedicti xxv. jurabunt quod omnia antedicta
fideliter observabunt et pro toto posse suo facient observari.
Praeterea rex faciet eos securos per cartas archiepiscopi et epi
scoporum et magistri Pandulfi, quod nihil impetrabit a domino
papa per quod aliqua istarum conventionum revocetur vel minu-
atur, et, si aliquid tale impetraverit, reputetur irritum et inane
et nun quam eo utatur. — (Blackstones Charters, pp. 1-9.)

A.D. 1 2 15. Great Charter of Liberties.
The whole of the Constitutional History of England is a com
mentary on this charter ; the illustration of which must be
looked for in the documents that precede and follow.
Johannes Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hyberniae, dux
Normanniae et Aquitanniae, comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis,
episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, justiciariis, forestariis,
vicecomitibus, praepositis, ministris et omnibus ballivis et fidelibus
suis salutem. Sciatis nos intuitu Dei et pro salute animae nostrae
et omnium antecessorum et haeredum nostrorum, ad honorem
Dei et exaltationem sanctae ecclesiae, et emendationem regni
nostri, per consilium venerabilium patrum nostrorum, Stephani
Cantuariensis archiepiscopi totius Angliae primatis et sanctae
Romanae ecclesiae cardinalis, Henrici Dublinensis archiepi
scopi, Willelmi Londoniensis, Petri Wintoniensis, Joscelini
Bathoniensis et Glastoniensis, Hugonis Lincolniensis, Walteri
Wygornensis, Willelmi Coventrensis, et Benedicti Roffensis epi
scoporum ; magistri Pandulfi domini papae subdiaconi et fami-
liaris, fratris Eymerici magistri militiae templi in Anglia ;
et nobilium virorum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrok,
Willelmi comitis Saresberiae, Willelmi comitis Warenniae, Wil
lelmi comitis Arundelliae, Alani de Galweya constabularii
Scottiae, Warini filii Geroldi, Petri filii Hereberti, Huberti de
Burgo senescalli Pictaviae, Hugonis de Nevilla, Mathei filii
Hereberti, Thomae Basset, Alani Basset, Philippi de Albiniaco,
Roberti de Roppelay, Johannis Mariscalli, Johannis filii Hugonis
et aliorum fidelium nostrorum ;
1. In primis concessisse Deo et hae praesenti carta nostra
confirmasse, pro nobis et haeredibus nostris in perpetuum, quod
Anglicana ecclesia libera sit, et habeat jura sua integra, et
libertates suas illaesas ; et ita volumus observari ; quod apparet
ex eo quod libertatem electionum, quae maxima et magis neces-

yO Magna Carta. 297
saria reputatur ecclesiae Anglicanae, mera et spontanea volun
tate, ante discordiam inter nos et barones nostros niotam,
concessimus et carta nostra confirmavimus, et eam optinuimus
a domino papa Innocentio tertio confirmari ; quam et nos ob-
servabimus et ab haeredibus nostris in perpetuum bona fide
volumus observari. Concessimus etiam omnibus liberis homini
bus regni nostri, pro nobis et haeredibus nostris in perpetuum,
omnes libertates subscriptas, habendas et tenendas, eis et haere
dibus suis, de nobis et haeredibus nostris ;
2. Si quis comitum vel baronum nostrorum, sive aliorum
tenendum de nobis in_capjte per servitium militare, mortuus
fuerit, et cum decesserit haeres suus plenae aetatis fuerit et
relevium debeat, habeat haereditatem suam per antiquum re
levium; scilicet haeres vel haeredes comitis de baronia comitis
integra per centum libras ; haeres veT haeredes baronis~~3e
baronia integra per centum libras ; haeres vel haeredes militis
defeodo militis integro per centum solidos ad plus ; et qui
minus debuerit minus det secundum antiquam consuetudinem
feodorum. 3. Si autem haeres alicujus talium fuerit infra aetatem et
fuerit in custodia, cum ad aetatem pervenerit, habeat haeredi
tatem suam sine relevio et sine fine.
4. Custos terrae hujusmodi haeredis qui infra aetatem fuerit,
non capiat de terra haeredis nisi rationabiles exitus, et rationa-
biles consuetudines, et rationabilia servitia, et hoc sine destruc-
tione et vasto hominum vel rerum ; et si nos commiserimus
custodiam alicujus talis terrae vicecomiti vel alicui alii qui de
exitibus illius nobis respondere debeat, et ille destructionem de
custodia fecerit vel vastum, nos ab illo capiemus emendam, et
terra committator duobus legalibus et discretis hominibus de
feodo illo, qui de exitibus respondeant nobis vel ei cui eos
assignaverimus ; et si dederimus vel vendiderimus alicui cus
todiam alicujus talis terrae, et ille destructionem inde fecerit vel
vastum, amittat ipsam custodiam, et tradatur duobus legalibus
et discretis hominibus de feodo illo qui similiter nobis respon
deant sicut praedictum est.
5. Custos autem, quamdiu custodiam terrae habuerit, sus-
tentet domos, parcos, vivaria, stagna, molendina, et cetera ad
terram illam pertinentia, "de~exitibus terrae ejusdem ; Jet reddat
haeredi, cum ad plenam aetatem pervenerit, terram suam totam
instauratam de carrucis et wainnagiis secundum quod tempus
wainnagii exiget et exitus terrae rationabiliter poterunt sus-
tinere. 6. Haeredes maritentur absque disparagatione, ita 'tamen

298 John. [part
quod, antequam contrahatur matrimonium, ostendatur propin-
quis de consanguinitate ipsius haeredis.
7. Vidua post mortem mariti sui statim et sine difficultate
habeat maritagium et haereditatem suam, nee aliquid det pro
dote sua, vel pro maritagio^suo, vel haereditate sua quam
haereditatem maritus suus et ipsa tenuerint die obitus ipsius
mariti, et maneat in domo mariti sui per quadraginta dies post
mortem ipsius infra quos assignetur ei dos sua.
8. Nulla vidua distringatur ad se maritandum dum voluerit
vivere sine marito, ita tamen quod securitatem faciat quod se
non maritabit sine assensu nostro, si de nobis tenuerit, vel sine
assensu domini sui de quo tenuerit, si de alio tenuerit.
9. Nee nos nee ballivi nostri seisiemus terram aliquam nee
redditojp. pro debito aliquo, quamdiu catalla debitoris sufficiunt
ad debitum reddendum ; nee pleggii ipsius debitoris distrin-
gantur quamdiu ipse capitalis debitor sufficit ad solutionem
debiti ; et si capitalis debitor defecerit in solutione debiti, non
habens unde solvat, pleggii respondeant de debito ; et, si voluerint,
habeant terras et redditus debitoris donee sit eis satisfactum de
debito quod ante pro eo solverint, nisi capitalis debitor monstra-
verit se esse quietum inde versus eosdem pleggios.
10. Si quis mutoo ceperit aliquid a Judaeis, ^lus vel minus,
et moriatur antequam debitum ilium solvatur, debitum non
usuret quamdiu haeres fuerit infra aetatem, de quocumque
teneat ; et si debitum illud inciderit in manus nostras, nos non
capiemus nisi catallum contentum in carta.
11. Et si quis moriatur, et debitum debeat Judaeis, uxor
ejus habeat dotem suam, et nihil reddat de debito illo; et si
liberi ipsius defuncti qui fueriut infra aetatem remanserint,
provideantur eis necessaria secundum tenementum quod fuerit
defuncti, et de residuo solvatur debitum, salvo servitio do
minorum ; simili modo fiat de debitis quae debentur aliis quam
Judaeis. 12. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in regno nostro,
nisi per commune consilium regni nostri, nisi ad corpus nos
trum redimendum, et primogenitum filium nostrum militem
faciendum, et ad filiam nostram primogenitam semel maritan-
dam, et ad haec non fiat nisi rationabile auxilium : simili modo
fiat de auxiliis de civitate Londoniarum.
13. Et civitas Londoniarum haTaeat omnes antiquas libertates
et liberas consuetudines suas, tam per terras, quam per aquas.
Praeterea volumuset concedimus quod omnes aliae civitates, et
burgi, et villae, et portus, habeant omnes libertates. et liberas
consuetudines suas.

v.] Magna Carta. 299
14. Et ad habendum commune consilium regni, de auxilio
assidendo aliter quam in tribus casibus praedictis, vel de scu-
tagio assidendo, summoneri"iaciemiis_arcniepiscopos, episcopos,
abbates, comites, et majores barones, siglTTatim per litteras
nostras ; et praeterea faciemus summoneri ~m_generali, per
viceconjites et ballivos nostros, omnes illos qui de nobis tenent
in capite ; ad certum diem, scilicet ad terminum quadraginta
dierum ad minus, etad certum locum ; et in omnibus litteris
illius summonitionis causam summonitionis exprimemus ; et sic
facta summonitione negotium ad diem assignatum procedat
secundum consilium illorum qui praesentes_ fuerint, quamvis
non omnes sunvnTonitfvenerint.
15. Nos non concedemus de cetero alicui quod capiat auxi
lium de liberis hominibus suis, nisi ad corpus suum redimendum,
et ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem, et ad pri-
mogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam, et ad haec non fiat
nisi rationabile auxilium.
16. Nullus distringatur ad faciendum majus servitium de
feodo militis, nee de alio libero tenemento, quam inde debetur.
17. Comjrrunia placita non sequantur curiam nostram sed
teneantur in aliquo loco certo.
18. Recognitiones de nova dissaisina, de morte antecessoris,
et de ultima praesentatione, non capiantur nisi in suis comitati
bus et hoc modo ; ncs, vel si extra regnum fuerimus, capitalis1)
justiciarius noster, mittemus duos justiciaries per unumquemque \
comitatum per quatuor vices in anno, qui, cum quatuor mili
tibus cujuslibet comitatus electis per comitatum, capiant in
comitatu et in die et loco comitatus assisas praedictas.
19. Et si in die comitatus assisae praedictae capi non possint,
tot milites et libere tenentes remaneant de illis qui interfuerint
comitatui die illo, per quos possint judicia sufficienter fieri, se
cundum quod negotium fuerit majus vel minus.
20. Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto, nisi secun
dum modum delicti ; et pro magno delicto amercietur secundum
magnitudinem delicti, salvo contenemento suo ; et mercator
eodem modo salva mercandisa sua ; et villanus eodem modo
amercietur salvo wainnagio suo, si inciderint in misericordiam
nostram ; et nulla praedictarum misericordiarum ponatur, nisi
per sacramentum proborum hominum de visneto.
21. Comites et barones non amercientur nisi per pares suos,
et non nisi secundum modum delicti.
22. Nullus clericus amercietur de laico tenemento suo, nisi
secundum modum aliorum praedictorum, et non secundum
quantitatem beneficii sui ecclesiastici.

300 i i. John. [part
^^
23. Nee villa nee homo distringatur facere pontes ad riparias,
nisi qui ab antiquo et de jure facere debent.
24. Nullus vicecomes, constabularius, coronatores, vel alii
ballivi nostri, teneant placita coronae nostrae.
25. Omnes comitatus, hundredi, wapentakii, et trethingii,
sint ad antiquas firmas absque ullo incremento, exceptis. do-
minicis maneriis nostris.
26. Si aliquis tenens de nobis laicum feodum moriatur, et
vicecomes vel ballivus noster ostendat litteras nostras patentes
de summonitione nostra de debito quod defunctus nobis debuit,
liceat vicecomiti vel ballivo nostro attachiare et inbreviare
catalla defuncti inventa in laico feodo, ad valentiam illius debiti,
per visum legalium hominum, ita tamen quod nihil inde amo-
veatur, donee persolvatur nobis debitum quod clarum fuerit ; et
residuum relinquatur executoribus ad faciendum testamentum
defuncti ; et, si nihil nobis debeatur ab ipso, omnia catalla
cedant defuncto, salvis uxori ipsius et pueris rationabilibus par
tibus suis.
27. Si aliquis liber homo intestatus decesserit, catalla sua per
manus propinquorum parentum et amicorum suorum, per visum
ecclesiae distribuantur, salvis unicuique debitis quae defunctus
ei debebat. 28. Nullus constabularius, vel alius ballivus noster, capiat
blada vel alia catalla alicujus, nisi statim inde reddat denarios,
aut respectum inde habere possit de voluntate venditoris.
29. Nullus constabularius distringat aliquem militem ad dan-
dum denarios pro custodia castri, si facere voluerit custodiam
illam in propria persona sua, vel per alium probum hominem, si
ipse eam facere non possit propter rationabilem causam ; et si
nos duxerimus vel miserimus eum in exercitum, erit quietus
de custodia, secundum quantitatem temporis quo per nos fuerit
in exercitu.
30. Nullus vicecomes, vel ballivus noster, vel aliquis alius,
capiat equos vel caretas alicujus liberi hominis pro cariagio
faciendo, nisi de voluntate ipsius liberi hominis.
31. Nee nos nee ballivi nostri capiemus alienum boscnm ad
castra, vel alia agenda nostra, nisi per voluntatem ipsius cujus
boscus ille fuerit.
32. Nos non tenebimus terras illorum qui convicti fuerint de
felonia, nisi per unum annum et unum diem, et tunc reddantur
terrae dominis feodorum.
33. Omnes kydelli de cetero deponantur penitus de Thamisia,
et de Medewaye, et per totam Angliam, nisi per costeram

v.] Magna Carta. 301
34. Breve quod vocatur Praecipe de cetero non fiat alicui
de aliquo tenemento unde liber homo amittere possit curiam
suam. 35. Una mensura vini sit per totum regnum nostrum, et una
mensura cervisiae, et una mensura bladi, scilicet quarterium
Londoniense, et una latitudo pannorum tinctorum et russet-
torum et halbergettorum, scilicet duae ulnae infra listas ; de
ponderibus autem sit ut de mensuris.
36. Nihil detur vel capiatur de cetero pro brevi inqui-
sitionis de vita vel membris, sed gratis concedatur et non
negetur. 37. Si aliquis teneat de nobis per feodifirmam, vel per soka-
gium, vel per burgagium, et de alio terram teneat per servitium
militare, nos non habebimus custodiam haeredis nee terrae suae
quae est de feodo alterius, occasione illius feodifirmae, vel
sokagii, vel burgagii ; nee habebimus custodiam illius feodi
firmae, vel sokagii, vel burgagii, nisi ipsa feodifirma debeat
servitium militare. Nos non habebimus custodiam haeredis vel
terrae alicujus, quam tenet de alio per servitium militare, occa
sione alicujus parvae sergenteriae quam tenet de nobis per servi
tium reddendi nobis cultellos, vel sagittas, vel hujusmodi.
38. Nullus ballivus ponat de cetero aliquem ad legem simplici
loquela sua, sine testibus fidelibus ad hoc inductis.
39. Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut dis-
saisiatur, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur,
uec super eum ibimus, nee super eum mittemus, nisi per legale
judicium parium suorum vel per legem terrae.
40. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus, rectum
aut justiciam.
41. Omnes mercatores habeant salvum et securum exire de
Anglia, et venire in Angliam, et morari et ire per Angliam, tam
per terram quam per aquam, ad emendum et vendendum, sine
omnibus malis toltis, per antiquas et rectas consuetudines, prae-
terquam in tempore gwgrrae, et si sint de terra contra nos
gwerrina ; et si tales inveniantur in terra nostra in principio
gwerrae, attachientur sine dampno corporum et rerum, donee
sciatur a nobis vel capitali justiciario nostro quomodo merca
tores terrae nostrae tractentur, qui tunc invenientur in terra
contra nos gwerrina ; et si nostri salvi sint ibi, alii salvi sint in
terra nostra.
42. Liceat unicuique de cetero exire de regno nostro, et redire,
salvo et secure, per terram et per aquam, salva fide nostra,
nisi tempore gwerrae per aliquod breve tempus, propter com
munem utilitatem regni, exceptis imprisonatis et ut1--

30a John. [part
secundum legem regni, et gente de terra contra nos gwerrina,
et mercatoribus de quibus fiat sicut praedictum est.
, 43. Si quis tenuerit de aliqua escaeta, sicut de honore
Walingeford, Notingeham, Bononiae, Lainkastriae, vel de aliis
eskaetis, quae sunt in manu nostra, et sunt baroniae, et obierit,
haeres ejus non det aliud relevium, nee faciat nobis aliud ser
vitium quam faceret baroni si baronia ilia esset in manu baronis ;
et nos eodem modo eam tenebimus quo baro eam tenuit.
44. Homines qui manent extra forestam non veniant de
cetero coram justiciariis nostris de foresta per communes sum
monitiones, nisi sint in placito, vel pleggii alicujus vel aliquorum,
qui attachiati sint pro foresta.
45. Nos non faciemus justiciaries, constabularios, vicecomites,
vel ballivos, nisi de talibus qui sciant legem regni et eam bene
velint observare.
46. Omnes barones qui fundaverunt abbatias, unde habent
cartas regum Angliae, vel antiquam tenuram, habeant earum
custodiam cum vacaverint, sicut habere debent.
47. Omnes forestae quae aforestatae sunt tempore nostro,
statim deafforestentur ; et ita fiat de ripariis quae per nos tem
pore nostro positae sunt in defenso.
48. Omnes malae consuetudines de forestis et warennis, et de
forestariis et warennariis, vicecomitibus et eorum ministris,
ripariis et earum custodibus, statim inquirantur in quolibet
comitatu per duodecim milites juratos de eodem comitatu, qui
debent eligi per probos homines ejusdem comitatus, et infra
quadraginta dies post inquisitionem factam, penitus, ita quod
numquam revocentur, deleantur per eosdem, ita quod nos hoc
sciamus prius, vel justiciarius noster, si in Anglia non fuerimus.
49. Omnes obsides et cartas statim reddemus quae liberatae
fuerunt nobis ab Anglicis in securitatem pacis vel fidelis
servitii. 50. Nos amovebimus penitus de balliis parentes Gerardi de
Athyes, quod de cetero nullam habeant balliam in Anglia;
Engelardum de Cygoniis, Andream, Petrum et Gyonem de Can-
cellis, Gyonem de Cygoniis, Galfridum de Martyni et fratres ejus,
Philippum Mark et fratres ejus, et Galfridum nepotem ejus, et
totam sequelam eorumdem.
5 1 . Et statim post pacis reformationem amovebimus de regno
omnes alienigenas milites, balistarios, servientes, stipendiarios,
qui venerint cum equis et armis ad nocumentum regni
52. Si quis fuerit disseisitus vel elongatus per nos sine legali
judicio parium suorum, de terris, castallis, libertatibus, vel jure
suo, statim ea ei restitoemus; et si contentio super hoc orta

v.] Magna Carta. 303
fuerit, tunc inde fiat per judicium 'viginti quinque baronum, de
quibus fit mentio inferius in securitate paois : de omnibus autem
illis de quibus aliquis disseisitus fuerit vel elongatus sine legali
judicio parium suorum, per Henricum regem patrem nostrum vel
per Ricardum regem fratrem nostrum, quae in manu nostra
habemus, vel quae alii tenent, quae nos oporteat warantizare,
respectum habebimus usque ad communem terminum crucesigna-
torum ; exceptis illis de quibus placitum motum fuit vel inqui
sitio facta per praeceptum nostrum, ante susceptionem crucis
nostrae : cum autem redierimus de peregrinatione nostra, vel si
forte remanserimus a peregrinatione nostra, statim inde plenam
justiciam exhibebimus.
53. Eundem autem respectum habebimus, et eodem modo, de^
justicia exhibenda de forestis deafforestandis vel remansuris
forestis, quas Henricus pater noster vel Ricardus frater noster
afforestaverunt, (et de custodiis terrarum quae sunt de alieno
feodo, cujusmodi custodias hucusque habuimus occasione feodi
quod aliquis de nobis tenuit per servitium militare, jet de abbatiis (
quae fundatae fuerint in feodo alterius quam nostro, in quibus
dominus feodi dixerit se jus habere ; et cum redierimus, vel si
remanserimus a peregrinatione nostra, super hiis conquerentibus
plenam justiciam statim exhibebimus.
54. Nullus capiatur nee imprisonetur propter appellum
foeminae de morte alterius quam viri sui.
55. Omnes fines qui injuste et contra legem terrae facti sunt
nobiscum, et omnia amerciamenta facta injuste et contra legem
terrae, omnino condonentur, vel fiat inde per judicium viginti
quinque baronum de quibus fit mentio inferius in securitate
pacis, vel per judicium majoris partis eorumdem, una cum prae
dicto Stephano Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, si interesse poterit,
et aliis quos secum ad hoc vocare voluerit : et si interesse non
poterit, nihilominus procedat negotium sine eo, ita quod, si
aliquis vel aliqui de praedictis viginti quinque baronibus fuerint
in simili querela, amoveantur quantum ad hoc judicium, et alii
loco illorum per residuos de eisdem viginti quinque, tantum
ad hoc faciendum electi et jurati substituantur.
56. Si nos dissaisivimus vel elongavimus Walenses de terris
vel libertatibus vel rebus aliis, sine legali judicio parium suorum,
in Anglia vel in Wallia, eis statim reddantur ; et si contentio
super hoc orta fuerit, tunc inde fiat in marchia per judicium
parium suorum, de tenementis Angliae secundum legem Angliae,
d.e tenementis Walliae secundum legem Walliae, de tenementis
marchiae secundum legem marchiae. Idem facient Walenses
nobis et nostris.

304 John. [part
57. De omnibus autem illis de quibus aliquis Walensium
dissaisitus fuerit vel elongatus sine legali judicio parium suorum,
per Henricum regem patrem nostrum vel Ricardum regem
fratrem nostrum, quae nos in manu nostra habemus, vel quae
alii tenent quae nos oporteat warantizare, respectum habebimus
usque ad communem terminum crucesignatorum, illis exceptis
de quibus placitum motum fuit vel inquisitio facta per prae-
ceptum nostrum ante susoeptionem cruris nostrae : cum autem
redierimus, vel si forte remanserimus a peregrinatione nostra,
statim eis inde plenam justiciam exhibebimus, secundum leges
Walensium et partes praedictas.
58. Nos reddemus filium Lewelini statim, et omnes obsides de
Wallia, et cartas quae nobis liberatae fuerunt in securitatem
pacis. 59. Nos faciemus Allexandro regi Scottorum de sororibus
suis, et obsidibus reddendis, et libertatibus suis, et jure suo,
secundum formam in qua faciemus aliis baronibus nostris Angliae,
nisi aliter esse debeat per cartas quas habemus de Willelmo patre
ipsius, quondam rege Scottorum ; et hoc erit per judicium
parium suorum in curia nostra.
60. Omnes autem istas consuetudines praedictas et libertates
quas nos concessimus in regno nostro tenendas quantum ad nos
pertinet erga nostros, omnes de regno nostro, tam clerici quam
laici, observent quantum ad se pertinet erga suos.
Cum autem pro Deo, et ad emendationem regni nostri,
et ad melius sopiendum discordiam inter nos et barones nostros
ortam, haec omnia praedicta concesserimus, volentes ea integra
et firma stabilitate gaudere in perpetuum, facimus et concedimus
eis securitatem subscriptam ; videlicet quod barones eh>ant
viginti quinque barones de regno quos voluerint, qui debeant
pro totis viribus suis observare, tenere, et facere observari,
pacem et libertates quas eis concessimus, et hae praesenti carta
nostra confirmavimus, ita scilicet quod, si nos, vel justiciarius
noster, vel ballivi nostri, vel aliquis de ministris nostris, in
aliquo erga aliquem deliquerimus, vel aliquem articulorum pacis
aut securitatis transgressi fuerimus, et delictum ostensum fuerit
quatuor baronibus de praedictis viginti quinque baronibus, illi
quatuor barones accedant ad nos vel ad justiciarium nostrum, si
fuerimus extra regnum, proponentes nobis excessum : petent ut
excessum ilium sine dilatione faciamus emendari. Et si nos
excessum non emendaverimus, vel, si fuerimus extra regnum,
justiciarius noster non emendaverit infra tempus quadraginta
dierum computandum a tempore quo monstratum fuerit nobis
vel justiciario nostro si extra regnum fuerimus, praedicti quatuor

v.] Magna Carta. 305
barones ref erant causam illam ad residuos de viginti quinque
baronibus, et illi viginti quinque barones cum communa totius
terrae distringent et gravabunt nos modis omnibus quibus pote
runt, scilicet per captionem castrorum, terrarum, possessionum,
et aliis modis quibus poterunt, donee fuerit emendatum secun
dum arbitrium eorum, salva persona nostra et reginae nostrae
et Uberorum nostrorum ; et cum fuerit emendatum intendent
nobis sicut prius fecerunt. Et quicumque voluerit de terra
juret quod ad praedicta omnia exsequenda parebit mandatis prae
dictorum viginti quinque baronum, et quod gravabit nos pro
posse suo cum ipsis, et nos publice et libere damus licentiam
jurandi cuilibet qui jurare voluerit, et nulli umquam jurare pro-
hibebimus. Omnes autem illos de terra qui per se et sponte
sua noluerint jurare viginti quinque baronibus, de distringendo
et gravando nos cum eis, faciemus jurare eosdem de mandato
nostro, sicut praedictum est. Et si aliquis de viginti quinque
baronibus decesserit, vel a terra recesserit, vel aliquo alio modo
impeditus fuerit, quo minus ista praedicta possent exsequi, qui
residui fuerint de praedictis viginti quinque baronibus eligant
alium loco ipsius, pro arbitrio suo, qui simili modo erit juratus
quo et ceteri. In omnibus autem quae istis viginti quinque
baronibus committuntur exsequenda, si forte ipsi viginti quinque
praesentes fuerint, et inter se super re aliqua discordaverint,
vel aliqui ex eis summoniti nolint vel nequeant interesse, ratum
habeatur et firmum quod major pars eorum qui praesentes
fuerint providerit, vel praeceperit, ac si omnes viginti quinque
in hoc consensissent ; et praedicti viginti quinque jurent quod
omnia antedicta fideliter observabunt, et pro toto posse suo
facient observari. Et nos nihil impetrabimus ab aliquo, per
nos nee per alium, per quod aliqua istarum concessionum et
libertatum revocetur vel minuatur ; et, si aliquid tale impetra-
torn fuerit, irritum sit et inane et numquam eo utemur per nos
nee per alium.
Et omnes malas voluntates, indignationes, et rancores, ortos
inter nos et homines nostros, clericos et laicos, a tempore
discordiae, plene omnibus remisimus et condonavimus. Prae
terea omnes transgressiones factas occasione ejusdem discordiae,
a Pascha anno regni nostri sextodecimo usque ad pacem refor-
matam, plene remisimus omnibus, clericis et laicis, et quantum
ad nos pertinet plene condonavimus. Et insuper fecimus eis
fieri litteras testimoniales patentes domini Stephaui Cantuariensis
archiepiscopi, domini Henrici Dublinensis archiepiscopi, et
episcoporum praedictorum, et magistri Pandulfi, super securitate
ista et concessionibus praefatis.

306 John. [part
Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod Anglicana
ecclesia libera sit et quod homines in regno nostro habeant et
teneant omnes praefatas ' libertates, jura, et concessioner, bene et
in pace, libere et quiete, plene et integre, sibi et haeredibus suis,
de nobis et haeredibus nostris, in omnibus rebus et locis, in per
petuum, sicut praedictum est. Juratum est autem tam ex parte
nostra quam ex parte baronum, quod haec omnia supradicta
bona fide et sine malo ingenio observabuntur. Testibus supra-
dictis et multis aliis. Data per manum nostram in prato quod
vocatur Runingmede, inter Windelesorum et Staues, quinto
decimo die Junii, anno regni nostri septimo decimo.
Matt. Paris, p. 262. Hi autem sunt xxv. barones electi,
Comes de Clare. Major de Lundoniis.
Comes Albemarlae. Willelmus de Lanvalay.
Comes G-loverniae. Robertus de Ros.
Conies Wintoniensis. Constabularius Cestriae.
Comes Herefordensis. Ricardus de Perci.
Comes Rogerus (Bigot). Johannes Filius Roberti.
Comes Robertus (de Verel. Willelmus Malet.
Willelmus Marescallus, Junior. Gaufridus de Say.
Robertus Filius Walteri, Senior. Rogerus de.Mumbezon.
Gilbertus de Clare. Willelmus de Huntingfeld.
Eustachius de Vesci. Ricardus de Muntfiohet.
Hugo Bigod. Willelmus de Albineio.
Willelmus de Munbrai.

A.D. 1 2 15. Order for Inquiry into Evil Customs.
This letter, which was issued immediately after the publica
tion of the Great Charter, is important as showing the method
of election in the county court, which must be understood as
ruling the cases in which such representation of the county for
diverse purposes, is directed without the mention of election.
Rex vicecomiti, warennariis, custodibus ripariarum et om
nibus baillivis suis in comitatu — salutem. Sciatis pacem fir
mam esse reformatam per Dei gratiam inter nos et barones
et liberos homines regni nostri, sicut audire poteritis et
videre per cartam nostram quam inde fieri fecimus, quam
etiam legi publice praecepimus per totam bailliam vestram et
firmiter teneri ; volentes et districte praecipientes quod tu vice
comes omnes de baillia tua secundum formam cartae praedictae

v.] Charters of Towns. 307
jurare facias xxv. baronibus de quibus mentio fit in carta prae
dicta, ad mandatum eorundem vel majoris partis eorum, coram
ipsis vel illis quos. ad hoc atornaverint per litteras suas patentes,
et ad diem et locum quos ad hoc faciendum praefixerint praedicti
barones vel atornati ab eis ad hoc. Volumus etiam et praecipimus
quod xii. milites de comitatu tuo, qui eligentor de ipso comitatu
in primo comitatu qui tenebitur post susceptionem litterarum
istarum in partibus tuis, jurent de inquirendis pravis consuetudi
nibus tam de vicecomitibus quam eorum ministris, forestis, fores^
tariis, warennis et warennariis, ripariis et earum custodibus, et eis
delendis, sicut in ipsa carta continetur. Vos igitur omnes sicut
nos et honorem nostrum diligitis, et pacem regni nostri, omnia
in carta contenta inviolabiliter observetis et ab omnibus . obser
vari faciatis, ne per defectum vestri, aut per excessum vestrum,
pacem regni nostri, quod Deus avertat, iterum turbari contingat.
Et tu, vicecomes, pacem nostram per totam bailliam tuam cla-
mari facias et firmiter teneri praecipias. Et in hujus, etc. vobis
mittimus. T. me ipso apud Runimede, XIX. die Junii, anno
regni nostri xviimo. — (Patent Rolls, i. 180.}

Charters op Cities and Boroughs granted by John.
The Charter Rolls of John afford specimens of every sort of
charter granted to boroughs in. every stage of growth. The
following are a selection illustrating the various points to which
reference has been made in the earlier portions of this book : —
1. The grant of the Firma burgi; Helleston, no. 9.
2. The grant of freedom ; Helleston, no^ 8.
3. The grant of free customs on the model of a more ancient
borough ; Hartlepool, no. 6.
4. The confirmation of free customs to a typical town ; York,
no. 5.
5. The confirmation of former charters, with the grant of
election of reeve to the borough at large ; Lincoln,
no. 4.
6. Similar grant with special reference to the merchant guild ;
Nottingham, no. 1.
7. Similar grant ; with reference of the choice of reeve to the
sheriff of the county ; Northampton, no. 2,
x 7

308 John. [part
8. Grant of special privileges exempting from shiremoot
and hundredmoot ; Dunwich, no. 3.
9. Foundation of a Communa ; Niort, no. 7.
10. Grant to the Londoners of the privilege of choosing their
Mayor; no. 10.
The last of these must be regarded as conferring the crowning
privilege on the community and constituting it a perfect muni
cipality. The mayoralty of London dates from the earliest
years of Richard I, probably from the foundation of that com
muna which was confirmed on the occasion of William Long-
champ's downfall. The name of the officer, as well as that of the
communa itself, is French. That the incorporation under this
form was held to imply very considerable municipal independ
ence may be inferred from the fact that one of the charges
brought by William Fitz-Osbert against Richard Fitz-Osbert, was
that he had not forbidden the saying 'quodcunque eat vel veniat,
quod nunquam habeant Londonienses alium regem quam ma-
jorem Londoniarum.' The terms ' major' and ' communitas ' go
together ; on the other hand, the ' aldermannus ' belongs to the
guild, not to the municipality as such : the ' praepositus,' again,
belongs to the more ancient system of the leet. How long the
portreeve of London continued to exist is not known ; he may
have subsisted until he was merged in the ' major,' or he may
have been extinguished when the ancient English Cnihtengild
surrendered to the priory of the Holy Trinity its lands and
jurisdictions, which were subsequently formed into the ward of
Port-Soken. This surrender was made early in the reign of
Henry I. (1) A.D. 1200. Charter of N ottingham.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse et prae
senti carta nostra confirmasse burgensibus nostris de Notingam
omnes illas liberas consuetudines quas habuerunt tempore Hen
rici regis proavi nostri, et tempore Henrici regis patris nostri,
sicut carta Henrici ejusdem patris nostri testatur ; scilicet toll et
them, et infangenthef, et tolonea a Thormodeston usque ad
Neuwerc, et de omnibus Trentam transeuntibus, ita plenarie ut

v.] Charters of Towns. 309
in burgo de Notingam, et ex alia parte a Duto ultra Rempeston
usque ad aquam de Redeforde in North, et de Bikedesdic. Ho
mines etiam de Notingamsire et de Derbisire venire debent ad
burgum de Notingam die Veneris et Sabbati cum quadrigis
et summagiis suis ; nee aliquis infra decern leucas in circuitu
de Notingam tinctos pannos operari debet nisi in burgo de
Notingam ; et si aliquis undecunque sit in burgo de Notingam
manserit uno die et uno anno tempore pacis et absque calump-
nia, nullus postea nisi rex in eum jus habebit. Et quicunque
burgensium terram vicini sui emerit et possederit per annum
integrum et diem unum absque calumpnia parentum vendentis
si in Anglia fuerint, postea eam quietam possidebit ; neque prae-
posito burgi de Notingam aliquem burgensium calumpnianti
respondeant nisi aliquis fuerit accusator in causa ; et quicunque
in burgo manserit, cujuscunque feudi sit, reddere debet simul
cum burgensibus tailliagia, et defectus burgi adimplere. Omnes
etiam qui ad forum de Notingam venerint, a vespere die Veneris
usque ad vesperam Sabbati non namientur nisi pro firma nostra.
Et iter de Trente liberum esse debet navigantibus, quantum
pertica una optinebit ex utraque parte fili aquae. Praeterea
concessimus etiam de proprio dono nostro et hae carta nostra
confirmavimus eisdem burgensibus liberis nostris, gildam merea
torum cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus quae
ad gildam mereatorum debent vel solent pertinere ; et quod ipsi
sint quieti de toloneo per totam terram nostram infra nundinas
et extra. Et licet illis quem voluerint ex suis in fine anni prae
positum suum facere, qui de firma nostra pro ipsis respondeat,
ita quod si idem praepositus nobis displiceat, ilium ad volun
tatem nostram removebimus, et ipsi alium ad libitum nostrum
substituent. Concessimus eisdem burgensibus ut quicunque ab
eis constitutus fuerit praepositus ejusdem burgi solvat firmam
ejusdem burgi ad dominicum scaccarium nostrum, ubicunque
fuerit in Anglia, ad duos terminos, medietatem scilicet ad clausum
Paschae et medietatem in octavis Sancti Michaelis. Quare
volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod praedicti burgenses
habeant et teneant praedictas consuetudines, bene et in pace,
libere et quiete, honorifice et pacifice, plenarie et integre, sicut
habuerunt tempore Henrici regis proayi nostri et tempore Hen
rici regis patris nostri, cum praedictis augmentis quae eis con
cessimus. Et prohibemus ne quis contra hanc cartam nostram
praedictos burgenses vexare praesumat in aliquo super forisfac
tura nostra x. librarum, sicut eis concessimus et rationabili carta
nostra confirmavimus dum essemus comes Moretonii. Hiis tes
tibus, Gaufrido Filio Petri comite Essexiae, Willelmo Briwerre,

310 John. < [part
Hugone Bardulfi, Roberto Filio Rogeri, Willelmo de Stutevilla,
Hugone de Nevilla, Symone de Pateshulle, Gilberto de Norfolk.
Datum per manus S. Wellensis archidiaconi et Johannis Gray
archidiaconi Clivelandiae apud Clipeston, XIX. die Marcii, anno
regni nostri primo. — (Charter Bolls, p. 39.)
(2) A.D. 120. Carta Norhamtoniae.
Johannes Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse burgen
sibus nostris de Norhamtonia, quod nullus eorum placitet extra
muros burgi Norhamtoniae de aliquo placito praeter placita de
tenuris exterioribus, exceptis monetariis et ministris nostris.
Concessimus etiam eis quietantiam murdri infra burgum et
portsoka, et quod nullus eorum faciat duellum, et quod de pla
citis- ad coronam pertinentibus se possint disrationare secundum
consuetudinem civium civitatis Londoniarum, et quod infra
muros burgi illius nemo capiat hospitium per vim vel per
liberationem marescalli. Hoc autem eis concessimus quod omnes
burgenses Norhamtoniae sint quieti de theloneo et lestagio per
totam Angliam et portus maris, et quod nullus de misericordia
pecuniae judicetur nisi secundum legem quam habuerunt cives
nostri Londoniarum tempore Henrici regis patris nostri : et
quod" in burgo illo in nullo placito sit meskenninga, et quod
hustingus semel tantum in hebdomada teneatur ; et quod terras
et tenuras et vadia sua, et debita sua omnia juste habeant, qui
cunque eis debeat; et de terris suis et tenuris quae infra burgum
sunt rectum eis teneatur secundum consuetudinem burgi ; et de
omnibus debitis suis quae accommodata fuerint apud Norham
toniam et de vadiis ibidem factis placita apud Norhamtoniam
teneantur. Et si quis in tota Anglia theloneum vel consue
tudinem ab hominibus Norhamtoniae ceperit, postquam ipse a
recto defecerit, praepositus Norhamtoniae namium inde apud
Norhamtoniam capiat. Insuper etiam ad emendatiouem illius
burgi eis concessimus quod sint quieti de brudtoll et gildwite et
de yeresyeve, et de scotale, ita quod praepositus Norhamtoniae
vel aliquis alius ballivus scotale non faciat. Has praedictas con
suetudines eis concessimus et omnes alias libertates et liberas
consuetudines quas habuerunt cives nostri Londoniarum quando
meliores vel liberiores habuerunt, tempore praedicti Henrici
regis patris nostri secundum libertates Londoniarum et leges
burgi Norhamtoniae. Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus
quod ipsi et haeredes eorum haec omnia praedicta haereditarie
habeant et teneant de nobis et haeredibus nostris, reddendo per
annum centum et xx. libras numero de villa Norhamtoniae cum
omnibus pertinentiis suis ad scaccarium nostrum in termino

v.] Charters.' of Towns. 311
Sancti Michaelis, per manus praepositi Norhamtoniae. ' Et bur
genses Norhamtoniae faciant praepositum quem voluerint de se
per annum, qui sit idoneus nobis et eis, hoc modo, scilicet quod
idem burgenses nostri de Norhamtonia per commune consilium
villatae suae eligant duos de legalioribus et discretioribus villae
suae et praesentent eos vicecoiniti Norhamtoniae, et vicecomes
unum illorum praesentet capitali justitiae apud Westmonaste
rium, cum compotum suum reddere debet, qui bene et fideliter
custodiant praeposituram villae Norhamtoniae, et non amove-
antur quamdiu se in ballia ilia bene gesserint, nisi per commune
consilium villatae suae. Volumus etiam quod in eodem burgo
Norhamtoniae per commune consilium villatae eligantur qua
tuor de legalioribus et discretioribus de burgo ad custodiendum
placita coronae et alia quae ad nos et coronam nostram pertinent
in eodem burgo, et ad videndum quod praepositi illius burgi
juste et legitime tractent tam pauperes quam divites. T. Wil
lelmo Londoniensi episcopo, etc. Datum per manus S. Wel-
lensis archidiaconi, etc., apud Windeshores, etc., anno, etc. —
(Charter Bolts, p. 45.)
(3) A.D. 1200. Carta de Dunewic.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse et praesenti
carta confirmasse burgensibus nostris de Dunewichge, quod bur
gum de Dunewichge sit liberum burgum nostrum, et habeat
soccam et saccam et toll et theam et infangenthef, et quod ipsi
per totam terram nostram quieti sint de theloneo et lestagio et
passagio et pontagio et stallagio et de leue et de Danegelde, et
de ewagio.de wrec et lagan et de omnibus aliis consuetudinibus,
salva libertate civitatis Londoniarum, et quod ipsi rectam et
solitam firmam suam per manum suam reddant ad scaccarium
nostrum ; et quod nullam sectam faciant comitatus vel hundred
orum nisi coram justitiis nostris ; et cum summoniti fuerint
esse coram justitiis, mittant pro se xii. legales homines de burgo
suo qui sint pro eis omnibus ; et si forte amerciari debuerint,
per sex probos homines de burgo suo et per vi. probos homines
extra burgum amercientur. Concessimus etiam eis quod filios
et filias suas possint libere ubi voluerint in terra nostra maritare,
et viduas similiter per consilium amicorum suorum, et perqui-
sitiones suas de terris et aedificiis in villa sua possint dare aut
vendere aut facere inde quod voluerint et quando voluerint.
Concessimus etiam eis hansam et gildam mercatoriam sicut
habere consueverunt. Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus
quod praedicti burgenses nostri praenominatas libertates et
liberas consuetudines habeant et teneant libere, pacifice et

§\% John. [part
integre, sine omni impedimento. T. E. Elyensi episcopo,Willelmo
Marescallo, etc. Datum per manus H. Cantuariensis archiepi
scopi cancellarii nostri apud Rupem Aurivallis ; XXIX. die
Junii, anno regni nostri primo. — (Charter Bolls, p. 51.)
(4) A.D. 1200. Carta civium Lincolniae.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse, etc. (as
in the charter of Bichard, above, p. 258, mutatis mutandis; as
far as the last clause). Praeterea volumus et concedimus quod
idem cives nostri Lincolniae per commune consilium civitatis
eligant duos de legalioribus et discretioribus civibus Lincolniae,
et praesentent eos capitali justitiae apud Westmonasterium, qui
bene et fideliter custodiant praeposituram civitatis Lincolniae,
et non amoveantur quamdiu se in ballia sua bene gesserint, nisi
per commune consilium civitatis suae. Volumus etiam quod
in eadem civitate Lincolniae per commune consilium civium
eligantur quatuor de legalioribus et discretioribus civitatis ad
custodiendum placita coronae et alia quae ad nos et coronam
nostram pertinent in eadem civitate et ad videndum quod prae
positi illius civitatis juste et legitime tractent tam pauperes
quam divites. Hiis testibus W. Lond. episcopo, G. Filio
Petri comite Essexiae, Willelmo Marescallo comite de Penbroc,
Hugone Bardulfi, Willelmo Briwerre. Datum per manus
S. Wellensis archidiaconi et Johannis de Gray archidiaconi
Glocestriae apud Aolton, XXIII. die Aprilis anno regni nostri
primo. — (Charter Bolls, p. 56.)
(5) A.D. 1200. Confirmatio civium Eboraci.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse civibus
nostris de Eboraco omnes libertates et leges et consuetudines
suas, et nominatim gildam suam mercariam, et hansas suas in
Anglia et Normannia, et lestagia sua per totam costam maris,
quieta, sicut ea unquam melius et liberius habuerunt tempore
regis Henrici avi patris nostri. Et volumus et firmiter prae
cipimus quod praedictas libertates et consuetudines habeant
et teneant cum omnibus libertatibus praedictae gildae suae et
liansis suis pertinentibus, ita bene et in pace, libere et quiete,
sicut unquam melius, liberius ef quietius, habuerunt et tenuerunt
tempore praedicti regis Henrici avi patris nostri, sicut carta
ejusdem patris nostri et carta Ricardi fratris nostri rationabiliter
testantur. Praeterea sciatis nos concessisse et praesenti carta
confirmasse omnibus civibus nostris Eboraci quietantiam cujus
libet thelonei, et lastagii, et de wrec, et pontagii, et passagii, et

v.] Charters of Towns. 313
de trespas, et de omnibus costumis per totam Angliam et Nor-
manniam et Aquitanniam et Andegaviam et Pictaviam et per
omnes portus et costas maris Angliae et Normanniae et Aqui-
tanniae et Andegaviae et Pictaviae. Quare volumus et firmiter
praecipimus quod inde sint quieti, et prohibemus ne quis super
haec disturbet super decern libras forisfacturae, sicut carta Ricardi
regis fratris nostri rationabiliter testatur. T. G. Eboracensi
archiepiscopo ; Ph. Dunolm. episcopo ; Gaufrido Filio Petri
comite Essexiae, etc. Datum per manum S. Wellensis archi
diaconi et Johannis de Gray apud Eboracum, XXV. die Marcii,
anno regni nostri primo. — (Charter Bolls, p. 40. Drake, Bbor. 203.)
(6) A.D. 1 20 1. Carta hominum de Herterpol.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse et hae
praesenti carta nostra confirmasse hominibus de Herterpol, quod
sint liberi burgenses, et quod habeant easdem libertates et leges
in villa sua de Herterpol quas burgenses Novi Castelli super
Tinam habent in villa sua de Novo Castello. Quare volumus et
firmiter praecipimus quod praedicti burgenses habeant et teneant
praedictas libertates et leges bene et in pace, libere et quiete et
integre, sicut praedictum est. Hiis testibus, Willelmo de Stute-
villa, Hugone Bardulfi, Petro de Pratellis, Willelmo Briwerre,
Hugone de Nevilla, Roberto de Ros, Eustacio de Vesci, Petro
de Brus, etc. Datum per manum S. Wellensis archidiaconi
apud Dunolm., VIII. die Februarii, regni nostri anno secundo.
- — {Charter Bolls, p. 86.)
(7) A.D. 1199. Grant of a 'communa! to Niort, in Poictou.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. omnibus ad quos praesens scriptum
pervenerit, etc. Sciatis quod nos concessimus quod burgenses
de Niorto faciant et habeant communam in villa sua de Niorto,
cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus quae ad
hujusmodi communam debeant pertinere, salva in omnibus fide
et jure nostro. Teste me ipso apud Rupem Andeliaci, XXXI.
die Augusti, &c. — (CJiarter Bolls, p. 14.)
(8) A.D. 1 20 1. Carta burgensium, de Helleston.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse et prae
senti carta nostra confirmasse quod burgus noster de Helleston
sit liber burgus, et quod burgenses nostri de eadem villa habeant
gildam mercatoriam et quietantiam per totam terram nostram
de tholoneo, pontagio, passagio, stallagio, lestagio et sollagio,

314 John. [part
salvis in omnibus libertatibus civitatis Londoniarum. XJonce-
dimus etiam eis quod non placitent nisi infra burgum suum de
rebus vel tenuris pertinentibus ad villam suam, praeterquam de
placitis ad coronam nostram pertinentibus, et placitis de terris
fbrinsecis. Volumus etiam quod habeant omnes alias libertates
et liberas consuetudines quas habuerunt burgenses nostri de
castello de Lancaveton tempore regis Henrici patris nostri, ita
quod nullus burgensium praedictorum, nisi residens fuerit in
praedicta villa de Helleston, has habebit libertates. Hiis testi
bus, W. com. Sarr., W. Briwerre ; Rob. de Turnham ; Rob. de
Tresgoz ; Sim. de Pateshulle ; Rad. de Stokes ; Eustac. de
Facumberge. Datum per manum S. Wellensis archidiaconi
apud Craneburne, XV. die Aprilis, anno regni nostri secundo. —
(Charter Bolls, p. 93.)
(9) A.D. 1 201. Litter ae Patentes burgensium de Helleston.
Johannes, Dei gratia, etc. Sciatis nos concessisse et
praesenti scripto nostro confirmasse burgensibus nostris de
Helleston, villam de Helleston cum pertinentiis, ad firmam, per
antiquam firmam et debitam, et de cremento quatuor libras ;
habendam et tenendam quamdiu nobis bene et fideliter servi-
erint et firmam suam bene reddiderint, reddendo firmam suam
per manum suam ad duo scaccaria nostra, scilicet medietatem
ad Pascha, et alteram medietatem ad festum Sancti Michaelis.
Et sciendum quod crementum tale erit quale est firma.
T. Simone de Pateshulle, apud Dorcestre ; XVIII. die Aprilis.
— (Charter Bolls, p. 93.) (10) A.D. 1215.
Johannes, Dei gratia, rex Angliae, etc. Sciatis nos conces
sisse et praesenti carta nostra confirmasse baronibus nostris
de civitate nostra Londoniarum, quod eligant sibi majorem de
seipsis singulis annis, qui nobis fidelis sit, discretus et idoneus
ad regimen civitatis, ita quod cum electus fuerit, nobis vel jus-
titiario nostro, si praesentes non fuerimus, praesentetur et nobis
juret fidelitatem ; et quod liceat eis ipsum in fine anni amovere
et alium substituere si voluerint, vel eundem retinere, ita tamen
quod nobis ostendatur vel justitiario nostro, si praesentes non
fuerimus. Concessimus etiam eisdem baronibus nostris et carta
nostra confirmavimus, quod habeant bene et in pace, libere,
quiete, et integre, omnes libertates suas quibus hactenus usi
sunt, tam in civitate Londoniarum quam extra ; et tam in aquis
quam in terris, et omnibus aliis locis, salva nobis chamber-

v.] Charters of Towns. 315
lengeria nostra. Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod
praedicti barones nostri civitatis nostrae Londoniarum eligant
sibi majorem singulis annis de seipsis praedicto modo, et quod
habeant omnes praedictas libertates bene et in pace, integre et
plenarie, cum omnibus ad hujusmodi libertates pertinentibus,
sicut praedictum est. Testibus dominis P. Winton, W. Wygorn.,
W. Coventr. episcopis, Willelmo Brigwerre, Petro filio Herberti,
Galfrido de Lucy, et Johanne Filio Hugonis. Datum per manus
magistri Ricardi de Mariscis cancellarii nostri, apud Novum
Templum Londoniis, IX. die Maii, anno regni nostri sexto
decimo. — (Charter Bolls, p. 207.)

PART VI.
SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS ; Henry III.
A.D. 1216-1272.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Stephen Langton, 12 16-12 28: Richard
le Grand, 1229-1231 ; Edmund Rich, 1234-1240; Boniface of Savoy,
1245-1270.
Chief Justices. Hubert de Burgh, 1216-1232 ; Stephen Segrave, 1232-
1234; Hugli Bigot, 1258-1260; Hugb le Despencer, 1260; Philip
Basset, 1261.
Chancellors. Richard de Marisco, 1 2 1 6- 1 2 26 ; Ralph Neville, 1 2 26-1 244;
Walter de Merton, 1 261 ; Nicolas de Ely, 1263 ; Thomas Cantilupe,
1265 ; Walter Giffard, 1265 ; Godfrey Giffard, 1267; Richard Middle-
ton, 1269-1272.
JL HE thirteenth century was a period unparalleled in medieval
history for brilliancy and fertility. It abounded with great men
— kings, statesmen, and scholars. Coming between the hard-
headed and hard-handed industry of the twelfth, and the cruel,
frivolous, unreal splendour of the fourteenth, it unites all that is
noble in the former, all that is romantic in the latter. A period
more productive of ideas in every department of culture the
world has never seeu. But it was in some respects a precocious
age. Many of the ideas which it produced luxuriantly, and for
which its heroes risked all, were premature. Hence it is a
period of great failures answering to too great designs. The
long reign of Henry III extends over more than half of this
wonderful age : and the history of England has very much in
common with the general character of the time. Henry him
self was anything but a great man. Although free from some
of the most glaring faults of his family, he was vain and mean,
foolish and false. Yet the brilliancy of the time shed some little

vi. J Sketch of the Reign. 317
glory upon him. He filled in Europe a position created for
him perhaps by the labours of his grandfather and uncle,
brought into prominence by the failure and fall of Frederick II,
and made influential by his close connexion with the other
sovereigns of Christendom ; but out of all proportion to his
ability. He was magnificent, liberal, a patron of art, and a
benefactor of foreigners. His reputation for wealth laid him
open to the extortions of all the needy in Europe ; his
patronage of them left him poor ; and his poverty brought out
his meanness and deceit at home. He seems, like his father, to
have had a facility for incurring deadly personal enmity. He
had not the energy, impulsiveness, and general cleverness of
John, and was quite as unready. In an age of great ministers
such a monarch would have been even more insignificant in his
own country than Henry actually was. But after he took the
administration into his own hands he had no great minister ; all
the able statesmanship was on the side of the opposition. The
difficulties of the kingdom and the hardships of the people
did not retard their growth. In the great variety of expe
dients used to promote the purposes of government, in the
raising of revenue, the levying of forces, the amendment of laws,
and the execution of political designs, there is distinctly trace
able a development of the national life on its ancient basis ;
a constant tendency to get rid of feudal forms and feudal
principles. The early years of the reign, in which the penalty
for John's misrule was still being paid, were to a certain ex
tent marked by reaction : feudal habits were resuscitated during
the anarchy, and had to be met by old measures. The pre
mature development of constitutional principles in the later
years should be compared with this. Between the two, the
reign singularly epitomises both earlier and later history. In
1225 we are among the ' adulterine ' castles and foreign merce
naries of Stephen's reign; in 1258 we are deep in the reform
ing projects which were still premature under Edward II and
Richard II. The constitutional history of the time is a study
of considerable labour, owing partly to this diversity of cha
racteristics, and partly to the abundant supply of evidences

318 Henry III. [part
which themselves share the experimental character of; the
politics of the day.
The natural division of the reign is into three epochs : the
first containing the sixteen years during which the govern
ment was in the hands of William Marshall and Hubert de
Burgh; the second, from 1232 to 1252, during which Henry
acted either under the influence of Peter des Roches, or as his
own minister on the same principles ; and the third, from
1252 to 1272, during which the struggle with the barons lasted,
and the power of the king was, sometimes with and sometimes
without his apparent acquiescence, controlled by compulsory
advisers. I. William Marshall lived long enough to finish the struggle
with the French : he died in 12 19. The tutelage of the papal
legates continued until 1221, when Archbishop Langton ob->
tained the recall of Pandulf and a promise that no new legate
should, be sent during his life. The foreign influences were
thus got rid of. But the dangerous friends remained ; William
of Aumale, who represented the old feudal party, was brought to
submission in 1 2 2 1 ; and. Falkes de Breaute*, who represented the
foreign mercenaries, in 1224. The field was open to Hubert de
Burgh and Peter des Roches, who, until the country was at,
peace, worked fairly together. The poverty of the crown, and
the exhaustion of its resources by the measures taken to secure
the country and to recover the French inheritance, necessitated
heavy taxation and constant renewals of the charters ; and the
circumstances were such as to provoke strong opposition and
dislike of both the ministers. In 1227 Henry dismissed Peter
des Roches, repudiated the charters of the forests, and put himself
into the hands of Hubert, who for the next five years governed
well, though not with brilliant success. His principles were those
of a strong administrator ; the charters were scarcely regarded
as binding, but some respect was shown to the spirit of them :
notwithstanding the omission of the 12th and 14th articles of
John's charter, the taxes were asked as a matter of course ; but all
objections to a grant were systematically ignored. The great leader
of the opposition at this period was the Earl of Chester, Rahulf, a

vi.] Sketch of the Reign. 319
deterinined opponent of royal aud papal exactions, whose attitude
shows very remarkably the alteration in the character of the older
feudal nobility produced by the training of Henry IPs reign.
II. Hubert de Burgh was dismissed with the greatest ingrati
tude and with his usual meanness by Henry in 1232 : and with
the adoption of Peter des Roches as his prime minister began
the king's earlier series of difficulties with his nobles. The
foreign relations of his mother, and after his marriage in 1236,
those of his wife ; the rapacity of the papal envoys, and Henry's
foolish compliance with all their demands ; and the expenses
incurred in the king's attempts to maintain his position in
continental politics, increased the troubles. The leader of the
opposition now was the earl marshal Richard, who died in 1234.
This was a period of great exactions and unfeeling tyranny on
the king's part ; the period of S. Edmund and Robert Grosse-
teste, whose experiences threw the great body of the clergy into
determined opposition to the joint oppression of king and
pope. It was also the period of the rise of Simon de Montfort.
The political history is little more than a detail of heavy de
mands for money, ineffectual protests, and ever-increasing irrita
tion. The king's wisest adviser was his brother Earl Richard of
Cornwall, who was more astute, more plausible, and probably
more honest, certainly much more able, than Henry. For a
great part of the period Henry acted without the assistance of
the regular staff of ministers. Stephen Segrave, who after the
disgrace of Hubert de Burgh occupied the once great post of
Justiciar, was dismissed in 1234, and no successor on the old
terms was appointed. The Chancellor, Ralph Neville, in spite of
constant struggles with the king and practical loss of power,
retained his office until' 12 44 ; after which Henry ruled with no
properly constituted Justiciar, Chancellor, or Treasurer. As the
irritation increased, the absence of these functionaries, wh > until
they were lost sight of had been objects of dislike, became a ground
of complaint ; and the idea gained ground that it was the riglit of
the community to limit the king's prerogative by the appoint
ment of his counsellors. The details of the transactions of the
whole period are abundant, intricate, and dreary.

330 Henry III. [part
III. The history of the last twenty years of the reign is full
of incident, character, and development ; and is so largely illus
trated by documentary remains as to render detail on the present
scale impossible. It is necessary, however, to distinguish be
tween the two series of causes which were at work to produce
the result. The conduct of the king originated both : his treat
ment of Simon de Montfort produced one; his behaviour in
connexion with the Sicilian crown the other. It was the latter
that created the general feeling against him. Simon's wrongs
justified him, and his political ability qualified him, for taking a
prominent part in opposition ; but the natural leader was the
Earl of Gloucester, although he also had private injuries to
avenge. Personal jealousies and division of aims separated the
leaders, and in the end caused the defeat of the movement.
But before it came to a close Henry was being superseded by
his son. Excerpts.
A.D. 12 1 6. Ann. Waverl. p. 286. Coronatur autem
Henricus III .... puer novem annorum in festo Apostolorum
Simonis et Judae, cum magna festinatione, volentibus sic
parentibus et amicis ejus qui fideliter patri viventi adhaeserant,
a domino legato Gwalone apud Gloucestriam, assistentibus
ibidem episcopis Wintoniensi, Wigorniensi, Coventrensi, Batho-
niensi, et comitibus qui puero adhaeserunt, scilicet comes Ces-
triae, Willelmus Marescallus comes Striguil et Penbroc, comes
de Ferrariis, Willelmus Briwere, Savaricus de Malolacu ; reliqui
omnes comites et barones sequebantur Ludowicum. Nee multo
post Gualo legatus concilium celebravit apud Bristollas in festi-
vitate Sancti Martini, in quo coegit undecim episcopos Angliae
et Walliae qui praesentes erant, et alios praelatos inferioris
ordinis, sed et comites et barones ac milites qui convenerant,
Henrico regi fidelitatem jurare.
Matt. Paris, p. 289. Rex autem post coronationem suam
remansit in custodia Willelmi comitis Penbroc, magni videlicet
Marescalli. A.D. 1 2 17. Liber de Antiquis Legibus, p. 203. . . . Tertio
idus Septembris facta est pax inter praedictum regem Henricum
et praedictum Lodewycum apud Kingestonam, per dominum
Gallonem legatum domini papae, existente ibidem et congregate

vi. J Excerpts. 321
per praeceptum domini regis maximo exercitu militum et liber
orum tenentium ab omni parte totius Angliae  Postea IX0
kalendas Octobris venerunt apud Mertonam dominus legatus,
dominus Lodewycus et omnes fere magnates Angliae 
Dominus vero rex Angliae concessit et carta sua confirmavit
omnibus liberis hominibus regni sui omnes libertates et liberas
consuetudines quas habuerunt tempore praedecessorum suorum
cum augmentatione aliarum libertatum in praedicta carta con-
tentarum : quae quidem carta quia dominus rex nullum pro
prium sigillum tunc temporis habuit propter minorem aetatem,
sigillata fuit sigillo praedicti legati et sigillo domini Willelmi
Marescalli Angliae senioris, rectoris praedicti regis et regni sui.
A.D. 1218. Matt. Paris, p. 300. Rex Henricus ad Natale
Domini fuit apud Norhamtonam, Falcasio regiae festivitati
necessaria omnia administrante. Erant autem his diebus multi
in Anglia quibus tempore belli praeteriti dulcissimum fuerat de
rapinis vixisse ; unde post pacem denunciatam et omnibus con-
cessam non potuerunt prurientes manus a praeda cohibere.
Horum autem principales fuerunt incentores Willelmus comes
Albemarliae, Falcasius cum suis castellanis, Robertus de Veteri-
ponte, Brienus de Insula, Hugo de Bailluel, Philippus Marc, et
Robertus de Gaugi, qui castella quorundam episcoporum ac mag-
natum cum terris et possessionibus, contra regis prohibitionem
et illorum voluntatem, detinere praesuinpserunt.
Ann. Waverl. p. 290. Post festum Sancti Michaelis conve
nerunt apud Londoniam sapientes Angliae, et renovaverunt
leges et libertates secundum cartam regis Johannis, quam fecerat
baronibus, et in modum chirographi scripserunt, et sigillo Gua-
lonis legati, et Stephani archiepiscopi Cantuariensis, et Walteri
archiepiscopi Eboracensis, et Willelmi episcopi Londoniensis, et
Willelmi Marescalli confirmaverunt, donee rex juvenis sigillum
cursale habere videretur. . . . Gualo legatus ab Anglia recessit
circa festum Sancti Clementis, et statim successit ei dominus
Pandulfus legatus.
A.D. 1219. Matt. Paris, p. 304. . . . Willelmus senior
Marescallus regis et regni rector, diem clausit extremum. . . .
Post cujus mortem memoratus rex in custodia Petri Winto
niensis episcopi remansit.
A.D. 1220. Ann. Waverl. p. 293. Secundo coronatus est
Henricus III rex Angliae in die Pentecostes apud Westmonas
terium. Accepit etiam tailagium per Angliam de singulis
carucis duos solidos. Y

32a Henry III. [part
A.D. 1221. Matt. Westm. p. 280. Willelmus de Fortibus
comes de Albamarla, occupans quaedam castra injuste, ad pacem
domini regis nolens redire, excitavit contra eum hostilem rebel-
lionem in Lincolnia, unde episcopo et singulis fautoribus ejus a
legato Pandulfo et episcopis et clero Angliae ob scelus tale per-
petratum excommunicatis, idem comes irreverenter coactus est
ad deditionem. . . . Die lunae videlicet proxima ante festum
beatae Mariae Magdalenae Pandulfus Norwicensis electus cessit
legationi suae ex mandato domini papae Honorii, praesentibus
Ricardo Sarisburiensi, Petro Wintoniensi, Eustachio Londoni-
ensi episcopis apud Westmonasterium, nullo alio tunc ei in
legatione succedente.
A.D. 1222. Ann. Waverl. p. 296. Concessit rex Henricus
de tota Anglia, per consilium domini Stephani Cantuariae archi
episcopi et aliorum magnatum terrae, in subsidium Terrae
Sanctae adquirendae, de quolibet comite iii. marcas, de quolibet
barone i. marcam, de quolibet milite xii. denarios, de quolibet
libero homine i. denarium, de quolibet homine habente catallum
ad valentiam dimidiae marcae unum denarium. Sed concessio
ista parum aut nihil profuit, quia cito postea contradictum est,
et ad effectum minime perductum.
A.D. 1223. Matt. Paris, p. 316. Rex ... in octavis Epi-
phaniae, apud Londonias veniens cum baronibus ad colloquium,
requisites est ab archiepiscopo Cantuariensi et magnatibus aliis,
ut libertates et liberas consuetudines, pro quibus guerra mota
fuit contra patrem suum, confirmaret. Et sicut archiepiscopus
ostendit evidenter, idem rex diffugere non potuit quin hoc
faceret, cum in recessu Ludovici a*b Anglia juravit, et tota
nobilitas regni cum eo, quod libertates praescriptas omnes obser-
varent et omnibus traderent observandas. Quod audiens Wil
lelmus Briwere qui unus erat ex consiliariis regis, pro rege
respondens dixit, ' Libertates quas petitis, quia violenter extortae
fuerunt, non debent de jure observari.' Quod verbum archi
episcopus moleste ferens increpavit eum, dicens ' Willelme,'
inquit ' si regem diligeres pacem regni non impedires.' Videns
autem rex archiepiscopum in iram commotum dixit ' Omnes
libertates illas juravimus et omnes astricti sumus ut quod jura-
vimus observemus.'
Ib. p. 318. Eodem anno surrexit murmuratio non modica
a magnatibus Angliae, contra Hubertum de Burgo Justitiarium
. . . Accessit praeterea ad majoris odii incentivum adventus
nunciorum regis quos Romam miserat, qui bullam domini papae
archiepiscopis Angliae et eorum suffraganeis deferebant, quae

vi.] Excerpts. 323
talem continebat sententiam, videlicet quod dominus papa regem
Angliae plenae aetatis adjudicaverat, quod ex tunc negotia regni
idem rex principaliter cum suorum domesticorum consilio ordi-
naret. Significavit etiam . . . quatenus auctoritate apostolica
denunciarent comitibus, baronibus, militibus et aliis universis
qui custodias habebant castrorum, honorum, et villarum quae
ad regis dominium spectabant, ut continuo visis litteris regi
illas redderent, contradictores autem per censuram ecclesias-
ticam ad satisfactionem compellerent. Unde pars maxima
comitum et baronum . . . supradictas occasiones praetendebat
ut pacem jegni perturbaret.
A.D. 1224. Ann. Waverl. p. 299. Nonnulli alienige-
narum ejecti sunt et amoti de castellis et custodiis suis in
Anglia. . . . Ipse vero Falkesius ... in patriam suam re-
versus est.
Matt. Paris, p. 322. Regi vero pro maximis laboribus suis
et expensis, tam a praelatis, quam a laicis, concessum est per
totam Angliam carucagium, de qualibet caruca duo solidi argenti.
Magnatibus item concessit rex scutagium, videlicet de scute
quolibet duas marcas sterlingorum.
A.D. 1225. Ann. Dtjnstapl. p. 93. Generali colloquio
Lundoniis celebrate, petiit rex a baronibus suis pro regni defen-
sione auxilium generale : barones vero vice versa libertates
quasdam exegerunt a rege Johanne concessas et ab ipso rege
postmodum confirmatas, licet nondum, ballivis suis impedientibus,
servatas. Post multas vero sententiarum revolutiones, commu-
niter placuit, quod rex tam populo quam plebi libertates, prius
ab eo puero concessas, jam major factus indulsit. Et vice versa
archiepiscopi, episcopi, comites, barones, et viri religiosi ipsi
regi in tanto discrimine quintam decimam mobilium suorum
liberaliter concesserunt. Quod quia clerici saeculares non ad-
miserant, impetravit rex litteras domini papae ad clerum Angliae
generales, de auxilio competenti ei conferendo secundum benefi-
ciorum suorum facultates.
A.D. 1226. Matt. Paris, p. 331. Rex Anglorum .... qui
ardenti desiderio sitiebat ad partes transmarinas hostiliter trans-
fretare, convocatis consiliariis suis, fecit recitare litteras sibi a
domino papa transmissas, quaerens ab eis consilium quid super
tali inhibitione sibi foret agendum. Placuit itaque praelatis
et magnatibus universis ut differretur negotium desideratum.
A.D. 1227. Matt. Paris, p. 336. Rex Anglorum, mense
Februario, apud Oxoniam consilio congregato, denunciavit
y 2

324 Henry III. [part
coram omnibus se legitimae esse aetatis, ut de cetero, solutus
a custodia, regia negotia ipse principaliter ordinaret ; et sic qui
prius tutorem habuit et rectorem Willelmum Mareschallum
dum viveret et postmodum Petrum Wintoniensem episcopum,
excussit se, per consilium Huberti de Burgo Justitiarii regni, de
consilio et gubernatione dicti episcopi et suorum  In
eodem itaque concilio fecit rex cancellare et cassare omnes cartas
in proviuciis omnibus regni Angliae de libertatibus forestae,
jjostquam jam per biennium in toto regno fuerant usitatae.
Ann. Theokesb. p. 69. Rex grave tallagium fecit super
singulos divites, cives et burgenses : de viris etiam religiosis
concessa fuit quinta decima et de clericis sexta decima.
A.D. 1229. Matt. Paris, p. 361. Fecit rex convenire apud
Westmonasterium, Dominica qua cantatur Misericordia Domini,
archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, priores, Templarios, Hospitala-
rios, comites, barones, ecclesiarum rectores, et qui de se tenebant
in capite, ad locum praefixum et diem, ut audirent negotia [sc.
de decimis petitis pro guerra contra Fredericum II] memorata
et de rerum exigentiis communiter tractarent. . . . Rex . . .
factus est baculus arundineus. . . . Comites vero et barones et
laici omnes plane decimas se daturos contradixerunt, nolentes
baronias suas vel laicas possessiones Romanae ecclesiae obligare.
Episcopi quoque et abbates, priores et alii ecclesiarum praelati
. . . tandem consenserunt, metuentes excommunicationis senten
tiam. . . . Solus autem comes Cestrensis Ranulfus stetit viriliter
nolens terram suam redigere in servitutem, nee permisit de feudo
suo viros religiosos vel clericos decimas memoratas conferre,
quamvis Anglia et Wallia, Scotia et Hybernia ad solutionem
compellerentur. A.D. 1 23 1. Matt. Paris, p. 367. Septimo kalendas Fe
bruarii convenerunt ad colloquium apud Westmonasterium rex
cum praelatis et aliis magnatibus regni, ubi exegit idem rex
scutagium, de quolibet scuto tres marcas, ab omnibus qui
baronias tenebant, tam laicis quam praelatis. Cui Ricardus
Cantuariensis archiepiscopis et quidam episcopi cum eo audac-
ter resistentes dixerunt, quod non tenentur viri ecclesiastici
judicio subjici laicorum, cum absque illis concessum fuisset
scutagium in finibus transmarinis.
Rot. Pat. 15 H. III. Cum peteremus a praelatis Angliae
quod nobis auxilium facerent .... videlicet episcopis, abba
tibus, abbatissis, prioribus et priorissis, qui de nobis tenent in
capite, ipsi nobis liberaliter concesserunt auxilium tale, scilicet
singulis feodis militum suorum xl. solidos de tot feodis de quot

vi.] Excerpts. 325
ipsi tenentur nobis respondere quando faciunt nobis servitium
militare. Et nos concessimus eisdem praelatis quod ad prae
dictum auxilium nobis faciendum habeant de singulis feodis
militum quae de eis tenentur xl. solidos. [dat. Apr. 14.]
A.D. 1232. Matt. Paris, p. 372. Convenerant eo tempore,
nonas Martii, ad colloquium apud Westmonasterium ad voca-
tionem regis, magnates Angliae, tam laici quam praelati.
Quibus rex proposuit quod magnis esset debitis implicatus
causa bellicae expeditionis quam nuper egerat in partibus
transmarinis ; unde necessitate compulsus ab omnibus gene-
raliter auxilium postulavit. Quo audito comes Cestriae Ran-
ulfus, pro magnatibus regni loquens, respondit quod comites,
barones, ac milites qui de eo tenebant in capite, cum ipso erant
ibi corporaliter praesentes, et pecuniam suam ita inaniter effude-
runt quod inde pauperes omnes recesserunt, unde regi de jure
auxilium non debebant. Et sic petita licentia laici omnes
recesserunt. Praelati vero regi respondentes dixerunt quod
episcopi multi et abbates qui vocati erant, non fuerunt prae
sentes, et sic petierunt inducias quousque ad diem certum
possent omnes pariter convenire  Rex . . . coepit a vice
comitibus et ballivis aliisque ministris suis de redditibus et rebus
omnibus ad fisci commodum spectantibus ratiocinium exigere. . . .
Ib. p. 376. Per idem tempus rex, per consilium Petri Win
toniensis episcopi, Hubertum de Burgo protojustitiarium regni
ab officio suo . . . amovit ; et Stephanum de Segrave solo
nomine militem subrogavit, IIII. kalendas Augusti.
Ib. p. 377. Convenerunt . . . apud Lamheiam ad colloquium,
in Exaltatione Sanctae Cruris, coram rege episcopi et alii eccle
siarum praelati cum proceribus regni ; ubi concessa est regi,
pro debitis quibus comiti Britanniae tenebatur astrictus, qua-
dragesima pars rerum mobilium ab episcopis, abbatibus, priori-
bus, clericis et laicis.
A.D. 1233. Matt. Paris, pp. 384, 386. Rex. . . tenuit curiam
suam ad Natale apud Vigorniam, ubi, ut dicitur, de consilio Petri
Wintoniensis episcopi, omnes naturales curiae suae ministros a suis
removit officiis et Pictavenses extraneos in eorum ministeriis
subrogavit . . . Tunc rex missis litteris suis vocavit omnes de
regno comites et barones ad colloquium, ut venirent apud
Oxoniam ad festum Sancti Johannis ; sed ipsi noluerunt ad
ejus mandatum venire. . . . Cum audissent magnates praefati
quod paulatim applicuerunt in regno praedones multi cum equis
et armis, a rege invitati ; cum nullum pacis vidissent vesti
gium,  supersederunt ad diem sibi statutum venire,

326 Henry III. [part
denunciantes regi per nuncios solemnes, quatenus omni dilatione
remota ejiceret Petrum Wintoniensem episcopum et ceteros
Pictavienses de curia sua; sin autem nollet, ipsi omnes de
communi consilio totius regni ipsum cum iniquis consiliariis suis
a regno depellerent, et de novo rege creando contractarent.
A.D. 1234. Matt. Paris, p. 403. Tunc rex, qui ut pax fieret
modis omnibus suspirabat, fecit convocare per litteras suas pro-
scriptos omnes ut venirent Gloverniam, Dominica proxima ante
Ascensionem Domini, IVt0 scilicet kalendas Junii, ad collo
quium, plenam gratiam ipsius cum suis haereditatibus recep-
turi. T. Wykes, Chron. (ed. Luard), p. 77. Rex Henricus fecit
talliari omnes civitates et burgos et maneria sua propria per
totam Angliam.
A.D. 1235. Matt. Paris, p. 417. Eodem tempore cepit rex
carucagium, scilicet duas marcas de caruca, ad maritagium sororis
suae Isabellae.
A.D. 1236. Ann. Burton, p. 249. Anno regni regis Henrici
filii regis Johannis vicesimo, die Mercurii in crastino Sancti
Vincentii, in curia domini regis apud Mertone coram domino
rege Henrico et coram venerabili patre domino Edmundo Can-
tuariensi archiepiscopo et coepiscopis suis, et coram majori parte
comitum et baronum nostrorum Angliae pro coronatione domini
regis et reginae, et pro communi utilitate totius Angliae provi-
sum fuit tam a praedictis archiepiscopo, episcopis, comitibus et
baronibus quam a nobis, et concessum quod de cetero isti arti
culi [sc. Assisa de Merton] teneantur in regno Angliae.
Matt. Paris, p. 429. Eodem quoque anno IV. kalendas
Maii, congregati sunt magnates Angliae Londini ad colloquium,
de negotiis regni tractaturi. . . . Ubi cum de multis tractaretur,
unum laudabiliter consummavit, scilicet quod amotis omnibus
vicecomitibus substituerentur alii, eo quod nimis a tramite veri
tatis et justitiae corrupti muneribus exorbitarunt. . . . Sigillum
quoque suum ab episcopo Cicestrensi cancellario suo . . . exegit
rex instantissime. Sed idem cancellarius hoc facere renuit,
videns impetum regis modestiae fines excedentem ; dixitque se
nulla ratione hoc posse facere, cum illud communi consilio regni
suscepisset, quapropter nee illud similiter sine communi assensu
regni alicui resignaret.
A.D. 1237. Matt. Paris, p. 435. Misit . . . [rex] continuo
per omnes fines Angliae scripta regalia, praecipiens omnibus ad
regnum Angliae spectantibus, videlicet, archiepiscopis, episcopis,

vi.J Excerpts. 327
abbatibus et prioribus installatis, comitibus et baronibus, ut
omnes sine omissione in octavis Epiphaniae Londoniis conveni
ent, regia negotia tractaturi totum regnum contingentia. . . .
Promisit . . . libertates Magnae Cartae suis fidelibus regni sui
ex tunc inviolabiliter observare. . . . Concessa est igitur be-
nigne tali conditione regi ea vice tricesima regni pars, omnium
scilicet mobilium.
A.D. 1240. Matt. Paris, p. 523. In octavis vero Epi
phaniae congregati sunt Londini archiepiscopi et episcopi cum
multis aliis magnatibus, praesente etiam legato, reponentes que-
rimoniam gravissimam coram rege in curia sua, super variis
injuriis et oppressionibus et quotidianis desolationibus illatis
ecclesiae per iniquum regis consilium . . . Et erant contra
regem in querimoniis episcoporum capitula circiter xxx. Et eo
tenus processum est quod lata sit iterum sententia terribiliter
nimis in omnes regis consiliarios qui ejus animum ad praedicta
enormia conabantur inclinare.
A.D. 1242. Matt. Paris, p. 580. Imminente vero purifi-
catione beatae Virginis, totius Angliae nobilitas, tam praelatorum
quam comitum et baronum, secundum regium praeceptum est
Londini congregata. . . Contradixerunt igitur regi in faciem,
nolentes amplius sic pecunia sua frustratorie spoliari.
Ib. p. 595. Scutagium per totam Angliam rex Angliae sibi
fecit extorqueri.
A.D. 1243. Matt. Paris, p. 600. Cives Londinenses ad
gravissimam compulsi sunt redemptionem quae tallagium dicitur,
sub hae forma ; venerunt exactores et regales aeditui ad ilium
vel ilium civem dicentes, •* Tantam et tantam oportet te pecuniam
domino regi in longinquis partibus pro commoditate regni
militanti et nimis indigenti, donee in regno suo restauretur,
commodare.' Et secundum voluntatem et aestimationem ex-
tortorum, pecuniam civium mutilarunt.
A.D. 1244. Matt. Paris, p. 639. Convenerant regia sub-
monitione convocati Londinum magnates totius regni, archi
episcopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, comites et barones. In quo
concilio petiit rex ore proprio in praesentia magnatum in refec-
torio Westmonasteriensi auxilium sibi fieri pecuniare. . . . Cui
fuit responsum quod super hoc tractarent. Recedentesque
magnates de refectorio, convenerunt archiepiscopi et episcopi,
abbates et priores, seorsum per se super hoc diligenter tractaturi.
Tandem requisiti fuerunt ex parte eorum comites et barones si
vellent suis consiliis unanimiter consentire in responsione et

328 Henry III. [part
provisione super his facienda. Qui responderunt quod sine
communi universitate nihil facerent. Tunc de communi assensu
electi fuerunt ex parte cleri, electus Cantuariensis, Wintoniensis,
Lincolniensis et Wigorniensis episcopi ; ex parte laicorum
Ricardus comes frater domini regis, comes Bigot, comes Lege-
cestriae Simon de Monteforti, et comes Marescallus ; ex parte
vero baronum Ricardus de Muntfichet, et Johannes de Bailloil,
et de Sancto Edmundo et de Rameseia abbates ; ut quod isti
duodecim providerent in communi recitaretur ; nee aliqua forma
domino regi ostenderetur auctoritate duodecim, nisi omnium
communis assensus interveniret. Et quia carta libertatum quas
dominus rex olim concesserat et pro cujus conservatione archi
episcopus Cantuariensis Edmundus juraverat, fidejusserat et
certissime pro rege promiserat, nondum exstitit observata, et
auxilia quae toties concessa fuerant domino regi ad nullum pro-
feetnm regis vel regni devenerant ; et per defectum cancellarii
brevia contra justitiam pluries fuerant concessa ; petitum fuit ut
secundum quod elegerant, justitiarius et cancellarius fierent per
quos status regni solidaretur, ut solebat. Et ne per compul-
sionem concilii aliquid novum statuere videretur, noluit petitioni
magnatum consentire, sed promisit se emendaturum quae ex
eorum parte audierat. Unde datus fuit terminus eis usque in
tres septimanas a Purificatione Beatae Virginis ut ibidem iterum
tunc convenirent.
Ib. p. 643. Convenientibus autem iterum magnatibus cum
praelatis generaliter Londini .... renovata fuit petitio regis
super auxilio pecuniari sibi faciendo. Circa quod de die in diem
convenit eos dominus rex, turn in propria persona, turn per inter
nuncios solemnes per quos promisit se libertates quas juraverat
in coronatione sua, super quibus cartam confecerat, integerrime
servaturum . . . Tandem unanimiter . . . concesserunt domino
regi ad maritandam filiam suam primogenitam, de omnibus qui
tenent de domino rege in capite, de singulis scutis viginti solidos
solvendos. Ib. p. 650. In crastino autem omnium Sanctorum convenientes
magnates Angliae, Rex cum instantissime, ne dicam impuden-
tissime, auxilium pecuniare ab eis iterum postularet, toties laesi
et illusi contradixerunt ei unanimiter et uno ore in facie.
A.D. 1246. Matt. Paris, p. 696. Medio vero quadragesimae
. . . edicto regio convocata convenit ad Parlamentum gene-
ralissimum totius regni Anglicani nobilitas Londini, videlicet
praelatorum tam abbatum et priorum quam episcoporum, comi-
tum quoque et baronum, ut de statu regni jam vacillantis effica-

vi. J Excerpts. 329
citer prout exegit urgens necessitas contrectarent. Angebat
enim eos gravamen intolerable a curia Romana incessanter
illatum. . .
Ib. p. 709. Die vero translationis beati Thomae Martyris
habitum est magnum concilium inter regem et regni magnates
apud Wintoniam.
A.D. 1247. T. Wyk.es, p. 96. Facta est generalis congre-
gatio omnium magnatum Angliae episcoporum, comitum, baro
num, coram domino rege apud Oxoniam, quindena Paschae :
quorum consilio et assensu dominus rex mutavit monetam
suam, quia vetus sic fuit retonsa quod quasi nullius fuit
valoris. A.D. 1248. Matt. Paris, p. 743. In octavis . . . Purifica
tionis edicto regio convocata totius regni Angliae nobilitas con
venit Londini, ut de regni negotiis nimis perturbati et depauperati
et temporibus nostris enormiter mutilati diligenter et efficaciter
simul cum domino rege contrectaret. Advenerunt igitur illuc,
excepta baronum, militum, nobilium, necnon et abbatum, priorum,
et clericorum multitudine copiosa, novem episcopi cum totidem
comitibus. . . . Et cum proposuisset dominus rex . . . pecuniare
auxilium postulare, redargutus est graviter super hoc quod non
erubescebat tunc tale juvamen exigere, praesertim quia quando
in ultima tali exactione, cui nobiles Angliae vix consenserunt,
confecit cartam suam, quod amplius talem non faceret magnatibus
suis injuriam et gravamen. . . . Calumniator itaque dominus
rex graviter . . . eo quod sicut magnifici reges praedecessores
sui habuerunt, justitiarium nee cancellarium habet nee thesau
rarium per commune consilium regni prout deceret et expediret,
sed tales qui suam qualemcunque dummodo sibi quaestuosam
sequuntur voluntatem . . . Dilata sunt igitur omnia . . . usque
ad quindenam Nativitatis Sancti Johannis Baptistae.
Ib. p. 748. Adveniente autem quindena Sancti Johannis
Baptistae .... responderunt omnes quasi uno spiritu praecise,
nullo modo se amplius inutiliter velle depauperare. . .
A.D. 1249. Matt. Paris, p. 765. Ad clausum vero Pascha
convenerunt magnates Angliae, prout condictum inter eos prius
fuerat Londini, ut quod rex saepe promiserat eisdem saltern tunc
adimpleret, videlicet de cancellario, justitiario et thesaurario per
consilium eorum constituendis. Sed cum omnia se certissime
crederent recepturos, comitis Ricardi, qui eorum omnium summus
esse videtur, absentia progressum negotii penitus impedivit.
A.D. 1250. Matt. Paris, p. 778. Rex . . . curiae suae ex-
pensas et solitae dapsilitatis facetias . . . jussit minorari.

330 Henry III. [part
A.D. 1 25 1. Matt. Paris, p. 814. XIII410 kalendas Martii
habitum est Parlamentum magnum Londini.
A.D. 1252. Matt. Paris, pp. 849, 850. Festo autem beati Ed
wardi imminente .... convenerunt veluti ex edicto regio convocati
totius Angliae praelati fere universi. . . . Protulit igitur in
medium dominus rex . . . papale mandatum . . . quod videlicet
contulerat dominus papa totam regni decimam, videlicet pro
ventuum totius ecclesiae Anglicanae, . . . per triennium ad regia
viatica peregrinationis. . . . Dixerunt se non posse plenum aut
perfectum consilium inire absque domini Cantuariensis archi
episcopi . . . praesentia et assensu, et domini archiepiscopi
Eboracensis . . . consensu et providentia.
Ib. p. 853. Convocatis . . . denuo dominus rex optimatibus
suis . . . convenit eos de negotio Gasconiae quid agendum. . . .
Responderunt . . . ' de statu suo moderno minime certificamur
. . . nee de incertis certe possumus resjjondere.' . . . Solutum
est igitur concilium. . .
A.D. 1253. Matt. Westm. p. 352. In quindena Paschae adu-
nato magno parliamento petierunt praelati fere omnes, in simul
congregati, ut dominus rex, cartas conservans et libertates quas
sagpius promiserat, sanctam insuper ecclesiam permitteret suis
gaudere libertatibus, maxime de electionibus praelatorum tam
cathedralium ecclesiarum quam conventualium. Quae omnia rex
se indemniter observaturum protestans, eorundem una cum aliis
magnatibus, ad suae praecipue peregrinationis subsidium postu-
latum de contributione reportavit assensum. Concessa est igitur
regi decima pars proventuum ecclesiasticorum per triennium, a
militibus vero scutagium illo anno, scilicet ad scutum tres marcae.
Rex autem bona fide promisit se omnia inviolabiliter observatu
rum, quae et alias multoties juraverat et pater suus Johannes
primo affirmabat, et, ut certiores fierent de promisso, praecepit
super hoc in praesentia sua sententiam proferri in publicum.
A.D. 1254. Matt. Paris, p. 881. Cum VIt0 kalendas
Februarii . . convenissent universi fere Angliae magnates . . .
solutum est concilium cassum et inane.
Ann. Dunstapl. p. 190. In quindena Paschae convenemnt
magnates Angliae apud Westmonasterium.
A.D. 1255. Ann. Burton, p. 336. Henricus rex Angliae in
quindena a Pascha tenuit parliamentum suum apud Westmonas
terium : convocatis ibidem . . . totius regni episcopis, abba
tibus, comitibus et baronibus universis ibi praesentibus . . .
exigebat sibi auxilium exhiberi, et ut quidam qui ibidem af-

vi.] Excerpts. 331
fuerunt asserehant, disposuit rex habere taylagium quod dicitur
horngelth. Magnates autem e contra petebant, ut secundum
consuetudinem regni tres personas possent per electionem in
regno habere, videlicet capitalem justitiarium, cancellarium et
thesaurarium . . . neutro concesso, datus est dies ad deliberan
dum super his, usque in quindenam a festo Sancti Michaelis. .
Ib. p. 360. Post festum Sancti Michaelis . . tenuit rex
parliamentum suum apud Westmonasterium, convocatis ibidem
episcopis, abbatibus et prioribus, comitibus et baronibus et
totius regni majoribus, in quo petebat a clero de laicis feodis suis
sibi suffragium exhiberi ad negotium stulte et incircumspecte
pro regno inchoatum Siciliae prosequendum ; disponens de suo
consilio iniquo hoc prius a clero, et postmodum a populo majori
et minori extorquere. Episcopi vero, abbates, priores et pro-
curatores qui ibidem pro universitate affuerunt, . . . gravamina
summo pontifici . . . destinarunt. . . . ' Procuratores clericorum
beneficiatorum archidiaconatus Lincolniae pro tota communitate
proponunt quod gravati sunt quod decima beneficiorum suorum
domino regi fuit concessa ipsis non vocatis.' . . .
A.D. 1256. Matt. Paris, p. 920. In festo . . sancti Hilarii
congregati sunt Londini episcopi Angliae et archidiaconi,
undique vehementer angustiati ut darent responsum magistro
Rustando, papae et regis clerico, papae nuncio, regis procuratori.
. . . Provisumque est salubriter ut Magnae Cartae regis
Johannis . . . sub poena horribilis anathematis conserventur.
AD. 1257. Matt. Paris, p. 946. In media Quadragesima
factum est magnum parliamentum. ... In parliamento autem
. . . rex in audientia totius populi, adducto monstratoque omnibus
Edmundo quem protulerat in medium vestitum indumento
Apuliensi, ait, ' Videte fideles mei filium meum Edmundum
quem Dominus ad regal is excellentiae dignitatem gratuita gratia
vocavit.' . . . . Et addidit asserens quod de consilio et benigno
favore papae et ecclesiae Anglican ae, ad regnum Siciliae ac-
quirendum, se obligavit sub poena regni sui amittendi ad
solutionem centum millium marcarum et quadraginta millia
marcarum exceptis usuris  Item decimas totius cleri
impetravit generales per quinquennium continuandas . . . item
fructos omnium ecclesiasticorum beneficiorum vacatorum primi
anni usque ad quinquennium. His auditis, omnium aures
tinniebant et corda vehementer obstupuerunt  Promise-
runt regi ad suas instantes necessitates — et tamen conditione
addita ut Magnam Cartam . . . observaret — quinquaginta duo
millia marcarum, in irrestaurabile damnum ecclesiae Anglicanae.

332 Henry III. [part
Ann. Burton, p. 391. Bationes episcoporum et cleri contra
petitionem domini regis. . . . ' Ttem, cum ad solutionem istius
pecuniae ab initio non essemus requisiti nee aliquo modo obli-
gati, nee contraxit dominus rex consentientibus tacite nee ex-
presse, immo penitus nobis ignorantibus, ad consummationem
propositi negotii nullatenus urgeri volumus nee debemus.'
A.D. 1258. Matt. Paris, p. 963. Post diem Martis, quae
vulgariter Hokedaie appellator, factum est Parlamentum Lon
dini. Rex namque multis et arduis negotiis sollicitabatur, sci
licet de negotio regni Apuliae. . . Exegit . . pecuniam infi-
nitam de qua persolvenda se obligavit papa mercatoribus pro
ipso rege 
Ib. p. 968. Duravit adhuc praelibati Parliamenti altercatio
videlicet inter regem et regni magnates, usque diem Dominicam
proximam post Ascensionem .... dilatum est parlamentum
usque ad festum Sancti Barnabae apud Oxoniam diligenter
celebrandum. Ann. Dunstapl. p. 208. Eodem anno in festo Sancti Bar
nabae apostoli fecit dominus rex convocari omnes magnates suos
Angliae, scilicet clericos et laicos.
Ann. Burton, p. 438. Ad provisionem et regni in melius
reformationem et ordinationem faciendam, sub fidei sacramento
prolati sunt ibidem articuli qui indigerent in regno correctione.
Ib. p. 445. Fuerunt etiam in eodem parliamento apud
Oxoniam xxiv. electi, videlicet xii. ex parte domini regis et
totidem ex parte communitatis, quorum ordinationibus et pro-
visionibus dominus rex et dominus Edwardus filius ejus . . . se
supposuerunt super status eorundem et totius Angliae correc
tione et in melius reformatione.
A. D. 1259. ANN- Burton, p. 471. Festivitate Sancti Ed
wardi . . in quindena Sancti Michaelis apud Westmonas
terium per dominum regem regaliter celebrata, communitas
bacheleriae Angliae significavit domino Edwardo filio regis,
comiti Gloverniae, et aliis juratis de consilio apud Oxoniam,
quod dominus rex totaliter fecerat et adimplevit omnia et sin
gula quae providerant barones et sibi imposuerant facienda ;
et quod ipsi barones nihil ad utilitatem reipublicae sicut pro-
miserant fecerunt, nisi commodum proprium et damnum regis
ubique, et quod nisi inde fieret emendatio, alia ratio pactum
reformaret. Dominus Edwardus statim pro se respondit quod
juramentum quoddam fecerat apud Oxoniam etiam invitus, sed
non propter hoc quin foret paratus ad praestandum sponte

vi.] Excerpts. 333
dictum juramentum, et ad exponendum se morti pro communi-
tate Angliae et pro utilitate reipublicae secundum quod juratum
exstitit apud Oxoniam : et mandavit praeeise baronibus de con
silio juratis quod nisi juramentum suum praedictum adimple-
rent, ipse usque ad mortem staret cum communitate et promissa
faceret adimpleri. Tandem videntes barones magis expedire
promissa sua per seipsos adimpleri quam per alios, publice fece
runt provisiones suas promulgari. . . .
A.D. 1260. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 125. Post Pascha factum
est parliamentum baronum apud Londoniam. Rex itaque per-
pendens barones grandia moliri et aliquid velle machinari contra
eum, ingressus est civitatem Londoniae, et fecit custodiri portas
civitatis, resumpsitque turrim Londoniae, expellens Hugonem
Dispensarium qui factus fuit justitiarius per ordinationem
baronum ; et fecit venire scaccarium suum de Westmonasterio
ad Sanctum Paulum in domibus Episcopi Londoniae in quibus
hospitabatur : et coepit proponere plures articulos contra barones,
et rationes prout sibi videjaatur satis efficaces, quod non tene-
batur observare promissiones Oxoniae. Unde ortum est schisma
inter ipsum et proceres ; tandem post multas altercationes com-
promiserunt in arbitros.
Ann. Dunstapl. p. 217. Post Natale dominus rex turrim
Londoniarum ingressus est et eam multum affbrtiavit ; portas
civitatis obseravit, mandans magnatibus quod ad turrim ad
parliamentum venirent : et renuerunt mandantes quod, si
placeret ei, apud Westmonasterium venirent, ubi parliamentum
tenere consueverunt et non alibi, propter quod inter eos orta
est dissensio.
A.D. 1261. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 128. Rex Angliae in
festo Pentecostes apud Wintoniam detulit litteras domini papae,
et publice ostendit eas baronibus, quod absolutus fuit a jura
mento quod praestiterat de providentiis baronum observandis.
. . . Et deposuit dominum Hugonem Dispensarium de officio
justitiarii. . . .
A.D. 1262. Matt. Westm. p. 381. Henricus rex absolutio
nem impetraverat a papa Urbano de suae concessionis obser-
vatione quam fecerat Oxoniae.
Chron. T, Wykes, p. 130. Circa Purificationem beatae
Virginis factum est parliamentum apud Londoniam, et posu-
erunt se rex et barones supra dictum regis Franciae et regis
Alemanniae. ... In quindena Paschae convenerunt barones apud
Londoniam tractaturi cum rege, et post multos tractatus conces-

334 Henry III. [part
serunt quod a pluribus articulis contentis in providentia Oxoniae
resilirent, si quosdam eorum eis confirmaret. . . . Circa gulam
Augusti transfretavit rex Angliae.
A.D. 1263. Ann. Osney, p. 131. Provisiones Oxoniae circa
Conversionem Sancti Pauli [rex] confirmavit et ratificavit.
Chron. T. Wykes, p. 133. In ipsa congregatione magnatum
quae facta est Londoniae in festo Pentecostes, comes Leycestriae
et multi alii murmuraverunt adversus regem Angliae, dominam
reginam, et dominum Edwardum, dicentes eos perjurium incur-
risse nisi providentias Oxoniae observarent.
Ib. p. 138. Habitis . . . frequenter tractatibus inter partes,
circa festum Nativitatis Dominicae, rex et universi complices
sui et fautores, comes cum universis sibi cohaerentibus, rex
Romanorum, dominus Edwardus, comites, barones, milites, archi
episcopi, episcopi, universi ecclesiarum praelati, immo generaliter
clerus et populus unanimi assensu compromittebant in regem
Franciae super omnibus contentioaibus ortis inter regem et
proceres suos occasione provisionum Oxoniae.
A.D. 1264. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 139. Rex Francorum . . .
vicesimo die Natalis .. . suum praecipitavit arbitrium, ipsumque
auctoritate apostolica roboravit, regemque Angliae judicialiter
pristinae potestati restituit, provisiones Oxoniae seu statuta
abrogavit penitus et cassavit, decernens quod rex justitiarium,
cancellarium, thesaurarium, vicecomites, ballivos, consiliarios et
ministros sibi eligeret quoscunque vellet.
Ann. Dunstapl. p. 232. Pridie idus Maii . . apud Lewes . . .
dictus comes et qui cum eo erant ceperunt regem Angliae, et
regem Alemanniae, et Edwardum filium regis. . . .
Chron. Rishanger. p. 37. Compositio pacis post bellum
de Lewes. Capitulum primum, ^uper reformatione pacis regni
Angliae et reconciliatione discordiarum in eodem regno motarum
vel renovatarum, compromittitur in archiepiscopum Rotoma-
gensem, episcopum Londoniensem, Petrum le Chaumberleyn, et
H. Justitiarium Angliae, et Sabinensem episcopum apostolicae
tunc sedis legatum, in arbitros seu arbitratores ; data eis in
omnibus plena potestate, salvo quod circa captivos vel modum
liberationis eorum se nullatenus intromittant.
Secundum articulum, quod illud quod quatuor vel tres de
personis praescriptis super praemissis in unam concordaverunt
sententiam, stabitur eorum diffinitioni, quinto minime requi-
rendo ; quod si duo Concordes fuerint tantum, non utrum eorum

vi.] Excerpts. 335
stabitur donee a quinto fuerit approbata, alioquin expirabit
arbitrium. Et tunc stabitur illi formae quam nuper Magister
de Templo paulo ante detulit regi Franciae, donee aliqua forma
pacis fuerit provisa.
Tertium ; quod isti arbitri jurabunt quod eligent consiliarios
indigenas tantum, quos ipsi regi et regno noverunt utiliores.
Quartum ; quod rex credat consiliariis suis sine personarum
acceptione, in justitia exhibenda et in ministris officialibus vel
ballivis suis de Anglicis tantummodo et indigenis creandis,
constituendis. Item antiquas cartas tam de libertatibus quam
foresta, et articulos quos contra oppressiones justitiariurum,
vicecomitum et aliorum ballivorum, faciat rex in perpetuum
observare. Consiliarii etiam piovideant quod rex faciat mode-
ratas expensas, nee inmensas libertates exerceat, donee debitum
antiquum fuerit relevatum et de suo vivere possit, absque mer
eatorum et pauperum gravamine, et in hiis provisionibus rex
consiliatorum suorum adquiescet.
Quintum; quod arbitrium bona securitate valletur, et eo
vallate vel bene firmato et plene, obsides pacis dominus Ed
wardus, H. de Almannia, liberentur, ita quod ante liberationem
eorum caveant idonee de pace observanda, et quod novam
guerram aut discordiam non suscitabunt in regno, sed volen-
tibus guerram vel discordiam suscitare, una cum aliis comi
tibus et baronibus pacem et arbitrium observare volentibus,
totis viribus resistere erunt.
Sextum ; quod comitibus Leycestriae et Gloverniae et aliis
eis adhaerentibus plena paretur securitas, ne occasione aliqua
prius factorum quoquomodo gravetur in futurum.
Septimum; quod compromissum istud in regno Angliae
tractetur, et infra festum Paschae proximum ad ultimuni ter
minetur. Liber de Antiquis Legibus, p. 65. Tunc episcopi et barones
tenuerunt parlamentum, in quo ordinatum fuit, sicut patet in
litteris domini regis.
A.D. 1265. Ann. Waverl. p. 358. In crastino Sancti
Hilarii factum est parliamentum magnum Londoniae.
Chron. T. Wykes, pp. 163, 174. Die Jovis in septimana
Pentecostes dominus Edwardus . . . collegis suis mirantibus quo
pergeret valedixit. . . . Gestum est . . . proelium extra oppidum
Eveshamiae die Martis proxima post festum Sancti Petri ad
Vincula, quarto die mensis Augusti. . . .
Ann. Waverl. p. 366., Ad festum Exaltationis Sanctae
Crucis factum est parliamentum magnum apud Wintoniam . . .

336 Henry III. [part
prolongatum fuit . . . usque ad festum Sancti Edwardi apud
Westmonasterium. A.D. 1266. Matt. Westm. p. 397. Henricus rex Angliae
Natale suum tenuit apud Westmonasterium, ubi regionis nobiles
convenerunt in unum de pace regni more solito tractaturi.
Ann. Waverl. p. 371. Ad festum Sancti Bartholomaei apo-
stoli factum est parliamentum magnum apud Kenilworthe ubi
dominus rex Henricus concessit baronibus suis antiquam cartam,
et requisivit decimam per triennium totius ecclesiae Anglicanae ;
responsumque fuit communiter et legatus assensum praebuit,
quod primo formarent pacem, si qua posset fieri, et postea super
his responsum domino regi facerent, quod dominus rex bene
concessit. Provisum igitur ibidem est per assensum regis, Ed
wardi, legati, episcoporum, abbatum, baronum omnium ibidem
existentium, ut eligerentur sex viri, tres episcopi et tres barones
indigenae, ipsique sex alios sex eligerent episcopos et barones
indigenas . . . qui ordinarent de statu regni.
A.D. 1267. Matt. Westm. p. 398. Rex Henricus tenuit
Natale suum Coventriae. Postmodum veniens ad Westmonaste
rium, parliamentum tenuit cum potentioribus terrae suae, spe-
rans pacem in cunctis finibus Angliae confirmare.
Chron. T. Wykes, p. 210. Obtento quidem circa festum
Sancti Jacobi apostoli tam felici triumpho (sc. de provincia
Eliensi) ... in cunctis regni finibus successit optata tran-
quillitas. Stat. Marlb. A.D. 1267, regni autem domini Henrici filii
regis Johannis LII°, in octavis Sancti Martini, providente ipso
domino rege ad regni sui meliorationem et ad exhibitionem
justitiae prout regalis officii exposcit utilitas pleniorem, con
vocatis discretioribus ejusdem regni tam de majoribus quam
de minoribus, ita provisum est et statutum et concorditer
ordinatum. A.D. 1268. Ann. Waverl. p. 375. Item XIX. kalendas
Maii celebravit dominus legatus concilium suum Londoniae . . .
inde profectus versus Norhamtone, ubi dominus rex et alii
magnates regni magnum parliamentum tenuerunt . . ubi
dominus Edwardus et Edmundus frater ejus et multi magnates
regni sunt ab eo crucesignati.
AD. 1269. Chron. T. Wykes, p. 221. Convocata Lon
doniae in quindena Paschae magnatum Angliae multitudine
copiosa, rex . . vix aliquid memorabile gessit in opere.

vi.] Reissue of the Charter. 337
Ib. pp. 226, 227. Tertio idus Octobris . . . convocatis uni
versis Angliae praelatis et magnatibus necnon cunctarum regni
sui civitatum pariter et burgorum potentioribus . . . venerandas
illas reliquias (sc. Sancti Edwardi), de veteri scrinio transferens
... in loco supereminenti cum ea qua decuit reverentia col-
locavit. . . . Celebrato tandem tantae translationis solemnio, coe-
perunt nobiles, ut assolent, parliamentationis genere de regis et
regni negotiis pertractare ; in quo . . . annuentibus regni majo
ribus vel contradicere non audentibus, concessum est quod de
universis laicorum mobilibus per regnum Angliae . . . vicesima
solveretur. A.D. 1270. Ann. Winton. p. 108. Item parliamentum
omnium magnatum Angliae in quindena Paschae, ad tractan
dum de vicesima. . . . Post octavas Sancti Johannis convene
runt fere omnes magnates apud Londoniam ad tractandum de
praemissis. A.D. 1271. Ann. Winton. p. no. Post octavas Epiphaniae
magnates regni parliamentum suum tenuerunt Londoniae, ubi
per communem assensum domini Ricardi regis Alemanniae,
Gilberti comitis Gloverniae, Philippi Basset et aliorum, exhae-
redatis concessae sunt eorum terrae.

A.D. 1 2 16. Announcement op the reissue of the
Charter.
Rex, G. de Marisco justitiario suo Hiberniae, salutem. Mul-
tiplices vobis referimus gratiarum actiones de bono et fideli
servitio vestro, felicis memoriae Johanni quondam regi Angliae,
patri nostro, exhibito, nobisque exhibendo, et de hiis quae per
fidelem nostrum Radulfum de Norwico clericum nobis signi-
ficastis. Cum igitur jubente Ipso Cujus famulantur imperio
mors et vita, dominus et pater noster ex hae luce feliciter
migraverit, cujus anima in caelestibus collocetur, vos scire
volumus quod celebratis solemniter ex more debito regalibus
exsequiis in ecclesia Beatae Mariae Wygorniae, convenerunt
apud Gloucestriam plures regni nostri magnates, episcopi,
abbates, comites et barones, qui patri nostro viventi semper
astiterunt fideliter et devote, et alii quamplurimi ; ubi in festo
apostolorum Simonis et Judae, in ecclesia Beati Petri Glou-
cestriae, applaudentibus clero et populo, per manus domini

338 Henry III. [part
Gualonis titulo Sancti Martini presbyteri cardinalis et aposto
licae sedis legati in Anglia, et episcoporum tunc praesentium,
invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, publice fuimus in regem Angliae
inuncti et coronati, fidelitate et homagio omnium illorum nobis
exhibitis ; quod vobis ut fideli nostro duximus intimandum,
ut de honore et successu nostro felici gloriemini. Sane cum
audierimus indignationem quondam inter memoratum dominum
patrem nostrum et quosdam nobiles regni nostri exortam, — utrum
cum causa vel sine causa nos nescimus, — sic agitatam exstitisse,
et illam volumus in perpetuum aboleri et oblivisci, quod nun-
quam menti nostrae adhaereat, et ut, cessante causa, cesset
effectus ; quicquid exstiterit erga ipsum conceptae indignationis
parati sumus et volumus pro viribus nostris expiare, singulis
praebendo quod ratio dictaverit cum subditorum consilio, et
deletis de regno pravis consuetudinibus, in libertatum et libera-
rum consuetudinum innovatione dies nobilium patrum nostrorum
reformare gratiosos, unicuique tribuendo quod sibi debebit cum
ratione competere. Ad hoc sciatis quod celebrato nuper concilio
apud Bristollum ubi convenerunt universi Angliae praelati tam
episcopi et abbates, quam priores, et multi tam comites quam
barones, qui etiam universaliter fidelitatem nobis publice faci-
entes, concessis eis libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus ab eis
prius postulatis, et ipsis approbatis, prompti et proni ad man-
datum nostrum in partes suas cum gaudio sunt reversi. Spera-
mus quidem et in Domino confidimus quod regni nostri status,
Divina favente dementia, in melius commutabitur. De domina
regina matre nostra vel fratre nostro mittendis in Hiberniam
vobis respondemus, quod habito consilio fidelium nostrorum et
assensu, quod nobis et commodo nostro et regni nostri expedire
viderimus, faciemus. Rogamus igitur dilectionem vestram qua
tenus, etsi bonae memoriae Johanni patri nostro fideles exsti-
teritis et devoti, tanto nobis fideliores existere curetis, quanto
scitis nos auxilio et consilio vestro in hae teneritate nostra
plurimum indigere ; capientes fidelitatem de singulis Hiberniae
magnatibus, et aliis qui nobis ipsam facere tenentur. Retinui-
mus adhuc nobiscum Radulfum de Norwico, ut de hiis et aliis
per ipsum voluntatem nostram plenius vobis significemus, vo
lentes ut eisdem vos et ceteri fideles nostri Hiberniae gaudeatis
libertatibus, quas fidelibus nostris de regno Angliae concessimus,
et illas vobis concedemus et confirmamus. Teste, etc. — (Foedera,
i. 145.)

vi.] Reissue of the Charter. 339

A.D. 1 2 16. First Charter op Hentry III.
This first reissue of the Great Charter took place in the
council at which, under the influence of the legate, the mass of
the prelates and the barons who were not committed to the
French party swore fealty to the king. The omissions and
additions in this edition are very significant. All the merely
temporary provisions of the Great Charter of John are left out
as a matter of course, as well as the clauses which were intended
to secure the execution of them. The most important omissions
are those of the articles which restricted the king's power of
increasing his revenue, such as those touching the ferm of the
counties, the debts of the Jews, and the alterations in the forest
law ; and most especially that which forbids the levying of an
aid over and above the three ordinary ones, without the consent
of the ' Commune Consilium regni.' The ministers seem to
have felt that in the present state of affairs it would be foolish
to bind the young king by the terms which were necessary
to bind his father, and that as they themselves were likely to
have the administration of the country for some years, it would
be imprudent to tie their own hands. It must be considered
also that some of the most determined opponents of the royal
power were in arms against the king, and that thus one element
of the compromise was wanting. The archbishop, whose poli
tical foresight would have discerned the danger of omitting
the 12th and 14th clauses, was at Rome. It is curious to
mark the papal sanction given by Gualo to the Charter, the
original enactment of which had subjected the barons to the
sentence of excommunication. The minor alterations are cha
racterised by the increased authority allowed to feudal lords
over their vassals, and the relaxation of the terms defining the
royal appointment of judges. Whilst the taxative power of the
Crown is thus unfettered, its judicial control over the feudatories
seems to be weakened ; and this denotes perhaps the spirit of
the compromise. In the 42nd article, however, the ministers
guard against the suspicion of dishonest dealing with the
z 2

340 Henry III. [part
Charter : the omitted clauses are merely respited, and a pro
mise is made of full consideration and ready completion of all
that shall conduce to the wellbeing of the body politic.

Henricus Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hyberniae, dux
Normanniae et Aquitanniae, et comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis,
episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, justitiariis, forestariis,
ricecomitibus, praepositis, ministris, ballivis et omnibus fidelibus
suis, salutem. Sciatis nos intuitu Dei et pro salute animae
nostrae et omnium antecessorum et successorum nostrorum, ad
honorem Dei et exaltationem sanctae ecclesiae et emendationem
regni nostri, per consilium venerabilium patrum nostrorum do
mini Gualonis tituli Sancti Martini presbiteri cardinalis aposto
licae sedis legati, Petri Wintoniensis, R. de Sancto Asapho,
J. Bathoniensis et Glastoniensis, S. Exoniensis, R. Cicestrensis,
W. Coventrensis, B. Roffensis, H. Landavensis, — Menevensis,
— Bangorensis et S. Wygornensis, episcoporum ; et nobilium viro-
rum Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrociae, Ranulfi comitis
Cestriae, Willelmi de Ferrariis comitis Derebiae, Willelmi comitis
Albemarlae, Huberti de Burgo Justitiarii nostri, Savarici de
Maloleone, Willelmi Brigwerre patris, Willelmi Brigwerre filii,
Roberti de Curtenay, Falkesii de Breaute, Reginaldi de Vautort,
Walteri de Lascy, Hugonis de Mortuo Mari, Johannis de Mone-
mute, Walteri de Bello campo, Walteri de Clifford, Rogeri de
Clifford, Roberti de Mortuo Mari, Willelmi de Cantilupe, Mathaei
filii Hereberti, Johannis Mariscalli, Alani Basset, Philippi de
Albiniaco, Johannis Extranei et aliorum fidelium nostrorum : —
i. Imprimis — illaesas. Concessimus — nostris; as in the
charter of John, the intermediate clause on freedom of election
being omitted.
2. Si quis — feodorum ; as in the charter of John, art. 2.
3. Si autem haeres alicujus talium fuerit infra aetatem, domi
nus ejus non habeat custodiam ejus nee terrae suae, antequam
homagium ejus ceperit ; et postquam talis haeres fuerit in
custodia, cum ad aetatem pervenerit, scilicet viginti unius anni,
habeat haereditatem suam sine relevio et sine fine, ita tamen
quod si ipse dum infra aetatem fuerit, fiat miles, nihilominus
terra remaneat in custodia domini sui usque ad terminum
praedictum. 4, Custos — praedictum est. M. C. Joh. art. 4.
5. Custos — carucis ; M. C. Joh. art. 5, ending thus : et om
nibus aliis rebus ad minus secundum quod illam recepit. Haec
omnia observentur de custodiis archiepiscopatuum, episcopatuuni,

vi.] Reissue of the Charter. 341
abbatiarum, prioratuum, ecclesiarum et dignitatum vacantium,
excepto quod custodiae hujusmodi vendi non debent.
6. Haeredes — disparagatione. M. C. Joh. art. 6, omitting the
concluding words.
7. Vidua — dos sua, M. C. Joh. art. 7, adding, nisi prius ei
fuerit assignata, vel nisi domus ilia sit castrum ; et si de castro
recesserit, statim provideatur ei domus competens in qua possit
honeste morari quousque dos sua ei assignetur secundum quod
praedictum est.
, 8. Nulla — tenuerit. M. C. Joh. art. 8.
9. Nos vero vel ballivi — reddendum, M. C. Joh. art. 9 ; et
ipse debitor paratus sit inde satisfacere, nee plegii — non habens,
M. C. Joh. art. 9 ; unde reddat, aut reddere nolit cum possit,
plegii — plegios. M. C. Joh. art. 9.
The 10th, nth, and 12th articles of the charter of
John are omitted.
10. Civitas Londoniarum habeat omnes antiquas libertates
et liberas consuetudines suas. Praeterea volumus et concedi
mus quod omnes aliae civitates et burgi et villae et barones de
quinque portubus et omnes portus habeant omnes libertates et
liberas consuetudines suas. M. G. Joh. art. 13.
TJie 14th and 15th articles of the charter of John are
omitted.
n. Nullus — debetur. M. G. Joh. art. 16.
12. Communia — certo. M. G. Joh. art. 17.
13. Recognitiones — praedictas. M. C. Joh. art. 18.
14. Et si — minus. M. G. Joh. art. 19.
15. Liber homo — visneto. M. G. Joh. art. 20, ending pro-
borum et legalium hominum de visneto.
16. Comites — delicti. M. C. Joh. curt. 21.
17. Nullus clericus — ecclesiastici, M. C. Joh. art.22, omitting
de laico tenemento suo.
18. Nee villa — debent. M. C. Joh. art. 23.
19. Nullus vicecomes — nostrae. M. C. Joh. art. 24.
The 25th article of the charter of John is omitted.
20. Si aliquis — partibus suis. M. G. Joh. art. 26.
The 27 th article of the charter of John is omitted.
21. Nullus constabularius vel ejus ballivus capiat blada vel
alia catalla alicujus qui non sit de villa ubi castrum situm est,
nisi statim inde reddat denarios aut respectum inde habere possit
de voluntate venditoris ; si autem de villa fuerit, teneatur infra
tres septimanas pretium reddere. M. C. Joh. art. 28.

342 Henry III. [part
22. Nullus — exercitu. M. C. Joh. art. 29.
23. Nullus vicecomes vel ballivus noster vel alius capiat equos
vel carettas alicujus pro cariagio faciendo, nisi reddat liberatio-
nem antiquitus statutam, scilicet pro caretta ad duos equos
decern denarios per diem, et pro caretta ad tres equos quatuor-
decim denarios per diem. M. C. Joh. art. 30.
24. Nee nos — fuerit. M. C. Joh. art. 31.
25. M. C. Joh. art. 32.
26. M. C. Joh. art. 33.
27. M. C. Joh. art. 34.
28. M. C. Joh. art. 35.
29. M. C. Joh. art. 36.
30. M. C. Joh. ar/t. 37.
31. M. G. Joh. art. 38.
32. M. C. Joh. art. 39.
33. M. C. Joh. art. 40.
34. Omnes mercatores, nisi publice ante prohibiti fuerint,
habeant — terra nostra. M. G. Joh. art. 41.
The 42nd article oftlie charter of John is omitted.
35. M. G. Joh. art. 43.
36. M. G. Joh. art. 44.
The 45^ article of the charter of John is omitted.
37. M. 0. Joh. art. 46, adding, et sicut supra declaratum est.
38. Omnes forestae quae afforestatae sunt tempore regis
Johannis patris nostri statim deafforestentur, et ita fiat de
ripariis quae per eundem Johannem tempore suo positae sunt in
defense M. C. Joh. art. 47.
The articles 48 to 53, inclusive, of the charter of John
are omitted.
39. M. 0. Joh. art. 54.
The 55</i article of the charter of John is omitted.
40. Et si rex Johannes pater noster dissaisierit vel elongaverit
Wallenses — nostris ; as in M. C. Joh. art. 56.
The tfth, 58^, and 59th articles of the charter of John
are omitted.
41. M. C. Joh. art. 60.
The remaining articles of the charter of John are
omitted as well as the Forma Securitatis &c.
42. Quia vero quaedam capitula in priore carta continebantur
quae gravia et dubitabilia videbantur, scilicet de scutagiis et
auxiliis assidendis, de debitis Judaeorum et aliorum, et de liber-
tate exeundi de regno nostro vel redeundi in regnum, et de

vi.] Reissue of the Charter. 343
forestis et forestariis. warennis et warennariis, et de consuetudi
nibus comitatuum et de ripariis et earum custodibus, placuit
supradictis praelatis et magnatibus ea esse in respectu quousque
plenius consilium habuerimus, et tunc faciemus plenissime tam de
hiis quam de aliisquae occurrerint emendanda, quae ad communem
omnium utilitatem pertinuerint et pacem et statum nostrum et
regni nostri. Quia vero sigillum nondum habuimus, praesentem
cartam sigillis venerabilis patris nostri domini Gualonis tituli
Sancti Martini presbyteri cardinalis, apostolicae sedis legati, et
Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrokiae, rectoris nostri et regni
nostri fecimus sigillari. Testibus omnibus praenominatis et
aliis multis. Datum per manus praedictorum domini legati et
Willelmi Mariscalli comitis Penbrokiae apud Bristollum duo
decimo die Novembris anno regni nostri primo. — (Statutes of the
Realm — Charters of Liberties, 14-16.)

A.D. 1 2 17. Summons of the Sheriff to bring up
the County in arms.
The following writ directs the sheriff to collect the whole force
of his county in arms : ( 1 ) the feudal levy in the proportion
determined by the extent of the holdings of the tenants in chief ;
and (2) the force armed under the Assize of Arms on the non-
feudal principle. It was probably issued in preparation for the
march of the Earl Marshall on London, whither Lewis had be
taken himself after the battle of Lincoln.
The writ bears the same relation to the summons of the
barons to military service, as the summons to the county court
bears to the summons to Parliament. (See below, A.D. 1231.)
Rex vicecomiti Berkescirae, salutem. Praecipimus tibi quod
venire facias usque Oxoniam die Dominica proxima post festum
Sancti Petri ad Vincula totum servitium quod archiepiscopi,
episcopi, abbates et viri religiosi, comites et barones et omnes
alii de ballia tua, quicunque fuerint, nobis debent ; et venire
facias illuc ad diem ilium similiter omnes illos de ballia tua qui
non sunt homines praedictorum et per catalla eorum et alia
jurati sunt, promptos et paratos ad eundum in servitium nos
trum quo eis praeceperimus. Quia etc. T. apud Oxoniam, XXII
die Julii.— (Report on tlie Dignity of a Peer, App. p. 2.)

344 Henry III. [part

A.D. 1 217. Second Charter of Henry III.
The second reissue of the Great Charter took place after the
treaty of peace and Lewis's resignation of his claims to the
crown. It is undated ; but was probably put forth either on
the occasion of the council at Merton on the 23rd of September,
when a large part of Lewis's supporters gave in their adhesion
to Henry; or six weeks later at London, when the Charter
of the Forest was granted. The differences between this edition
and that of the preceding year are numerous, important, and
minute. The clauses touching the forest administration are
omitted, to be embodied in a new charter. The respiting clause
(art. 42) is also omitted, although the introduction of a new
provision (art. 46), saving all existing privileges, may be
regarded as serving the same purpose. Besides the 46th
article, the 42nd, 43rd, 44th, and 47th are new : the former
three, which arrange for the holding of the sheriff's court and
view of frankpledge, forbid the fraudulent bestowal of estates on
religious houses, and assert the king's rights to scutages ; and the
47th, which directs the destruction of the adulterine castles, are
most interesting. They show how great a reaction had set in
since the days of John, and that the condition of the country,
having fallen back into the evils of the last century, required the
same measures of restoration. The minute legal changes in the
earlier articles indicate the same state of things : the reduction
of the assizes of the itinerant justices from four to one annually ;
and the disuse of the plan of election of knights to take the
recognitions (art. 13), look like a concession to the feudal spirit
which long continued hostile to the king's provincial judicature.
It would be dangerous to infer too much of a political meaning
in these : but the old feudal party, which it was necessary for
the moment to reconcile, was the only one which could gain by
the limitation of the powers of either the royal or the local
tribunals which was involved in these changes.
Henricus Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae, dux
Normanniae, Aquitanniae, et comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis,

vi.] Second Reissue of the Charter. 345
episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus, vicecomi
tibus, praepositis, ministris, et omnibus baillivis et fidelibus suis
praesentem cartam inspecturis, salutem. Sciatis quod intuitu
Dei et pro salute animae nostrae et animarum antecessorum et
successorum nostrorum, ad exaltationem sanctae ecclesiae et
emendationem regni nostri, concessimus et hae praesenti carta
confirmavimus pro nobis et haeredibus nostris in perpetuum,
de consilio venerabilis patris nostri domini Gualonis tituli
Sancti Martini presbiteri cardinalis et apostolicae sedis legati,
domini Walteri Eboracensis archiepiscopi, Willelmi Londoniensis
episcopi, et aliorum episcoporum Angliae et Willelmi Mariscalli
comitis Pembrokiae rectoris nostri et regni nostri, et aliorum
fidelium comitum et baronum nostrorum Angliae, has libertates
subscriptas tenendas in regno nostro Angliae in perpetuum : —
Art. 1-6. M. C. 1 2 16, art. 1-6.
7. Vidua — maneat (M. C. 12 16, art. 7), in capitali mesuagio
mariti sui per xl. dies post obitum ipsius mariti sui, infra quos
assignetur ei dos sua nisi prius fuerit ei assignata, vel nisi domus
ilia sit castrum, et si de castro — praedictum est ; (M. C. 1 2 1 6,
art. 7) et habeat rationabile estuverium suum interim de com
muni. Assignetur autem ei pro dote sua tertia pars totius
terrae mariti sui quae sua fuit in vita sua, nisi de minori dotata
fuerit ad ostium ecclesiae.
Art. 8-12. M. C. 1216, art. 8-12.
13. Recognitiones — per unumquemque comitatum semel in
anno qui cum militibus comitatuum capiant in comitatibus
assisas praedictas.
14. Et ea quae in illo adventu suo in comitatu per justiti
arios praedictos ad dictas assisas capiendas missos terminari non
possunt, per eosdem terminentur alibi in itinere suo, et ea quae
per eosdem, propter difficultatem aliquorum articulorum, termi
nari non possunt, referantur ad justitiarios nostros de banco
et ibi terminentur.
15. Assisae de ultima praesentatione semper capiantur coram
justitiariis de banco et ibi terminentur.
16. Liber homo — villanus alterius quam noster — visneto.
M. C. 1216, art. 15.
17. M. C. 1216, art. 16.
18. Nulla ecclesiastica persona amercietur secundum quan
titatem beneficii sui ecclesiastici, sed secundum laicum contene-
mentum suum et secundum quantitatem delicti. M. C. 1216,
art. 17.
19. M. C. 1216, art. 18.
20. Nulla riparia de cetero defendatur nisi illae quae fuerunt

346 Henry III. [part
in defenso tempore Henrici regis avi nostri per eadem loca et
eosdem terminos, sicut esse consueverunt tempore suo.
21. M. C. 1216, art. 19.
22. M. C. 1 2 16, art. 20 : omitting et pueris.
23. Nullus constabularius — de villa ipsa fuerit infra xl. dies
pretium reddat. M. C. 1 2 1 6, art. 2 1 .
24. M. C. 1216, art. 22.
25. M. C. 1216, art. 23.
26. Nulla caretta dominica alicujus ecclesiasticae personae
vel militis vel alicujus dominae capiatur per baillivos prae-
dictos. 27. M. C. 1216, art. 24.
28. M. C. 1216, art. 25.
29. M. C. 1 2 16, art. 26.
30. M. O 1216, art. 27.
31. M. C. 1216, art. 28.
32. M. C. 1216, art. 29.
33. M. C. 1 2 16, art. 30.
34. Nullus ballivus ponat de cetero aliquem ad legem mani-
festam nee ad juramentum simplici loquela — inductis. M. C.
1216, art. 31.
35. Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur, aut dissai-
sietur de libero tenemento suo vel libertatibus vel liberis con
suetudinibus suis, aut utlagetur . . . terrae. M. C. 12 16, art. 32.
36. M. C. 1216, art. 33.
37. M. C. 12 16, art. 34.
38. Si quis — baro eam tenuit (M. C. 1 2 16, art. 35). Nee nos
occasione talis baroniae vel excaetae habebimus aliquam excae-
tam vel custodiam aliquorum hominum nostrorum nisi alibi
tenuerit de nobis in capite ille qui tenuit baroniam vel excaetam.
39. Nullus liber homo de cetero det amplius alicui vel vendat
de terra sua quam ut de residuo terrae suae possit sufficienter
fieri domino feodi servitium ei debitum quod pertinet ad feodum
illud. 40. Omnes patroni abbatiarum, qui habent cartas regum
Angliae de advocatione vel antiquam tenuram vel possessionem,
habeant earum custodiam — declaratum est. M. C. 12 16, art. 37.
41. M. C. 1 2 16, art. 39.
42. Nullus comitatus de cetero teneatur nisi de mense in
mensem, et ubi major terminus esse solebat, major sit. Nee
aliquis vicecomes vel baillivus suus faciat turnum suum per
hundretum nisi bis in anno, et non nisi in loco debito et con-
sueto, videlicet semel post Pascha et iterum post festum Sancti
Michaelis. Et visus de franco plegio tunc fiat ad ilium termi-

vi-] Charter of the Forest. 347
num Sancti Michaelis sine occasione, ita scilicet quod quilibet
habeat libertates suas quas habuit et habere consuevit tempore
Henrici regis avi nostri, vel quas postea perquisivit. Fiat autem
visus de franco plegio sic, videlicet, quod pax nostra teneatur et
quod tethinga integra sit sicut esse consuevit, et quod vice
comes non quaerat occasiones, et quod contentus sit de eo quod
-vicecomes habere consuevit de visu suo faciendo tempore Hen
rici regis avi nostri.
43. Non liceat alicui de cetero dare terram suam alicui
domui religiosae ita quod illam resumat tenendam de eadem
domo, nee liceat alicui domui religiosae terram alicujus sic acci-
pere quod tradat eam illi a quo eam receperit tenendam. Si
quis autem de cetero terram suam alicui domui religiosae sic
dederit et super hoc convincatur, donum suum penitus cassetur
et terra ilia domino suo illius feodi incurratur.
44. Scutagium capiatur de cetero sicut capi consuevit tem
pore Henrici regis avi nostri.
45. M. C. 1216, art. 41.
•46. Salvis archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, Tem-
plariis, Hospitalariis, comitibus, baronibus et omnibus aliis tam
ecclesiasticis personis quam saecularibus, libertatibus et liberis
consuetudinibus quas prius habuerunt.
47. Statuimus etiam de communi consilio totius regni nostri
quod omnia castra adulterina, videlicet ea quae a principio
guerrae motae inter dominum Johannem patrem nostrum et
barones suos Angliae constructa fuerint vel reaedificata, statim
diruantur. Quia vero nondum habuimus sigillum hanc [cartam]
sigillis domini legati praedicti et comitis Willelmi Mariscalli
rectoris nostri et regni nostri fecimus sigillari. — (Statutes of
the Realm — Charters of Liberties, 17-19.)

A.D. 1 2 17. Charter of the Forest.
The notion that John issued a Forest Charter distinct from
the forest clauses of the Great Charter, although very ancient,
is erroneous ; the document given in Matthew Paris under that
name being merely the Forest Charter of Henry III with an
altered salutation. The following document is the first Forest
Charter, and was issued by the Earl Marshall in Henry's name
on the 6th of November, 12 17. As an important piece of legis
lation it must be compared with the Forest Assize of 1184, and

348 Henry III. [part
with the 44th, 47th, and 48th clauses of the Charter of John.
It is observable that most of the abuses which are remedied
by it are regarded as having sprung up since the accession of
Henry II, but the most offensive afforestations have been made
under Richard and John. These latter are at once disafforested ;
but those of Henry II only so far as they had been carried out
to the injury of the landowners, and outside of the royal
demesne. The heavy burden of attending the forest courts is
remitted, as it had been in the Great Charter, and thus the
exact analogy established by Henry II between the courts of
the shire and those of the forest is abolished. The 9th and
following articles repeal the most offensive clauses of the Assize
of Woodstock.

Henricus Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae, dux
Normanniae, Aquitanniae, et comes Andegaviae, archiepiscopis,
episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus, justitiariis,
forestariis, vicecomitibus, praepositis, ministris, et omnibus
ballivis et fidelibus suis, salutem. Sciatis quod intuitu Dei et
pro salute animae nostrae et animarum antecessorum et succes-
sorum nostrorum, ad exaltationem Sanctae Ecclesiae et emen-
dationem regni nostri, concessimus et hae praesenti carta
confirmavimus pro nobis et haeredibus nostris in perpetuum, de
consilio venerabilis patris nostri Gualonis tituli sancti Martini
presbiteri cardinalis et apostolicae sedis legati, domini Walteri
Eboracensis archiepiscopi, Willelmi Londoniensis episcopi, et
aliorum episcoporum Angliae, et Willelmi Marescalli comitis
Penbrociae, rectoris nostri et regni nostri, et aliorum fidelium
comitum et baronum nostrorum Angliae, has libertates sub-
scriptas tenendas in regno nostro Angliae, in perpetuum : —
1. In primis omnes forestae quas Henricus rex avus noster
afforestavit videantur per bonos et legales homines, et, si boscum
aliquem alium quam suum dominicum afforestaverit ad damp-
num illius cujus boscus fuerit, deafforestentur. Et si boscum
suum proprium afforestaverit, remaneat foresta, salva communa
de herbagio et aliis in eadem foresta illis qui eam prius habere
consueverunt. 2. Homines qui manent extra forestam non veniant de cetero
coram justitiariis nostris de foresta per communes summonitiones,
nisi sint in placito, vel plegii alicujus vel aliquorum qui attachiati
sunt propter forestam.

vi.] Charter of the Forest. 349
3. Omnes autem bosci qui fuerunt afforestati per regem
Ricardum avunculum nostrum, vel per regem Johaunem patrem
nostrum usque ad primam coronationem nostram, statim de-
afforestentar, nisi fuerit dominieus boscus noster.
4. Archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, comites et barones
et milites et libere tenentes, qui boscos suos habent in forestis,
habeant boscos suos sicut eos habuerunt tempore primae coro-
nationis praedicti regis Henrici avi nostri, ita quod quieti sint
in perpetuum de omnibus purpresturis, vastis et assartis, factis
in illis boscis, post illud tempus usque ad principium secundi
anni coronationis nostrae. Et qui de cetero vastum, purpres-
turam, vel assartum sine licentia nostra in illis fecerint, de vastis
et assartis respondeant.
5. Reguardores nostri eant per forestas ad faciendum reguar-
dum sicut fieri consuevit tempore primae coronationis praedicti
regis Henrici avi nostri, et non aliter.
6. Inquisitio, vel visus de expeditatione canum existentium in
foresta, de cetero fiat quando debet fieri reguardum, scilicet de
tertio anno in tertium annum ; et tunc fiat per visum et testi
monium legalium hominum et non aliter. Et ille cujus canis
inventus fuerit tunc non expeditatus det pro misericordia tres
solidos, et de cetero nullus bos capiatur pro expeditatione.
Talis autem sit expeditatio per assisam communiter quod tres
ortilli abscidantur sine pelota de pede anteriori ; nee expedi-
tentur canes de cetero nisi in locis ubi consueverunt expeditari
tempore primae coronationis regis Henrici avi nostri.
7. Nullus forestarius vel bedellus de cetero faciat scotale, vel
colligat garbas vel avenam vel bladum aliud vel agnos vel
porcellos, nee aliquam collectam faciant ; et per visum et sacra
mentum duodecim reguardorum quando facient reguardum, tot
forestarii ponantur ad forestas custodiendas, quod ad illas custo-
diendas rationabiliter viderint sufficere.
8. Nullum suanimotum de cetero teneatur in regno nostro
nisi ter in anno ; videlicet in principio quindecim dierum ante
festum Sancti Michaelis quando agistatores conveniunt ad agis-
tandum dominicos boscos nostros ; et circa festum Sancti Martini
quando agistatores nostri debent recipere pannagium nostrum ;
et ad ista duo suanimota conveniant forestarii, viridarii et agis
tatores, et nullus alius per districtionem ; et tertium suanimotum
teneatur in initio quindecim dierum ante festum Sancti Johannis
Baptistae, pro feonatione bestiarum nostrarum, et ad istud sua
nimotum tenendum conveniant forestarii et viridarii et nulli alii
per districtionem. Et praeterea singulis quadraginta diebus
per totum annum conveniant viridarii et forestarii ad videndum

350 Henry III. [part
attachiamenta de foresta, tam de viridi, quam de venatione, per
praesentationem ipsorum forestariorum, et coram ipsis attachiatis.
Praedicta autem suanimota non teneantur nisi in comitatibus
in quibus teneri consueverunt.
9. Unusquisque liber homo agistet boscum suum in foresta
pro voluntate sua et habeat pannagium suum. Concedimus
etiam quod unusquisque liber homo possit ducere porcos suos
per dominicum boscum nostrum, libere et sine impedimento, ad
agistandum eos in boscis suis propriis vel alibi ubi voluerit. Et
si porci alicujus liberi hominis una nocte pernoctaverint in
foresta nostra, non inde occasionetur ita quod aliquid de suo
perdat. 10. Nullus de cetero amittat vitam vel membra pro venatione
nostra, sed si aliquis captus fuerit et convictus de captione vena
tionis, graviter redimatur, si habeat unde redimi possit ; et si non
habeat unde redimi possit, jaceat in prisona nostra per unum
annum et unum diem; et, si post unum annum et unum diem
plegios invenire possit, exeat a prisona ; sin autem, abjuret
regnum Angliae.
1 1 . Quicunque archiepiscopus, episcopus, comes vel baro
transient per forestam nostram, liceat ei capere unam vel duas
bestias per visum forestarii, si praesens fuerit ; sin autem, faciat
cornari, ne videatur furtive hoc facere.
12. Unusquisque liber homo de cetero sine occasione faciat
in bosco suo, vel in terra sua quam habeat in foresta, molendi-
num, vivarium, stagnum, marleram, fossatum, vel terram ara-
bilem extra cooperatum in terra arabili, ita quod non sit ad
nocumentum alicujus vicini.
13. Unusquisque liber homo habeat in boscis suis aereas
accipitrum et speruariorum et falconum, aquilarum, et de heyri-
nis, et habeant similiter mei quod inventum fuerit in boscis
suis. 14. Nullus forestarius de cetero, qui non sit forestarius de
feudo reddens nobis firmam pro balliva sua, capiat chiminagium
aliquod in balliva sua; forestarius autem de feudo firmam nobis
reddens pro balliva sua capiat chiminagium ; videlicet pro careta
per dimidium annum duos denarios, et per alium dimidium
annum duos denarios, et pro equo qui portat sumagium per
dimidium annum unum obolum, et per alium dimidium an
num obolum, et non nisi de illis qui extra ballivam suam,
tanquam mercatores, veniunt per licentiam suam in ballivam
suam ad buscam, meremum, corticem vel carbonem emendum,
et alias ducendum ad vendendum ubi voluerint : et de nulla
alia careta vel sumagio aliquod chiminagium capiatur : et non

vi.J. Collection of Carucage. 351
capiatur chiminagium nisi in locis ubi antiquitus capi sole
bat et debuit. Illi autem qui portant super dorsum suum
buscam, corticem, vel carbonem, ad vendendum, quamvis inde
vivant, nullum de cetero dent chiminagium. De boscis autem
aliorum nullum detur chiminagium forestariis nostris, praeter
quam de dominicis boscis nostris.
15. Omnes utlagati pro foresta tantum, a tempore regis
Henrici avi nostri usque ad primam coronationem nostram,
veniant ad pacem nostram sine impedimento, et salvos plegios
inveniant quod de cetero non forisfaciant nobis de foresta
nostra. 16. Nullus castellanus vel alius teneat placita de foresta sive
de viridi sive de venatione, sed quilibet forestarius de feudo
attachiet placita de foresta tam de viridi quam de venatione, et
ea praesentet viridariis provinciarum, et cum irrotulata fuerint
et sub sigillis viridariorum inclusa, praesententur capitali forest-
ario cum in partes illas venerit ad tenendum placita forestae,
et coram eo terminentur.
17. Has autem libertates de forestis concessimus omnibus,
salvis archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus,
baronibus, militibus et aliis tam personis ecclesiasticis quam
saecularibus, Templariis et Hospitalariis, libertatibus et liberis
consuetudinibus in forestis et extra, in warenniis et aliis, quas
prius habuerunt. Omnes autem istas consuetudines praedictas et
libertates, quas concessimus in regno nostro tenendas quantum
ad nos pertinet erga nostros, omnes de regno nostro tam clerici
quam laici observent quantum ad se pertinet erga suos. Quia
vero sigillum nondum habuimus, praesentem cartam sigillis
venerabilis patris nostri domini Gualonis tituli Sancti Martini
presbyteri cardinalis, apostolicae sedis legati, et Willelmi Mares
calli comitis Penbrokiae, rectoris nostri et regni nostri, fecimus
sigillari. Testibus praenominatis et aliis multis. Datum per
manus praedictorum domini legati et Willelmi Marescalli apud
Sanctum Paulum, Londoniis, sexto die Novembris, anno regni
nostri secundo. — (Statutes of the Realm — Charters of Liberties,
20, 21.)

A.D. 1220. Writ for the Collection of a Carucage.
The method of assessing and collecting taxes varied very
much and very rapidly. John, as we have seen, allowed the
more elaborate expedients of his father and brother to be set
aside, and the 'thirteenth' granted him in 1207 to be assessed

352 Henry III. [part
by the sworn statement of the payers. The following writ sub
stitutes the action of two knights chosen in the full assembly
and by the ' will and counsel ' of the county court. It is im
portant, then, as illustrating the increased use of the representa
tive principle in financial matters, and the connexion of election
with representation which becomes henceforth unmistakeable.
But we must not suppose that this method was a final one ; or
that, in itself, the action of two chosen knights would be more
effectual, just, or acceptable than the jury assessments which
had been used in the reigns of Henry II and Richard. The
present plan also was very quickly superseded.
Rex Vicecomiti Norhamton., salutem. Scias quod, pro
magna necessitate nostra et urgentissima debitorum nostrorum
instantia, necnon et pro conservatione terrae nostrae Pictaviae,
concesserunt nobis sui gratia communiter omnes magnates et
fideles totius regni nostri donum nobis faciendum, scilicet de
qualibet caruca sicut juncta fuit in crastino Beati Johannis
Baptistae proximo praeterito, anno regni nostri quarto, duos
solidos, per manum tuam et duorum de legalioribus militibus
comitatus tui colligendos, qui de voluntate et consilio omnium
de comitatu in pleno comitatu eligentur ad hoc faciendum. Et
ideo tibi praecipimus, firmiter et districte injungentes quatenus,
convocato comitatu tuo pleno, de voluntate et consilio eorum de
comitatu, eligi facias duos de legalioribus militibus totius comi
tatus qui melius sciant velint et possint huic negotio ad com
modum nostrum intendere, et illis tecum assumptis statim
donum illud per totam bailliam tuam facias assideri et colligi
de singulis carucis, sicut praedictum est, exceptis dominicis
archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et rusticorum suorum, et ex
ceptis dominicis ordinis Cisterciensis et de Premustre. Et
videas quod districte et aperte scias nobis respondere, in cras
tino Sancti Michaelis proximo instantis apud Londonias, quot
fuerint in baillia tua carucae de quibus donum illud habere
debeamus ; et denarios inde provenientes per manus praedic
torum duorum militum et tuam salvo colligi facias, et illos facias
venire usque Londonias praedicto die sub sigillo tuo et sigillis
praedictorum duorum militum, et in domo Novi Templi salvo
reponi donee provisum fuerit quid inde fieri debeat ; et tu, sicut
te ipsum et omnia tua diligis, sic inde te intromittas, ne, occa
sione maleficae inquisitionis et collectionis per te et praedictos
milites factae, oporteat nos postea districtam facere inquisitionem

vi. J Third Reissue of the Great Charier. 353
per fideles a curia nostra missos, ad gravem confusionem tuam et
illorum qui tecum interfuerint praedictae inquisitioni et collec-
tioni faciendae. Teste, etc. apud Oxoniam, IX. die Augusti. —
(Close Rolls, i. 437.)

A.D. 1225. Third Charter of Henry III.
The peace of the country was restored in 1224; Hubert de
Burgh having at length succeeded in expelling the last remnant
of John's unprincipled mercenary followers. Henry (who was
now pronounced to be of age) and his advisers began to con
template the recovery of the continental inheritance ; for this
purpose he asked of his national council at Westminster in
February, 1225, an aid of a 'fifteenth.' It was granted in
consideration of the reissue of the charters, which were accord
ingly repromulgated, with two alterations : (1) the substitution
of the ' spontanea et bona voluntate nostra ' for the ' consilio ' of
the former charters ; and (2) the insertion of the final clause,
which specifies the granting of the aid as the price of the
present concession. The wisdom of the latter change is ob
vious. The reason of the former is not so clear; nor are we
sufficiently well acquainted with the circumstances of the case
to say whether it was regarded as binding the young king more
certainly, and expressing his sense of independent and free
action in the matter ; or as the assertion on his part of his
right to grant such a charter on his own prerogative, irre
spective of the 'counsel' which had previously been required
for a statutory enactment such as the charter was intended
to be. The same changes are made in the Charter of the
Forest, which was reissued at the same time.
A.D. 1225. Henricus Dei gratia . . . et emendationem
regni nostri (as in M. C. 12 17); spontanea et bona voluntate
nostra dedimus et concessimus archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbati
bus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus et omnibus de regno nostro,
has' libertates subscriptas tenendas in regno nostro Angliae in
perpetuum. 1-17. Correspond with M. C. 1217, artt. 1-21.
A a

354 Henry III. [part
i 8. Si aliquis tenens . . . uxori ipsius et pueris suisrationa-
bilibus partibus suis. M. C. 12 17, art. 22.
19-37. Correspond with M. C. 12 17, artt. 23-45. The re
maining article is as follows : — Pro hae autem concessione et
donatione libertatum istarum et aliarum libertatum contentarum
in carta nostra de libertatibus forestae, archiepiscopi, episcopi,
abbates, priores, comites, barones, milites, libere tenentes et
omnes de regno nostro, dederunt nobis quintam decimam partem
omnium mobilium suorum. Concessimus etiam eisdem pro
nobis et haeredibus nostris quod nee nos nee haeredes nostri
aliquid perquiremus per quod libertates in hae carta contentae
infringantur vel infirmentur, et si ab aliquo aliquid contra hoc
perquisitum fuerit, nihil valeat, et pro nullo habeatur. Hiis
testibus ; domino S. Cantuar. archiepiscopo, E. London., J. Ba-
thon., P. Winton., H. Line, R. Sarr., B. Roffen., W. Wigornen.,
J. Elien., H. Hereford., R. Cicestr., W. Exon., episcopis ; abbate
Sancti Edmundi, abbate Sancti Albani, abbate de Bello, abbate
Sancti Augustini Cant., abbate de Evesham, abbate de West-
mon., abbate de Burgo Sancti Petri, abbate de Rading., abbate
de Abendon., abbate de Maumebir., abbate de Winchecumb.,
abbate de Hida, abbate de Certes., abbate de Sireburn., abbate
de Cern., abbate de Abotebir., abbate de Midelton., abbate de
Seleby, abbate de Wyteby, abbate de Cirenc. ; H. de Burgo,
justiciario; R. comite Cestr. et Line, W. comite Sarr., W.
comite Warenn., G. de Clare comite Glouc. et Hertford., W. de
Ferrar. comite de Derb., W. de Mandeville comite Essex., H. le
Bigod comite Norffi, W. comite AubemarL, H. comite Hereford,
Johanne constabulario Cestr., Roberto de Ros, Roberto filio
Walteri, Roberto de Veteri Ponte, Willelmo Brigwerr., Ricardo
de Munfich., Petro filio Herberti, Mathaeo filio Herberti,
Willelmo de Albiniaco, Roberto Gresl., Reginaldo de Brahus,
Johanne de Munem., Johanne filio, Alani, Hugone de Mortuo
Mari, Waltero de Bello Campo, Willelmo de Sancto Johanne,
Petro de Malo lacu, Briano de Insula, Thoma de Muleton,
Ricardo de Argentein, Gaufrido de Nevill., Willelmo Mauduit,
Johanne de Baalun. Datum apud Westmonasterium undecimo
die Februarii anno regni nostri nono. — (Statutes of the Realm
— Charters of Liberties, 22-25.)

vi.] Collection of the Fifteenth. 355

A.D. 1225. Writ for the Collection of the
Fifteenth.
The aid which was granted by the council of the nation as
the price of the reissue of the charters, was a tax of a fifteenth
on ' mobilia,' or personal property of certain specified descrip
tions. The mode of assessing and collecting this impost is
prescribed in the following writ, which also limits the incidence
of the tax. The method seems to be devised so as to unite
all the expedients of the former precedents. The assessment
is to be made by the oath of the owner of taxable property :
disputes are to be settled by reference to juries ; the proceeds
are to be collected by the reeve and four men of each township ;
and to be paid to four elected knights of the hundreds, and
these are to hand over the money to the persons assigned by
the king, and te whom the writ is addressed. Another ex
pedient will be found further on, devised for the collection of
the 'fortieth' in 1232.
Rex Willelmo Basset, Radulfo de Crumbwell, Willelmo de
Vermin, Henrico de Derlegh canonico Suwellae, et Roberto de
Lee clerico, salutem. Assignavimus vos justitiarios nostros ad
quintam decimam omnium mobilium assidendam et colligendam
ad opus nostrum in comitatibus Notingeham et Dereby, in hae
forma. Vicecomes noster Notingeham et Dereby coram vobis
venire faciet omnes milites comitatuum suorum die Dominica
proxima ante mediam Quadragesimam apud Notingeham, ad
quem diem eligi facietis quatuor legales milites de singulis
hundredis vel wapentaccis, vel plures vel pauciores, secundum
magnitudinem hundredorum vel wapentaccorum, ituros per sin
gulos hundredos vel wapentaccos ad assidendum et colligendum
quintam decimam omnium mobilium praedictorum. Exceptis
tamen ab hae quinta decima quantum ad archiepiscopos, epi-
scopos, abbates, priores et ceteros viros religionis, comites,
barones, milites et liberos homines qui non sunt mercatores,
omnimodis libris suis, et ornamentis ecclesiarum et capellarum,
et equis ad equitandum, et equis carectariis et summariis et
armis omnimodis; jocalibus, vasis, utensilibus, lardariis, cellariis
et foenis ; et exceptis bladis ad warnisturam castrorum emptis.
Exceptis etiam ab hae quinta decima quantum ad mercatores
A a 2

35°" Henry III. [part
qui de omnibus mercandisis et mobilibus suis quintam decimam
dabunt, armis ad quae jurati sunt, et equis suis ad equitandum,
et utensilibus domorum suarum, cellariis et lardariis ad victum
suum. Exceptis etiam quantum ad villanos armis ad quae jurati
sunt, et utensilibus suis, came et pisce et potu suo quae non
sunt ad vendendum, et foenis suis et furragio suo quae non sunt
ad vendendum. Milites autem illi non ibunt in hundredos vel
wapentaccos in quibus sunt residentes, sed in hundredos vel
wapentaccos vicinos alios. Jurabit autem unusquisque exceptis
comitibus, baronibus et militibus, propriorum mobilium suorum,
et similiter mobilium duorum vicinorum suorum propinquorum,
numerum, quantitatem et valorem. Et si forte inter ipsum cujus
mobilia sunt et vicinos suos juratos de eisdem mobilibus dis-
sensio ex hoc orta fuerit, milites ipsi per sacramentum duodecim
proborum et legalium hominum vicinorum, vel totidem quot
sufficere viderint ad veritatem inde inquirendam, veritatem
inquirant et secundum illam veritatem quintam decimam capiant.
Servientes vero et praepositi de terris comitum, baronum et
militum, vel praepositi tantum si servientes ibi non fuerint,
idem et eodem modo jurabunt de mobilibus dominorum suorum
in singulis villis. Medietas autem hujusmodi quintae decimae
perpacabitur ad festum Sanctae Trinitatis anno nono, et alia
medietas ad festum Sancti Michaelis proxime sequens. Quam
quidem quintam decimam milites illi recipient per manus qua
tuor legalium hominum et praepositorum singularum villarum,
per tallias inter eos inde factas, et sic receptam ferent ad vos, et
vos eam reponetis in loco tuto, sive in ecclesia cathedrali, sive
in abbatia, sive in prioratu ejusdem comitatus, sub sigillis vestris
et sigillis militum, donee provisum fuerit quo mitti debeat.
Reddent autem vobis milites illi, statim ex quo quinta decima
fuerit assisa, scripta et rotulos suos inde factos, reservatis sibi
eorum transcriptis : vos vero reservabitis vobis aliquas partes
comitatuum praedictorum in quibus haec exsequamini in pro
priis personis vestris, quamdiu opus fuerit. Milites illi vel
plures vel pauciores electi, coram vobis, sicut praedictum est,
jurabunt, tactis sacrosanctis coram vobis quod haec omnia ex-
sequentur fideliter et diligenter ; et quod nee pro amore vel
odio, vel pro aliqua re in mundo hoc facere omittent; vos autem
jurabitis coram vicecomite et militibus congregatis ad diem
ilium, quod hanc formam per omnia perficietis per vos et alios,
sicut praedictum est, fideliter et diligenter pro posse vestro. Si
quis vero ex vobis, sive sit clericus sive sit laicus, his interesse
non possit propter causam manifestam rationabilem et necessa-
riam, residui vestrum potestatem habeatis adhibendi vobis loco

vi.] Writ for the County Court. 357
ejus alium ad hoc utilem, qui idem juramentum faciet quod vos
feceritis, de his fideliter una vobiscum exsequendis. Idem autem
faciatis de feodis archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, abbatum, pri-
orum et aliorum virorum religionis, exceptis eorum dominicis
et villanis suis propriis, de quibus archiepiscopi et episcopi
quintam decimam assideri et colligi facient in forma praedicta,
et per manum suam nobis inde respondebunt ad eosdem ter-
minos. Et ideo vobis mandamus firmiter injungentes in fide
qua nobis tenemini, quatenus ad haec fideliter exsequenda, sicut
superius scriptum est, curam et operam apponatis.
Teste rege apud Westmonasterium, XV. die Februarii. —
(Boeder a, i. 177.)

Writ for the summoning of Four Knights
of the Shire.
The following writ is an interesting illustration of the extend
ing use of the election of representatives to act for the shire, in
matters neither judicial nor exclusively financial. The business
on which they are called together, the disputed interpretation
of some articles of the Great Charter, although not distinctly
declared, is more of the character of political deliberation than
anything that has hitherto been laid before them. It is not
however, in this aspect, of any great significance.
Rex vicecomiti Gloucestrescirae, salutem. Scias quod, ad
petitionem magnatum nostrorum qui ad mandatum nostrum
nuper convenerant apud Wintoniam, diem statuimus, videlicet in
crastino Sancti Matthaei Apostoli anno regni nostro Xm0, apud
Lincolniam ad terminandum contentiones ortas inter quosdam
vicecomites nostros et homines comitatuum suorum super qui
busdam articulis contentis in carta libertatis eis concessae ; et
ideo tibi praecipimus quod si qua hujusmodi contentio inter te
et homines baiiliae tuae orta fuerit pro qua averia sua ceperis,
averia ilia eis replegiari facias usque ad diem praedictum, et in
proximo comitatu tuo dicas militibus et probis hominibus baiiliae
tuae quod quatuor de legalioribus et discretioribus militibus ex
se ipsis eligant, qui ad diem ilium sint apud Lincolniam pro toto
comitatu, ad ostendendum ibi querelam quam habent versus te
super articulis praedictis. Et tu ipse ibidem sis ad ostenden
dum rationem de demanda quam inde facies versus illos. Et

358 Henry III. [part
habeas ibi nomina militum et hoc breve. Teste me ipso apud
Wintoniam, XXII. die Junii, anno etc. Xmo.
Eodem modo scribitur vicecomitibus Dorset, et Sumerset. ;
Bedeford. et Bukingeham. ; Westmerilande ; Norhamt. ; Line—
(Report on the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 4.)

A.D. 1231. Writ for assembling the County Court
before the Judges Itinerant.
From the following document we gather what was the exact
composition of the shiremoot at this period. No change seems
to have taken place in it since the reign of Henry I. It con
tains all the elements that were united in the ' Commune Con
silium regni' at the time, ' archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates,
priores, comites, barones, milites, et omnes libere tenentes,' the
very words in which the national councils of Henry IPs reign
are described ; but it contains further the representative bodies ;
the ancient English townships each represented by the reeve
and four men; the new municipalities represented by the twelve
legal men from each borough. We begin to see more clearly
the process by which the national council becomes the repre
sentative parliament. It will, when it is completed, be the con
centration of all the constituents of the shiremoots in a central
assembly ; the permanence of the ancient popular elements, and
the assimilation to them of the new municipal ones, make a
perfect parliament possible. And these elements, which are the
peculiar feature of the English parliament, are distinctly Teu
tonic in origin, and not a creation of feudalism.
Rex vicecomiti Eboracensi, salutem. Summone per bonos
summonitores omnes archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, priores,
comites, barones, milites et omnes libere tenentes, de tota ballia
tua, et de qualibet villa quatuor legales homines et praepositum,
et de quolibet burgo duodecim legales burgenses per totam
balliam tuam, et omnes alios qui coram justitiariis itinerantibus
venire solent et debent, quod sint apud Eboracum in octavis
Sanctae Trinitatis anno regni nostri decimo quinto, coram dilecto
et fideli nostro S. de Segrave, Randulfo Filio Roberti, Briano

vi.] Writ for the Assize of Arms. 359
Filio Alani, Willelmo de Insula, Roberto de Lexinton, Magistro
Roberto de Schardelawe, et Willelmo deLondonia, quos justitia-
nos nostros constituimus, audituri et facturi praeceptum nostrum.
Facias etiam tunc venire coram iisdem omnia placita coronae
quae placitata non sunt, et quae emerserunt postquam justitiarii
nostri ultimo itineraverunt in partibus illis, ad omnia placita et
omnia attachiamenta ad placita ilia pertinentia, et omnes assisas
et omnia placita quae posita sunt coram justitiariis ad primam
assisam, cum brevibus assisarum et placitorum ; ita quod assisae
illae et placita pro defectu tui vel summonitionis tuae non rema
neant. Faciatis etiam clamari et sciri per totam balliam tuam
quod omnes assisae et omnia placita quae fuerunt atterminata et
non finita coram justitiariis nostris apud Westmonasterium, vel
coram justitiariis nostris qui ultimo itineraverunt in comitatu
tuo de omnibus placitis, vel coram justitiariis illuc missis ad
assisas novae disseisinae capiendas et gaiolas deliberandas, tunc
sint coram praedictis justitiariis nostris apud Eboracum, in
eodem statu in quo remanserunt per praeceptum nostrum vel
per praeceptum praedictorum justitiariorum nostrorum itine-
rantium vel per justitiarios nostros de banco. Summone etiam
omnes illos qui vicecomites fuerunt post ultimam itinerationem
praedictorum justitiariorum in partibus illis, quod tunc sint
ibidem coram praedictis justitiariis nostris, cum brevibus de
assisis et placitis quae tempore suo receperunt, ad responden
dum de tempore suo, sicut responderi debet coram justitiariis
itinerantibus. Et habeas ibi summonitores et hoc breve.
Teste H. de Burgo etc. apud Westmonasterium XX0 die Aprilis.
— (Shirley, Royal Letters, i. 395.)

Writ for assembling the ' Jurati ad Arma.'
This is a writ which helps us to realise very clearly the
practical identity of the jurati ad arma, the local force armed
by the Assize of Arms, with the ancient militia of the fyrd.
The plan of commuting personal attendance for a contribution
towards the equipment of a portion of the force, which had
been applied to the feudal levy in 1205 (see p. 281), is here
applied to the 'jurati.'
Mandatum est vicecomiti Gloncestriae quod, non. obstante
mandato regis ei facto de hominibus juratis ad arma et securibus
veniendis ad exercitum regis, venire faciat tamen homines juratos

360 Henry III. [part
ad ferrum, videlicet loricas et haubiones et purpunctos; faciat
revenire ad eundem exercitum ducentos homines cum ducentis
securibus et cum victualibus suis quadraginta dierum, quae eis
vicecomes faciat inveniri per homines comitatus sui juratos ad
alia minuta arma, quos rex vult remanere in partibus suis.
Venire etiam faciat omnes carpentarios comitatus sui ad denarios
regis, quibus etiam vicecomes praestitum faciat veniendi ad
regem, qui hoc ei faciet allocari, et omnes operationes carpen-
tariorum in balliva sua iterum remaneant ; nee permittat aliquo
modo quod aliquod mercatum vel feria teneatur in comitatu suo,
nee quod vina aliqua in eo vendantur, sed omnia vina sequi
faciat exercitum regis.
Mittat autem vicecomes ad regem, cum praedictis viris ad
arma et carpentariis, aliquem discretum de suis de quo confidat,
qui de numero praedictorum juratorum ad arma et carpenta-
riorum et de omnibus praedictis sufficienter respondere possit.
Teste Rege apud Hereford, XVI. Julii. — (Foedera, i. p. 200.)

A.D. 1232. Writ for the Collection of the 'Fortieth.'
The assessment in this case is to he made by four men and
the reeve in each township on oath : and the four men are to be
fixed on by election ; an important indication of the usual pro
cess in such selections. The grant of the ' fortieth' is said to he
made by the ' archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, clergy, earls,
barons, freeholders, and villeins.' If these words are to be
understood literally, the freeholders and villeins must have been
consulted in the shiremoots, or else the lords must have been
supposed to represent their own villein-tenants in the ' Com
mune Consilium,' as is the case in 1237 (see below, p. 365).
Henricus, Dei gratia, Rex Anglorum, Petro de Thaneo,
Willelmo de Culewurthe et Adae filio Willelmi collectoribus
quadragesimae, salutem. Sciatis quod archiepiscopi, episcopi,
abbates, priores, et clerici terras habentes quae ad ecclesias
suas non pertinent, comites, barones, milites, liberi homines, et
villani de regno nostro, concesserunt nobis in auxilium quadra-
gesimam partem omnium mobilium suorum apparentium, sicut
ea habuerunt in crastino Sancti Matthaei, anno regni nostri
XVI0, videlicet de bladis, carrucis, ovibus, vaccis, porcis, hara-
ciis, equis carettariis et deputatis ad wainnagium in maneriis.

vi.] Collection of the Fortieth. 361
exceptis bonis quae praedicti archiepiscopi, episcopi et aliae
personae ecclesiasticae habent de ecclesiis parochialibus, et de
ecclesiis praebendalibus et praebendis, et terris ad praebendas
pertinentibus, et ecclesias parochiales spectantibus. Provisum
est generaliter a praedictis fidelibus nostris, quod praedicta
quadragesima hoc modo assideatur et colligatur ; quod videlicet
de qualibet villa integra eligantur quatuor de melioribus et
legalioribus hominibus una cum praepositis singularum villarum,
per quorum sacramentum quadragesima pars omnium mobilium
praedictorum taxetur et assideatur super singulos, in praesentia
militum assessorum ad hoc assignatorum ; et postea per sacra
mentum duorum legalium hominum earundem villarum inqui
ratur et assideatur quadragesima omnium mobilium quae prae
dicti quatuor homines et praepositi habent, et districte imbrevietur
et aperte de cujus vel de quorum baronia quaelibet villa fuerit
in parte vel in toto. Et postquam quadragesima fuerit assisa et
in scriptum redacta, rotulus omnium parti cularum de singulis
villis et singulis comitatibus liberetur senescallo singulorum
baronum, vel attornato ipsius senescalli, vel baillivo libertatis,
ubi aliquis libertatem habuerit, scilicet, quod baro vel dominus
libertatis velit et possit praedictam quadragesimam colligere,
et pro ea habenda distringere ; si vero non velit vel non possit,
vicecomites districtionem faciant praedictam, ita quod nil inde
recipiant, sed tota quadragesima praedicta praedictis militibus
assessoribus liberetur, in majori et securiori villa singulorum
comitatuum ; et de qualibet villa fiat summa tallia inter senes-
callum baronis vel ejus attornatum, vel senescallos domini liber
tatis et praedictos assessores. Et deponatur pecunia per eosdem
assessores in aliquo loco tutiori ejus villae, ita quod assessores
habeant sigilla sua et seras et claves suas, super pecuniam prae
dictam, et vicecomites similiter sigilla sua, et seras et claves
suas. Et assessores, statim ex quo quadragesima assisa fuerit
per ipsos, mittant rotulos suos ad scaccarium de toto itinere
suo: et similiter ex quo dicta pecunia ab eis collecta fuerit,
mittant rotulos suos ad scaccarium de recepta sua, et praedicta
pecunia reservetur in locis ubi deposita fuerit, donee ad man-
datum nostrum deferatur usque ad Novum Templum Londoniis.
Nihil autem capietur ab aliquo homine nomine quadragesimae,
qui non habuerit de hujusmodi bonis mobilibus ad valentiam
quadraginta denariorum ad minus. Ad praedictam siquidem
quadragesimam assidendam in comitatu Hertfordiae assigna-
vimus vos, et mandavimus vicecomiti de Hertford, quod singulas
villatas comitatus sui certis diebus et locis, quos ei scire facietis,
ad mandatum nostrum coram vobis venire faciat, et in omnibus

362 Henry III. [part
quae ad dictum negotium pertinent vobis intendant et obediant.
Vale. — (M. Paris, p. 380.)

AD. 1233. Writ for the Conservation of the
Peace.
This is a valuable illustration of the permanence of the old
English regulations for the security of peace in the country,
which may be traced from the laws of Edgar and Canute, and
through the statutory injunctions of William the Conqueror,
Henry II, and Richard (above, pp. 144, 264). The principle
thus expanded is here developed into a complete system of
watch and ward, which a few years later is brought into con
junction with the Assize of Arms, and completed by Edward I
in the Statute of Winchester, and by the assignment of justices
of the peace under Edward ILL
De forma pacts conservanda.
Rex vicecomiti Kantiae, salutem. Scias quod ad pacem et
tranquillitatem terrae nostrae observandam et malefactores re-
primendos provisum fuit, coram nobis et magnatibus nostris, de
communi consilio eorum, quod vigiliae in singulis villis de nocte
teneantur usque ad festum Sancti Michaelis, anno XVII0,
secundum quod villae fuerint magnae vel parvae ; ita tamen
quod quatuor homines ad minus faciant vigiliam illam si villa
fuerit parva, et si magna fuerit, plures eam faciant secundum
quantitatem villae. Ita etiam quod nullus extraneus transeat
per aliquam villam de nocte, quin arestetur usque mane ; et si
vigilatores ilium non possint arestare, tunc levent clamorem et
uthesium super eum. Et si aliquis defectus fuit in vigiliis vel
sectis ad uthesium faciendis, nullus propter hoc a vicecomitis
ballivis occasionetur, sed omnes hujusmodi emendae integre
reserventur usque ad adventum Justitiarum proximo itineran-
tium, per atachiamenta vicecomitis in comitatu coram coro-
natoribus. Item nullus hospitetur aliquem extraneum ultra
unam noctem nisi possit invenire plegios de fidelitate et quod
nullum damnum eveniet per eum, et respondeat pro eo sicut
pro uno de familia sua, et hoc coram Justitiis itinerantibus.
Item si aliqui habeant libertatem et homines eorum noluerint
facere vigiliam, nee venire ad clamorem et uthesium, sicut

vi.] Watch and Ward. 363
praedictum est, bene licebit vicecomiti atachiare eos qui nee
vigilias facere voluerint, nee ad clamorem venire, quod sint coram
Justitiis proximo itinerantibus, inde responsuri absque quod
aliquid ab eis capiat occasione ilia. Et si aliquid fuerit trans-
gressum infra tales libertates pro defectu vigiliarum vel secta-
rum cum uthesio, illi quorum libertates sunt satisfaciant illis
quibus damnum fuerit illatum, et respondeant nobis de hoc
quod pacem nostram non observaverunt. Item singuli vice
comites nostri et ballivi eorum, forestarii et eorum servientes de
eisdem balliis in comitatibus suis, omnem quam poterunt dili
gentiam apponant ad pacem nostram secundum formam prae
dictam custodiendam, et si audierint quod aliqui malefactores
exerceant in aliquo bosco, vel alibi receptentur, propinquae
villae et aliae quae ad hoc fuerint necessariae sequentur cum
eis ad dictos malefactores capiendos. Et si quis miles vel alius,
quicunque fuerit, aliquem hujusmodi malefactorem ceperit, vice
comites vel eorum ballivi recipiant ilium sine dilatione et diffi-
cultate, ita quod nihil capiant ab eo qui ipsum cepit pro eo
recipiendo. Si quis etiam ignotus inventus fuerit itinerans
armatus, statim capiatur et liberetur vicecomiti vel ejus bal-
livo, vel alicui villae propinquiori quae habeat potestatem custo-
diendi eum, et in prisona custodiatur donee salvos plegios
invenerit, quod erit ad pacem nostram et stabit recto, si quis
versus eum loqui voluerit ; et si plegios invenire non possit et
postea in curia nostra convincatur de roberia vel hujusmodi
transgressione, per judicium ejusdem curiae deducatur ; et nos
respiciemus eos qui tales ceperint de hutesio eorum vel alio
modo, sicut nobis placuerit.
Ceterum si aliquis malefactor captus fuerit in parcis vel in
vivariis cum manuopere vel pro suspicione, vel per indicta-
mentum patriae, et inde in curia nostra convincatur, tunc
liberetur prisonae nostrae et ibi custodiatur per unum annum
et unum diem ; et tunc si habeat unde redimi possit, rationa-
biliter redimatur, et inveniat plegios de fidelitate, et quod de
cetero talem transgressionem non faciet. Si vero nihil habeat
unde redimi possit, nee plegios possit invenire, tunc regnum
nostrum abjuret.
Praecipimus igitur quod, sicut te ipsum et omnia tua diligis,
haec omnia praedicta in pleno comitatu tuo et per totum comi
tatum tuum, tam in mercatis quam in hundredis et nundinie
clamari facias et firmiter observari, sicut praedictum est, ne pro
defectu tui in hae parte ad te nos graviter capere debeamus.
Teste meipso apud Fecham, primo die Junii. — (Foedera, i.
209.)

364 Henry III. [part

A.D. 1235. Writ for the Collection of Scutage.
Although this tax is levied with the consent of the military
tenants on whom it exclusively falls, the method of collection
bears witness to the feudal character of the tax, and should be
compared with the corresponding documents in the case of
carucage, and of the aids of a ' fifteenth,' a ' thirtieth,' and a
'fortieth,' which were more distinctly the result of a national
vote. According to the text of the charter of liberties recently
confirmed, the scutages were to be taken in the way in which
they had been taken in Henry IPs time (above, p. 347) ; and in
that case, the scutage being simply a payment in commutation
of legal service, it might have been levied without a special
grant. But the form of a grant seems to have been gone
through, and thus the spirit of the Great Charter of John was
maintained, although the clause under which such proceedings
should have taken place was expunged.
Rex vicecomiti Somerset., salutem. Scias quod comites et
barones et omnes alii de toto regno nostro Angliae, spontanea
voluntate sua et sine consuetudine, concesserunt nobis efficax
auxilium ad magna negotia nostra expedienda. Unde provisum
est de consilio illorum quod habeamus de singulis feodis mili
tum qui de nobis tenent in capite et de wardis, tam de novo
feoffamento quam de veteri, duas marcas ad auxilium praedic
tum nobis faciendum, unde providerunt reddere nobis unam
medietatem ad festum Sancti Michaelis anno XIXno et aliam
medietatem ad Pascha anno XX0. Providerunt etiam quod
praedictum scutagium colligatur per manus ballivorum suorum
in singulis comitatibus et tradatur per manus eorundem duobus
militibus quos ad hoc assignavimus in singulis comitatibus
deferendum ad scaccarium nostrum Londoniis, ad liberandum
ibidem thesaurario et camerariis nostris ; et ideo tibi praeci
pimus quod ad mandatum omnium comitum et baronum et
omnium aliorum qui de nobis tenent in capite, in balliva prae
dicta, modo praedicto sine dilatione distringas omnes milites et
libere tenentes qui de eis tenent per servitium militare in balliva
tua, ad reddendum ballivis suis de singulis feodis et wardis duas
marcas ad praedictum auxilium nobis faciendum in terminis

Vi. ] Confirmation of the Charters. 365
praedictis, et liberandum Johanni de Aure, et Henrico de Me-
riet, quos ad hoc assignavimus in comitatu tuo sicut praedictum
est, etc. Teste meipso apud Westmonasterium XVII. Julii,
anno etc. XIX°. — (Brady, Introd. Hist. Engl., App. p. 43.)

A.D. 1237. Confirmation of the Charters.
This is the confirmation in consideration of which the ' Com
mune Consilium' made the grant of a thirtieth. The charters
are not rehearsed in the Act, nor was any further alteration
made in the text of- them after that of the year 1225.
Henricus Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae, dux
Normanniae et Aquitanniae, comes Andegaviae, omnibus Christi
fidelibus praesentem cartam inspecturis, salutem. Sciatis quod
intuitu Dei et pro salute animae nostrae et animarum antecesso
rum et haeredum nostrorum, ad exaltationem Sanctae Ecclesiae,
et emendationem regni nostri, concessimus et hae carta nostra
confirmavimus archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus,
comitibus, baronibus, militibus, liberis hominibus et omnibus de
regno nostro Angliae, omnes libertates et liberas consuetudines
contentas in cartis nostris quas eisdem fidelibus nostris fieri
fecimus cum minoris essemus aetatis, scilicet tam in magna carta
nostra quam in carta nostra de foresta. Et volumus et prae
cipimus, pro nobis et haeredibus nostris, quod praefati fideles
nostri et successores et haeredes eorum habeant et teneant in
perpetuum omnes libertates et liberas consuetudines praedictas,
non obstante eo quod praedictae cartae confectae fuerunt cum
minoris essemus aetatis, ut praedictum est. Hiis testibus vene-
rabilibus patribus E. archiepiscopo Cantuar., P. Winton., J.
Bathon., R. Dunolm., R. London., W. Karl., W. Exon., R. Sarr.,
H. Elyen., R. Line, R. Hereford., A. Coventr. et Lychefeld.,
episcopis, W. Valenc. et W. Wygorn. electis, R. comite Cornub.
et Pictav., J. comite Cestr. et Huntedon.," J. comite Line con-
stabulario Cestr., G. Marescallo comite Pembr., W. comite de
Ferrar., W. comite Warenn., H. comite Kane, H. comite Essex.
et Hereford., Simone de Monteforti, Willelmo Lungesp., Will
elmo de Ferrar., Willelmo de Vescy, Ricardo de Percy, Ricardo
de Munfichet, Willelmo de Ros, Johanne Byset, Gilberto de
Umframvill., Willelmo de Lancastr., Willelmo (le Cantilupo,
Waltero de Clifford, Johanne Moneni., Radulfo de Mortuo Maii,

366 Henry III. [part
Willelmo Mauduit, Rogero la Zuch., Olivero de Vallibus, Gil-
berto Basset, et aliis. Dat. per manum venerabilis patris R.
Cycestr. episcopi cancellarii nostri apud Westmonaster., XXVIH0
die Januarii, anno regni nostri vicesimo primo. — (Blackstone's
Charters, pp. 68, 69.)

A.D. 1237. Writ for the Collection of the Thirtieth.
The appointment of four knights and a clerk to receive the
assessment made on oath by the four men and reeve for their
own township, is a new variety of expedient, to be compared
with those given above (pp. 257, 283, 351, 355, 360, 364). The
other points of importance in the writ are the direction for the
election of the assessors of the township, the statement that the
freeholders represented their villeins in their consent to the tax,
and the provision for sparing the poor. The distinction between
the villeins who, according to the lawyers, had no property of
their own, and the poor, who had less than forty pence 'in
bonis,' is worth remark.
Rex vicecomiti Kantiae salutem. Scias quod cum in octavis
Sancti Hilarii anno regni nostri vicesimo primo, ad mandatum
nostrum convenirent apud Westmonasterium archiepiscopi,
episcopi, abbates, priores, comites et barones totius regni nostri,
et tractatum haberent nobiscum de statu nostro et regni nostri,
iidem archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores et clerici terras
habentes quae ad ecclesias suas non pertinent, comites, barones,
milites et liberi homines, pro se et suis villanis, nobis concesse-
runt in auxilium tricesimam partem omnium mobilium suorum
apparentium, sicut ea habebunt in autumno in crastino Exalta-
tionis Sanctae Cruris, anno regni nostri vicesimo primo, quando
blada sua fuerint coadunata ; videlicet de bladis, carucis, ovibus,
vaccis, porcis, haraciis, equis caretariis assignatis ad waignagia,
et aliis pecoribus et bonis. Exceptis bonis quae praedicti archi
episcopi, episcopi et aliae-personae ecclesiasticae habent in ecclesiis
parochialibus sive praebendis, et terris ad praebendas et ecclesias
parochiales spectantibus ; exceptis argento et auro, palefridis,
summariis, dextrariis, runcinis, armis, utensilibus et vasis.
Colligendam per manus dilectorum fidelium nostrorum Rogeri de
Leburn, Simonis de Crape, Johannis de Adlington, per litteras
Huward de Bichely et Ricardi de Wokundon, qui jurabunt coram

vi.] Assessment of the Thirtieth. 367
te, quod negotium nostrum de auxilio nostro colligendo et assi
dendo pro posse suo bene et fideliter exsequentur per omnia,
secundum suam conscientiam. Et ipsi quatuor milites et cleri
cus praedictus eligi facient quatuor de legalioribus hominibus
de singulis villis, quos statutis hundredis in comitatu tuo, certis
die et loco coram eisdem ad mandatum eorum coram eis venire
facies, qui jurabunt coram eisdem in praesentia ballivorum de
singulis villis si interesse voluerint, quod auxilium illud fideliter
assidebunt et rationabile pretium apponent omnibus rebus quae
appretiandae fuerint, secundum communem et justam aestima
tionem et valorem, amore, gratia vel odio, vel alia occasione non
impediente. Et postea particulas catallorum omnium et pretium
ostendent quatuor militibus praedictis et clerico, et juxta pro-
visionem dictorum militum et clerici pecuniam colligent, et
eisdem militibus et clerico deferent et liberabunt per taillias et
rotulos particulas continentes, reponendam in prioratu Sanctae
Trinitatis Cantuariae ; et si indiguerint auxilio tuo circa dis
trictionem faciendam in collectione dictae pecuniae, tu eis auxi
lium parabis. Archiepiscopi vero, episcopi, abbates, priores in
terris suis et libertatibus in comitatu tuo, per quatuor legales
milites suos vel liberos et legales homines si milites non habue-
rint, simili modo circa praedictam tricesimam assidendam et
colligendam et liberandam quatuor praedictis militibus ad hoc
attornatis, precedent. Et scias quod praedicti quatuor homines
de singulis villis non jurabunt de propriis catallis suis, nee
eisdem pretium apponent, sed alii quatuor homines de singulis
villis ad hoc electi per milites praedictos jurabunt de catallis
praedictorum priorum quatuor hominum, secundum formam
praedictam. Nullus autem pauper homo vel mulier aliquid ad
hoc conferet, nisi habeat in bonis plus quam quadraginta dena
rios. Debet autem reddi pecunia praedicta ad duos terminos,
videlicet, medietas in crastino Sancti Andreae anno regni
nostri vicesimo secundo, et altera medietas in crastino Sanctae
Trinitatis anno eodem. Tu autem ita efficax auxilium et utile
consilium praedictis militibus praebeas in praedictis exsequendis,
quod negotium praedictum ad commodum nostrum et utilitatem
salubriter procedat. Nos autem concessimus praedictis archi
episcopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prioribus, comitibus, baronibus et
aliis magnatibus regni nostri, quod tam carta nostra de foresta
quam alia de libertatibus, quas prius eis fieri fecimus, de cetero
in omnibus teneantur. ¦ Nolumus etiam quod occasione hujus
modi auxilii sumatur deinceps occasio, vel trahatur ad consuetu
dinem petendi alias consimile auxilium. Incipient autem iter
praedictum in crastino Exaltationis Sanctae Crucis, quibus die

368 Henry III. [part
et loco eis occurras ad sacramentum ab eis recipiendum et auxi
lium eis impendendum, sicut tibi dixerint ex parte nostra. Teste
Rege apud Westmonasterium, II. die Julii anno regni nostri
vicesimo primo. — (Foedera, i. 232.)

A.D. 1242. Record of a Debate in the Council of
the Nation.
The following record was drawn up, as is stated by Matthew
Paris, who inserts it in his History, that the answer of the
barons to the king's demand for money might never be for
gotten. We have in it the first detailed account of a dispute in
the National Council as to the expediency of a war, or the
granting of an aid. No doubt many discussions on the latter
pcint had taken place during the previous years of the reign,
and had preceded the grants that purchased the reissue of the
charters. On some former occasions, too, it would seem that
the barons made it a condition of granting the tax, that it should
be assessed and collected in a particular way. This appears,
however, to be an early and very important instance of an aid
being absolutely refused. Towards the end of the year the king
exacted a scutage, ' fecit extorqueri ; ' possibly in accordance
with the article of the charter of 1225 in which he asserted the
right. Cum dominus Eboracensis archiepiscopus et omnes episcopi
Angliae, abbates, et priores per se vel per procuratores suos, nec
non et omnes comites et fere omnes barones Angliae ad manda
tum domini regis convenissent apud Westmonasterium die Martis
proxima ante Purificationem beatae Mariae, A.D. 1242, regni
Henrici regis 26'° audituri domini regis voluntatem et negotium
pro quo ipsos mandaverat ; et idem dominus rex transmittens
ad eosdem dictum dominum Eboracensem et nobilem virum
dominum comitem Ricardum et dominum Willelmum de Eboraco
praepositum de Beverlaco, super voluntate domini regis et
negotiis suis, scilicet eisdem expositis per eosdem solemnes
nuncios, omnes magnates de regno suo rogasset de consilio ei
dando et auxilio faciendo ad haereditatem suam et jura sua
perquirenda in partibus transmarinis quae spectabant ad regnum

vi-] Debate in the National Council. 369
suum Angliae ; tandem dicti episcopi, abbates et priores,
comites et _ barones, magno inter eos tractate praehabito, in
primis domino regi per praedictos magnates dederunt consilium,
videlicet, quod dominus ipse rex exspectaret finem treugarum
inter eum et regem Franciae initarum : et si forte dictus rex
Franciae contra formam earundem treugarum aliquas feeisset
interprisas, tunc dictus rex Angliae mitteret ad eum solemnes
nuncios ad rogandum, monendum et inducendum ipsum regem
Franciae, ut treugas initas teneret et interprisas emendaret, si
quae per ipsum vel per suos factae essent. Quod si rex Franciae
facere contradiceret, libenter ad hoc consilium apponerent pro
posse suo de auxilio ei dando. Omnes ita unanimiter respon-
derunt. Similiter postquam fuerat dominus eorum, multoties
ad instantiam suam ei auxilium dederunt, videlicet tertiam
decimam mobilium suorum, et postea quintam decimam et
sextam decimam et quadragesimam, carucagium, hydagium et
plura scutagia, et postea unum magnum scutagium ad sororem
suam Imperatricem maritandam. Postea vero nondum quatuor
annis elapsis vel circiter, petiit ab eis iterum auxilium, et tandem
cum magna precum instantia obtinuit tricesimam, quam ei con-
cesserunt, tali scilicet conditione, quod ilia exaetio vel aliae
pi-aecedentes amplius non traherentur in consequentiam. Et
inde fecit eis cartam suam. Et praeterea concessit eis tunc
quod omnes libertates contentae in Magna Carta extunc in
antea plenius tenerentur per totum regnum suum, et inde fecit
eis quandam parvam cartam suam quam adhuc habent, in qua
eaedem continentur. Praeterea dominus rex concessit eis de
voluntate sua, et de consilio totius baronagii sui, quod tota
pecunia ex dicta tricesima proveniens salvo deponeretur in
castris domini regis sub custodia quatuor magnatum Angliae,
scilicet comitis Warenniae et aliorum, per quorum visum et
consilium pecunia ilia expenderetur ad dicti regis et regni
utilitatem, cum necesse esset. Et quia baron agium nescit nee
audivit quod de dicta pecunia per visum vel consilium alicujus
quatuor magnatum praedictorum aliquid expendatur, credunt
firmiter et bene intelligunt quod dominus rex adhuc totam
habet illam pecuniam integram, de qua nunc potest habere
magnum auxilium. Praeterea bene sciunt quod post tempus
illud tot habuit escaetas, archiepiscopatam Cantuariensem, et
plures episcopatus Angliae ditiores, et terras comitum et baronum
et militum de eo tenentium defunctorum, quod solummodo de
illis escaetis debet ipse habere grandem pecuniae summam si
bene custodiatur. Praeterea a tempore dictae tricesimae datae,
non cessaverunt justitiarii itinerantes itinerare per omnes partes
Bb

37° Henry III. [part
Angliae tam de placitis forestae quam de omnibus aliis placitis,
ita quod omnes comitates Angliae et omnia hundreda, civitates
et burgi, et fere omnes villae graviter amerciantur ; unde solum-
modo de illo itinere habet dominus rex vel habere debet maxi
mam summam pecuniae, si persolvatur et bene colligatur. Unde
bene dicunt quod per ilia amerciamenta et per alia auxilia prius
data, omnes de regno ita gravantur et depauperantur quod
parum aut nihil habent in bonis. Et quia dominus rex nun-
quam, post tricesimam datam, cartam suam de libertatibus
tenuit, immo plus solito postea gravavit, et per aliam cartam
eis concesserat quod exactiones hujusmodi non traherentur in
consequentiam, responderunt eidem domino regi praecise, quod
nullum ad praesens ei facerent auxilium. Verumtamen quia
dominus eorum est, sic se gerere poterit erga eos usque ad
finem dictarum treugarum, quod tunc bonum apponent consilium
pro posse suo. Et cum dicti magnates nuncii istud domino regi
nuneiassent responsum, redeuntes ad baronagium dixerunt, quod
in parte sufficiens dederunt domino regi responsum ; sed dominus
rex voluit scire ab eis quid facerent si rex Franciae ante finem
praedictarum treugarum rumperet easdem treugas. Promise-
runt etiam ex parte domini regis quod si ipse alicui magnatum
Angliae injuriam fecisset, ipse illud emendaret per considera-
tionem domini Petri de Sabaudia et aliorum de consilio suo.
Ad quae magnates sic responderunt, videlicet, si rex Franciae
rumperet treugas et nollet interprisas emendare, tunc apponent
consilium sicut prius dixerant se apposituros in fine treugarum,
dummodo constaret eis de veritate facti regis Franciae. Ad hoc
quod ipsi promiserunt emendas ex parte domini regis super
injuriis eis illatis, responderunt quod noluerunt ad praesens cum
domino rege placitare; et in concessione tricesimae adeo bene
et fideliter promiserat eis dominus Willelmus de Rale ex parte
domini regis, sicut modo ipsi faciunt : qualiter dominus rex
tenuerit promissa sua videat ipse. Postea vero dominus rex
examinavit plures singulariter ; quid ipsi concesserint universi-
tas ignorat. — (Matt. Paris, pp. 581, 582.)

A.D. 1252. Writ for enforcing Watch and Ward
and the Assize of Arms.
In this document the king brings together the two very
ancient methods of ensuring peace and defence, of which several
illustrations have been given already. Their connexion with

vi.] Assize of Arms. 371
constitutional history is now becoming less close, but it is im
portant to observe the permanence of their character, and the
antiquity as well as the elasticity of the machinery by which
they are worked. Although not an essential part of the Con
stitution, they are ancient buttresses of the fabric, and their
very permanence attests as well as sustains the corporate
identity of the English nationality, which feudalism has dis
guised but has not been able to mutilate.
Henricus Dei gratia rex, etc. vicecomiti . . salutem. Sciatis
quod ad pacem nostram firmiter observandam, provisum est de
consilio nostro, quod vigiliae fiant in singulis civitatibus, burgis,
et omnibus aliis villis comitatus tui, a die Ascensionis Domini
usque ad festum Sancti Michaelis, scilicet in singulis civita
tibus ad singulas portas per sex homines armis munitos, et in
singulis burgis per duodecim homines ; et in singulis villis
integris per sex homines vel quatuor ad minus similiter armis
munitos secundum numerum inhabitantium : et vigilent con-
tinuo per totam noctem ab occasu solis usque ad ortum, ita
quod, si aliquis extraneus transitum per ipsos faciat, arrestent
usque mane ; et tunc, si fidelis sit, dimittatur, et si suspectus sit,
vicecomiti liberetur, qui ipsum sine omni difficultate et dila
tione recipiat et salvo custodiat; si vero hujusmodi extranei,
transitum facientes, se non permiserint arrestari, tunc praedicti
vigiles hutesium levent super eos undique, et eum insequantur
cum tota villata et vicinis villatis, cum clamore et hutesio de
villa in villam, donee capiantur ; et tunc liberentur vicecomiti
sicut praedictum est, ita quod nullus occasione hujusmodi
arrestationis vel captionis extraneorum per vicecomitem, vel
per ballivos suos occasionetur ; et singulae civitates, burgi et
villae, praemuniantur ad singulas praedictas vigilias et sectas
ita diligenter faciendum, ne defectum illorum graviter punire
debeamus. Provisum est etiam quod singuli vicecomites una cum duobus
militibus ad hoc specialiter assignatis, circumeant comitatus suos
de hundredo in hundredum, et civitates et burgos, et convenire
faciant coram eis in singulis hundredis, civitatibus et burgis,
cives, burgenses, libere tenentes, villanos et alios aetatis quin
decim annorum usque ad aetatem sexaginta annorum, et eosdem
faciant omnes jurare ad arma, secundum quantitatem terrarum
et catallorum suorum ; scilicet, ad quindecim libratas terrae,
unam loricam, capellum ferreum, gladium, cultellum et equum ;
ad decern libratas terrae unum habergetum, capellum ferreum,
B b 2

372 Henry III. [part
gladium et cultellum ; ad centum solidatas terrae unum pur-
punctum, capellum ferreum, gladium, lanceam et cultellum ; ad
quadraginta solidatas terrae, et eo amplius ad centum solidatas
terrae, gladium, arcum, sagittas et cultellum. Qui minus habent
quam quadraginta solidatas terrae, jurati sint ad falces, gisarmas,
cultellos et alia arma minuta. Ad catalla sexaginta marcarum,
unam loricam, capellum ferreum, gladium, cultellum et equum :
ad catalla quadraginta marcarum, unum haubercum, capellum
ferreum, gladium et cultellum ; ad catalla viginti marcarum,
unum purpunctum, capellum ferreum, gladium et cultellum ; ad
catalla novem marcarum, gladium, cultellum, arcum et sagittas ;
ad catalla quadraginta solidorum et eo amplius usque ad decern
marcas, falces, gisarmas et alia arma minuta. Omnes etiam illi
qui possunt habere arcus et sagittas extra forestam, habeant;
qui vero in foresta, habeant arcus et pilatos.
In singulis civitatibus et burgis jurati ad arma sint coram
majoribus civitatis, et praepositis et ballivis burgorum ubi non
sunt majores ; in singulis vero villatis aliis constituatur unus
constabularius vel duo secundum numerum inhabitantium et
provisionem praedictorum ; in singulis vero hundredis constitua
tur unus capitalis constabularius, ad cujus mandatum omnes jurati
ad arma de hundredis suis conveniant, et ei sint intendent es ad
faciendum ea quae spectant ad conservationem pacis nostrae.
Clamare etiam faciant singuli vicecomites per civitates et hurgos
et omnia mercata ballivorum suorum quod nulli conveniant ad
turniandum vel burdandum, nee ad alias quascurique aventuras,
nee etiam aliqui incedant arinati nisi specialiter fuerunt ad cus
todiam pacis nostrae deputati ; et si aliqui fuerint inventi sive
incedentes armati contra hanc provisionem nostram, arrestentur
et vicecomiti liberentur : et si se non permiserint arrestari, tunc
constabularii singulorum hundredorum et villatarum, et alii qui
cunque sint, hutesium levent super eos undique, et cum vicinis
villis, et de villa in villam ipsos insequantur donee capiantur
et vicecomiti liberentur, sicut praedictum est ; quoties autem
contigerit hutesium levari super quoscunqne perturbatores pacis
nostrae, praedones et malefactores in parcis vel vivariis, statim
propter eos fiat hutesium, et ipsos insequantur donee capiantur,
et vicecomiti liberentur, sicut de aliis praedictum est : et omnes
vicecomites et eorum ballivi, constabularii, jurati ad arma, bur
genses, libere tenentes et villani, talem sectam faciant propter
praedictos malefactores, ne ipsi malefactores evadant, et ne, si pro
eorum defectu evadant, hii in quibus defectus inventus fuerit
graviter puniri debeant, et sic per consilium nostrum puniantur,
quod poena illorum aliis metum incutiat, et auferat materiam

vi.] Sentence of Excommunication. yi^>
delinquendi ; suspectos autem de die per quascunque arrestationes
recipiant arrestatos, vicecomites sine dilatione et diffioultate
salvo custodiant, donee per legem terrae deliberentur. Et ideo
tibi praecipimus, quod sicut corpus tuum et omnia tua diligis,
una cum dilectis et fidelibus nostris Henrico filio Bernardi, Petro
de Goldintuna, quos tibi ad hoc assignavimus, omnia praedicta
sub forma praescripta cum diligentia exsequaris, ne pro defectu
tui inde et praedictorum Henrici et Petri ad te et ad ipsos nos
graviter capere debeamus.
Teste archiepiscopo Eboracensi apud Westmonasterium XXmo
die Maii, anno regni nostri tricesimo sexto. — (Foedera, i. 281.)

A.D. 1253. Sentence of Excommunication against
Transgressors of the Charters.
Anno Domini MCCLIII. iii0 idus Maii, in magna aula regis
apud Westmonasterium, sub praesentia et assensu domini Henrici,
Dei gratia, illustris regis Angliae, et dominorum R. comitis
Cornub., fratris sui, R. comitis Norff. et Suffi, marescalli Angliae,
H. comitis Heref., H. comitis Oxon., J. comitis War. et aliorum
optimatum regni Angliae. Nos B., Divina miseratione, Cant, archi
episcopus totius Angliae primas, F. London., H. Elyens., R. Line,
W. Wygorn., W. Norwic, P. Hereford., W. Sarr., W. Dunolm.,
R. Exon., S. Karl., W. Bathon., L. Roffens., Thom. Menevens.,
episcopi, pontificalibus induti, candelis accensis, in transgres-
sores libertatum ecclesiasticarum et libertatum seu liberarum
consuetudinum regni Angliae, et praecipue earum quae conti-
nentur in carta communium libertatum regni et carta de foresta,
excommunicationis sententiam solempniter tulimus sub hae
forma. Auctoritate Dei omnipotentis Patris et Filii et Spirilus
Sancti, et gloriosae Dei genitricis semperque virginis Mariae,
beatorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli omniumque apostolorum,
beati Thomae archiepiscopi et martyris omniumque martyrum
Dei, beati Edwardi regis Angliae omniumque confessorum atque
virginum, omniumque sanctorum Dei, excommunicamus, anathe-
matizamus et a liminibus sanctae matris ecclesiae sequestramus,
omnes illos, qui amodo scienter et malitiose ecclesias privaverint
vel spoliaverint suo jure; item omnes illos, qui ecclesiasticas
libertates vel antiquas regni consuetudines approbates, et prae
cipue libertates et liberas consuetudines quae in cartis commu
nium libertatum et de foresta continentur concessis a domino
rege archiepiscopis, episcopis et ceteris Angliae praelatis, comi-

374 Henry III. [part
tibus, baronibus, militibus et libere tenentibus, quacunque arte
vel ingenio violaverint, infregerint, diminuerint, seu immuta-
verint, clam vel palam, facto, verbo, vel consilio, contra illas vel
earum aliquam in quocunque articulo temere veniendo ; item
omnes illos, qui contra illas vel earum aliquam statuta aliqua
ediderint vel edita servaverint, et consuetudines introduxerint
vel servaverint introductas, scriptores statatorum necnon consili-
atores et executores, et qui secundum ea praesumpserint judicare,
qui omnes et singuli superius memorati hanc sententiam incur-
suros se noverint ipso facto, qui scienter aliquid commiserint de
praedictis ; qui vero ignoranter, nisi commoniti infra quindenam
a tempore commonitionis se correxerint et arbitrio ordinariorum
satisfecerint de commissis, extunc sint hae sententia involuti.
Eadem etiam sententia innodamus illos qui pacem regis et regni
praesumpserint perturbare. In cujus rei memoriam sempiternam
nos signa nostra duximus apponenda. — (Blackstone's Charters,
pp. 70-72; Foedera, i. 289.)

A.D. 1253. Writ for carrying out the Watch and Ward
and Assize of Arms.
The minute directions given in the following writ help to
supplement the Act given above, p. 370. The articles annexed
are, no doubt, the instructions which the sheriff was to receive
from the special commissioner, Henry Colville.
Henricus Dei gratia Rex, etc., vicecomiti Essexiae et Hert
ford., salutem. Summone per bonos summonitores omnes milites
et omnes libere tenentes de comitatibus praedictis, et de qualibet
villa quatuor homines et praepositum, et de quolibet burgo
duodecim legales burgenses, quod sint coram dilecto et fideli
nostro Henrico de Colevilla ad dies et loca quos tibi scire faciet,
ad audiendum et faciendum praeceptum nostrum. Venire etiam
facias coram eo ad eosdem dies et loca omnes illos qui jurati
sunt ad arma et jurari debent, cum armis suis ad quae jurati
sunt et esse debent, audituri et facturi praeceptum nostrum.
Et interim diligenter inquiras qui fecerunt ultimo scrutinium de
armis in comitatibus praedictis, et qui ultimo inde sacramentum
ceperunt ; et ubi rotuli de scrutinio illo et sacramento fuerunt.
Et rotulos illos habeas coram praefato Henrico praedictis diebus
et locis ; et tu ipse tunc ibi sis in propria persona tua ad exse-
quendum ea quae idem Henricus tibi ex parte nostra praecipiet.

VI.] Summons for Knights of the Shire. 375
Et si ballivi libertatum qui returnum habent brevium nostrorum
istud mandatum nostrum exsecuti non fuerint, non omittas
quin libertates illas ingrediaris ad idem mandatum exsequen-
dum. Teste me ipso apud Portesmuthe, XVIII. die Julii, anno
regni nostri XXXVII0.
Articuli. 1. Quod vigiliae fiant per singulas villas sicut fieri consue
verunt, et per viros probos et validos.
2. Quod sectae de utesiis fiant secundum antiquum debitum
modum, ita quod negligentes et utesium sequi nolentes, capiantur
tanquam consentientes malefactoribus et libereutur vicecomiti.
Et insuper in qualibet villa provideantur quatuor homines vel
sex secundum quantitatem villae, ad utesia prompte et instanter
prosequenda et ad malefactores prosequendos si supervenerint
et necesse fuerit, cum arcubus et sagittis et aliis levibus armis,
quae debent provideri ad custom totius villae et quae semper
remaneant ad opus praedictae villae. Et super illos provideatur
de quolibet hundredo duo liberi et legales homines potentiores,
qui sint superiores, et videant quod vigiliae recte fiant et prose-
cutiones praedictae.
3. Quod nullus extraneus hospitetur nisi de die, et de clara
discedat. 4. Quod nullus extraneus receptetur in villis campestribus
ultra unum diem vel duos ad plus extra tempus messium, nisi
hospes pro illo velit respondere.
5. Quod si aliquis malefactor, vel aliquis de quo mala suspicio
habeatur, capiatur per vigilatores vel alios domini regis fideles,
vicecomes vel ballivus de hundredo ipsum sine dilatione vel
mercede aliqua recipiet.
6. Quod praecipiatur majori et ballivis singularum civitatum
et burgorum, quod si aliquis mercator vel extraneus deferens
pecuniam et illam eis ostendat et eonductum petat, quod faciant
ei eonductum per malos passus et loca ambigua : quod si aliquid
amiserit pro defectu conductus vel in eorum conductu, de villata
burgi illius vel civitatis ei restituatur. — (Foedera, i. 291, 292.)

A.D. 1254. Writ of Summons for two Knights of the
Shire to grant an Aid.
This is an important landmark in the parliamentary history
of England ; it is a distinct summons to the counties, through
the sheriffs, to return two knights each, for the purpose of grant-

376 Henry III. [part
ing an aid. The king combines with this a direction to the
sheriffs to compel all tenants in chief, who hold lands worth
twenty pounds a year, to present themselves in person for
military service. It is to be observed that, in the order to
return the two knights, they are said to be chosen by the
counties, that is the county courts, no restriction of the power
of choice to tenants in chief, or to knights, being specified.
This writ is sufficient to show that no such restriction even at
this early period existed. The aid asked for is a national and
not a feudal grant; and although the force spoken of in the
early part of the writ is levied on the feudal principle, the
assembly summoned in the latter part of it is of a different
character altogether.
Forma directa magnatibus et vicecomitibus Angliae.
Rex Vicecomiti Bedeford. et Bukingeham., salutem. Cum
comites et barones et ceteri magnates regni nostri nobis firmiter
promiserint, quod erunt Londoniis a die Paschae proximo futuro
in tres septimanas cum equis et armis parati et bene muniti ad
tendendum sine ulla dilatione versus Portesmuth, ad transfre
tandum ad nos in Vasconiam contra regem Castellae qui terram
nostram Vasconiae in manu forti in aestate proximo futura
hostiliter est ingressurus, et tibi mandaverimus quod omnes
illos de ballia tua qui tenent xx. libratas terrae de nobis in
capite, vel de aliis qui sunt infra aetatem et in custodia nostra,
ad idem distringes ; tibi districte praecipimus, quod praeter
omnes praedictos venire facias coram consilio nostro apud West-
monasterium in quindena Paschae proximo futuri, quatuor le
gales et discretes milites de comitatibus praedictis quos iidem
comitatus ad hoc elegerint, vice omnium et singulorum eorundem
comitatuum, videlicet duos de uno comitatu et duos de alio, ad
providendum, una cum militibus aliorum comitatuum quos ad
eundem diem vocari fecimus, quale auxilium nobis in tanta
necessitate impendere voluerint. Et tu ipse militibus et aliis
de comitatibus praedictis necessitatem nostram et tam urgens
negotium nostrum diligenter exponas, et eos ad competens
auxilium nobis ad praesens impendendum efficaciter inducas;
ita quod praedicti quatuor milites praefato consilio nostro ad
praedictum terminum praecise respondere possint super prae
dicto auxilio pro singulis comitatuum praedictorum. Firmiter
.etiam tibi praecipimus quod omnia debita quae nobis a retro

vi.] Charter of Oxford. 377
sunt in baillia tua et solvi debuerunt ad scaccarium nostrum
ante Pascha jam instans, vel solvi debent ad scaccarium ejusdem
Paschae, habeas ad idem scaccarium in quindena praedicti Pas
chae, sciturus quod nisi praedicta debita tunc ibidem habueris non
solum corpus tuum arrestari faciemus, sed debita ilia de terris et
tenementis tuis levari faciemus ad damnum tuum non modicum.
T. A. Regina et R. comite Cornubiae apud Windlesoram XI. die
Februarii. — (Report on the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 13.)

A.D. 1255. Charter of Henry III to Oxford.
This charter is not given as a specimen of the ordinary
borough charters granted by Henry III : on the contrary, it is
distinguished from them by the provisions touching the Uni
versity. It may however be regarded as exhibiting the increased
minuteness and distinctness of detail that was now being intro
duced into municipal institutions.
Rex omnibus, etc., salutem. Sciatis quod ad pacem et tran-
quillitatem necnon et utilitatem universitatis scholarium Oxoniae
providimus et concessimus quod quatuor aldermanni fiant in
Oxonia, et octo de discretioribus et legalioribus burgensibus
ejusdem villae associentur ipsis aldermannis, qui o^anes jurent
nobis fidelitatem, et sint assidentes et consulentes majori et
ballivis nostris Oxoniae ad pacem nostram conservandam, ad
assisas praedictae villae custodiendas, et ad investigandum male
factores et perturbatores pacis nostrae, et vagabundos de nocte,
et receptatores latronum et malefactorum, et corporale praestent
sacramentum quod omnia praedicta fideliter observabunt. In
qualibet autem parochia villae Oxoniae sint duo homines electi
de legalioribus parochianis et jurati quod in qualibet quindena
inquirent diligenter, ne quis suspectus hospitetur in parochia, et
si aliquis receptaverit aliquem per tres noctes in domo sua,
respondeat pro eo. Nullus etiam regratarius emat victualia in
villa Oxoniae, vel extra versus villam venientia, nee aliquid emat
nee iterum vendat ante horam nonam, et si fecerit amercietur,
et rem emptam amittat. Si laicus inferat clerico gravem vel
enormem laesionem, statim capiatur, et si magna sit laesio,
incarceretur in castro Oxoniae, et ibi detineatur quousque
clerico satisfiat, et hoc arbitrio cancellarii et universitatis
Oxoniae; si clericus protervus fuerit, si minor vel levis sit
injuria, incarceretur in villa. Si clericus inferat gravem vel

378 Henry III. [part
enormem laesionem laico, incarceretur in praedicto castro
quousque cancellarius praedictae universitatis ipsum postula-
verit; si minor vel levis sit injuria, incarceretur in carcere
villae quousque liberetur per cancellarium. Pistores et bracia-
tores Oxoniae in primo transgressu suo non puniantur, sed iu
secundo amittant panem, et in tertio transgressu habeant judi
cium de pillorio. Quilibet pistor habeat sigillum suum et
signet panem suum, per quod possit cognosci cujus panis sit.
Quicunque de villa Oxoniae braciaverit ad vendendum, exponat
signum suum, alioquin amittat cervisiam. Vina Oxoniae com-
muniter vendantur et indifferenter tam clericis quam laicis ex
quo inbroehiata fuerint. Temptatio panis fiat bis in anno, vide
licet in quindena post festum Sancti Michaelis, et circa festum
Sanctae Mariae in Martio, et assisa cervisiae fiat eisdem ter
minis, secundum valorem bladii et brasii. Et quotiescunque
debeat fieri temptatio panis et cervisiae, intersit cancellarius
praedictae universitatis vel aliqui ex parte sua ad hoc deputati,
si super hoc requisiti interesse voluerint. Quod si non inter-
sint nee super hoc requisiti fuerint, nihil valeat temptatio prae
dicta. In cujus etc. T. R. apud Wodestok, XVIII. die Julii. —
(Foedera, i 323.)

A.D. 1258. Documents relating to the Provisions of
Oxford.
The particular train of events which led to the crisis marked
in English history by the Provisions pf Oxford, and which
helped, in conjunction with other causes of disturbance, to pro
duce the War of the Barons, began as early as 1252. In that
year Innocent IV was treating with the king for the bestowal
of the kingdom of Sicily on Richard Earl of Cornwall, and
sent Albert the papal notary to the king with full powers to
conclude the business. After a long negotiation, Edmund, the
second son of Henry, received the cession of the kingdom from
Albert, at Vend6me, March 6th, 1254 ; and this was confirmed
by the pope at Assisi, on May 2nd. After the death of Inno
cent, the settlement was renewed by Alexander IV at Naples,
April, 9th, 1255. Henry seems to have hung back at first
from accepting the offer, and to have pleaded a vow of crusade,
from which he was however absolved under papal orders ; but

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 379
on the 1 8th of October, 1255, he directed John Maunsell to
affix his seal to the formal act of acceptance. Immediately after
this the pecuniary difficulties of the king in connexion with
Sicily begin : the pope waged war with his own treasures, but
bound Henry to himself as debtor in respect of the expenditure,
and the king allowed the Bishop of Hereford, his envoy, to make
him responsible for the outlay. In November, 1256, Alex
ander IV commissioned the Archbishop of Messina as his ambas
sador to Henry ; and on Midlent Sunday, 1257, in the chapter
house at Westminster the Archbishop stated the case to the
great council of the nation. At this time the debt to tlie pope
reached 1 35,000 marks sterling. The demand of an aid was
met with indignant remonstrances ; but under united papal and
royal pressure, 52,000 marks were wrung from the clergy. The
next year the like demand was met more resolutely. The
Parliament met at London after Hoke-tide, April 9th ; and sat
until the 5th of May, in angry debate on all the many existing
causes of discontent. The result was an agreement on the part
of the king to place the execution of the necessary reforms in
the hands of a body of twenty-four counsellors, to be chosen in
a parliament at Oxford on the feast of S. Barnabas, June 1 ith,
half by himself and half by the barons. To the determinations
of this body he bound himself to submit. (Nos. I. and II.)
The parliament of Oxford met, and the barons presented a long
petition stating the reforms they desired. (No. IH.) The
council of twenty-four was elected, and drew up a body of
preliminary articles, which are commonly known as the Pro
visions of Oxford. (No. IV.) Under this constitution a council
of fifteen was chosen, by four out of the twenty-four, to advise
the king on all points ; another body of twenty-four was ap
pointed to treat especially of aids ; and a third, of twelve
members, was chosen by the barons to represent the community
in three annual parliaments. Further reforms were to be re
ported before the following Christmas. In the meantime the
king took all the oaths that were required of him, and published
in Latin, French, and English his adhesion to the Provisions, on
the 1 8th of October. (No. V.) The year ended, and the coun-

380 Henry III. [part
sellors had not completed their labours or published the further
reforms, to which it seems certain that the king had sworn
implicitly beforehand. In October, 1259, however, under the
urgent threats of Edward and others of the barons, they produced
at Westminster a second series of provisions, based upon the
petition of the barons, but by no means answering their expecta
tions. A quarrel between the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester,
the former of whom was supported by Edward, and the latter
by Henry, occupied great part of 1260, the king spending some
time in France, and being to all intents and purposes superseded
by the council. The next year Henry, having obtained absolu
tion from his oath, repudiated the Provisions, and war seemed
imminent. Henry's policy varied between stubborn resistance
and false submission. The year 1263 was one of civil war. At
last both parties agreed to accept the arbitration of S. Lewis,
Dec. 16th, 1263. S. Lewis gave sentence in favour of Henry,
on the 23rd of January, 1264; and the Provisions of Oxford
were annulled. The barons, as soon as they learned that the
award was unfavourable, renewed hostilities ; and in the battle
of Lewes, May 1 3th, the king and Edward were captured, the
government falling at once into the hands of Simon de Montfort.
No. I. The King's consent to a project of Reform.
Rex omnibus, etc. Cum pro negotiis nostris arduis nos et
regnum nostrum contingentibus, proceres et fideles regni nostri
ad nos Londonias in quindena Paschae proximo praeteritae
faceremus convocari ; et cum de negotiis supradictis et maxime
de prosecutione negotii Siciliae diligenter cum eisdem tractare-
mus ; ac ipsi nobis responderint quod si statum regni nostri per
consilium fidelium nostrorum rectificandum duxerimus, et domi
nus papa conditiones circa factum Siciliae appositas meliora-
verit, per quod negotium illud prosequi possemus cum effecto;
ipsi diligentiam fideliter apponent erga communitatem regni
nostri quod nobis commune auxilium ad hoc praestetur ; nos eis
concessimus quod infra festum Natalis Domini proximo futurum
per consilium proborum et fidelium hominum nostrorum regni
Angliae, una cum consilio legati domini papae, si in Anglia
medio tempore venerit, statum regni nostri ordinabimus et ordi-
nationem illam firmiter observabimus : et ad hoc fideliter obser-

vi.] Election of the Twenty-four. 38 1
vandum, supponimus nos cohercioni domini papae, ut nos ad hoc
per censuram ecclesiasticam, prout expedire viderit, valeat arc-
tare : protestamur etiam quod Edwardus filius noster primo-
genitus, praestito sacramento corporali, per litteras suas concessit
quod omnia superius expressa, quantum in ipso est, fideliter et
inviolabiliter observabit et in perpetuum observari procurabit.
In cujus etc. Hiis testibus, Edwardo filio nostro primogenito ;
Galfrido de Lezignan, Willelmo de Valentia, fratribus nostris ;
Petro de Sabaudia, Johanne de Plessetis comite Warrewici, Jo
hanne Maunsell thesaurario Eboracensi, Henrico de Wingeham
deeano Sancti Martini, London. ; Petro de Rivallis, Guidone de
Rocheford, Roberto Walerand, praesentibus et multis aliis comi
tibus, baronibus regni nostri. Datum apud Westmonasterium,
secundo die Maii. — (Foedera, i. 370.)
No. II. The King's consent to the Election of the Twenty-four.
Rex omnibus, etc. Noveritis nos concessisse proceribus et
magnatibus regni nostri, juramento in animam nostram per
Robertum Walerand praestito, quod per xii. fideles de concilio
nostro jam electos et per alios xii. fideles nostros, electos ex
parte procerum ipsorum, qui apud Oxoniam a festo Pentecostes
proximo futuro in unum mensem convenient, ordinetur, rectifi-
cetur et reformetur status regni nostri secundum quod melius
viderint expedire ad honorem Dei et ad fidem nostram ac regni
nostri utilitatem. Et si forte aliqui electorum ex parte nostra
absentes fuerint, liceat illis qui praesentes fuerint alios substi-
tuere loco absentium ; et similiter fiat ex parte praedictorum
procerum et fidelium nostrorum. Et quicquid per viginti qua
tuor utrimque electos et super hoc juratos, vel majorem partem
eorum, circa hoc ordinatum fuerit inviolabiliter observabimus ;
volentes et firmiter ex nunc praecipientes quod ab omnibus
inviolabiliter observetur eorum ordinatio. Et securitatem omni-
modam quam ipsi vel major pars eorum ad hujus rei observa-
tionem providerint, vel providerit, eis sine qualibet contradic-
tione, plene faciemus et fieri procurabimus. Protestamur etiam
quod Edwardus filius noster primogenitus, praestito sacramento
corporali, per litteras suas concessit quod omnia superius ex
pressa et concessa quantum in ipso est fideliter et inviolabiliter
observabit et procurabit in perpetuum observari. Promiserunt
etiam comites et barones memorati quod, expletis negotiis supe
rius tactis, bona fide laborabunt ad hoc quod auxilium nobis
commune praestetur a communitate regni nostri.
In cujus etc. Hiis testibus, ut supra.
Datum ul supra.— (Foedera, i. 371.)

382 Henry III. [part

No. III. Petition of the Barons at the Parliament of Oxford.
This important schedule of grievances is an exemplification of
the way in which the provisions of the Great Charter were kept,
and also of the progress of the views of men on internal reform
since the date of the Charter. Few of the details are in them
selves of material importance in relation to the constitution, but
they supply a commentary on the Charter in its legal articles
which is of interest to the student of social life and manners.
The constitutional views of the period may be regarded as em
bodied in the elective council, rather than in its distinct acts.
In point of fact, although the name of the Provisions of Oxford
belonged properly to the first articles there promulgated, and
indirectly also to those issued at Westminster in October, 1259,
the leading idea, probably, understood by the name was the
maintenance of the new form of government. Henry might
have submitted to any of the details, but not to be permanently
superseded by the elective council.
1. Petant comites et barones de successionibus, quod filius
natus et primogenitus vel filia post patrem libere ingrediatur
possessionem patris, ita quod capitalis dominus debet habere
simplicem seisinam per unum ex ballivis suis, ita quod nihil
capiatur per praedictum ballivum de exitibus terrae vel reddi
tibus ; quando vero haeres fuerit plenae aetatis et prosecutos
jus suum fuerit, ad faciendum domino suo quod facere debet :
et ita fiat de fratre vel sorore et de avunculo seisito, si obierit
sine haerede, ad nepotem suum filium primogeniti ; et si frater
non habeatur, ad liberos fratris vel sororis, et sic deinceps,
per rationabile relevium et homagium et relevia domino feodi
facienda ; ita quod dominus feodi medio tempore nullum faciat
vastum vel exilium, venditionem vel alienationem, de domibus
vel boscis, vivariis, parcis sive hominibus villenagium tenen-
tibus. Quod si hoc fecerit et inde convictus fuerit, secundum
quantitatem delicti puniatar. Et omnia damna quae praedictus
haeres ea occasione habuerit, sine dilatione restituet. Et cum
haeres fecerit domino regi rationabile relevium cum fuerit
plenae aetatis, domina regina inde petit aurum secundum
aestimationem decimae partis, et videtur quod non debet
habere nisi de fine.

vi.] Petition of the Barons. 383
2. Item petunt remedium quod ubi aliquis infra aetatem
existens tenet plures terras de pluribus et diversis dominis,
et idem teneat aliquam quantitatem terrae de domino rege in
capite per servitium militare vel sergantiam, occasione cujus
servitii dominus rex habet custodiam omnium terrarum et tene-
mentorum praedictorum haeredis, de quocumque tenuerit ; si
dominus rex eat in exercitu, licet teneat in manu sua plura
feoda militum de feodis aliorum, sicut praedictum est, nihilo
minus petit totum servitium a praedictis dominis feodi qui de
eo tenent in capite, nee eis vult quicquam allocare ex hoc quod
tenet custodiam praedictorum feodorum in manu sua.
3. Item petunt barones habere custodiam terrarum et tene-
mentorum suorum qui sunt de feodis suis, et haeredum usque
ad legitimam aetatem ipsorum ; ita quod dominus rex habeat
maritagium et custodiam corporis penes se: et hoc petunt de
jure communi.
4. Item petunt quod castra regis committantur custodienda
ad fideles suos et de regno Angliae natos, ob plures casus qui
poterunt in regno Angliae evenire vel emergere.
5. Item petunt quod castra regis quae sunt supra portus
maris, ubi navigia evenire possunt, committantur fidelibus homi
nibus de regno Angliae natis, propter pericula plurima evidentia
quae emergere possunt si aliis committerentur.
6. Item petunt de maritagiis domino regi pertinentibus, quod
non maritentur ubi disparagentur, videlicet hominibus qui non
sunt de natione regni Angliae.
7. Item petunt remedium quod bosci et terrae infra metas
forestae non existentes, qui per ambulation em proborum homi
num, et per quindecimam partem omnium honorum hominum
Angliae domino regi datam, deafforestari fuerunt, per volunta
tem suam reafforestavit.
8. Item petunt de assartis factis infra metas forestae de terris
suis propriis et tenementorum suoram de novo arentatis, unde
dominus rex vendicat sibi custodiam haeredum talium, et nihilo
minus vendicat servitium omne inde debitum.
9. Item petunt remedium quod forestae deafforestatae per
cartam regis et per fidem eidem per communitatem totius regni
factam, ita quod quisque ubique possit libere fugare, dominus rex
de voluntate sua pluribus dedit de praedicta libertate warennas,
quae sunt ad nocumentum praedictae libertatis concessae.
10. Item petaut remedium, quod religiosi non intrent in
feodum comitum et baronum et aliorum sine voluntate eorum,
per quod amittunt in perpetuum custodias, maritagia, relevia
et eschaetas.

384 Henry III. [part
ii. Item petunt remedium de abbatiis et prioratibus fundatis
de feodis comitum et baronum, unde dominus rex ad vacationem
dictarum domorum inde petit custodias, ita quod non possunt
eligere sine voluntate domini regis : et hoc est in praejudicium
comitum et baronum, cum servitia inde debita domino regi
sustineant ut medii.
12. Item petunt remedium de hoc, quod dominus rex ali-
quando pluribus dat per cartam suam aliena jura, dicens ilia
esse eschaeta sua, unde tales dicunt quod non debent nee possunt
respondere sine domino rege. Et cum justitiarii hoc ostendunt
domino regi, nihil justitiae in hae parte factum est.
13. Item petunt remedium, quod cum ipsi comites et barones
habeant terras suas in pluribus comitatibus, justitiarii domini
regis sint itinerantes uno tempore In omnibus comitatibus
praedictis, ad placitandum de omnibus placitis, et de foresta
simul et semel, et nisi ipsi comites et barones compareant coram
illis primo die communis summonitionis, amerciabuntur ad
voluntatem domini regis pro sua absentia, nisi habeant breve
domini regis de acquietantia.
14. Item praedicti justitiarii capiunt finem gravem pro pul-
chro placitando de quolibet comitatu, ne occasionentur ; et non
debent emere jura, et de aliis pluribus occasionibus de placitis
coronae. Et si villatae quatuor propinquiores ad mortem ho
minis interfecti vel submersi non accesserint, omnes de aetate
xii. annorum praedictarum iv. villatarum graviter amercia
buntur. 15. Item petunt quod nullus possit firmare castrum supra
portum maris, vel supra insulam infra inclusam, nisi sit de con
sensu concilii totius regni Angliae : quia plura pericula possent
inde evenire.
16. Item de vicecomitum firmis et aliorum ballivorum liber
orum qui capiunt comitatus et alias ballivas ad firmam, qui
etiam habent comitatus suos ad tam altam firmam quod non
possunt dictam firmam inde levare ; nee amerciant homines
secundum quantitatem delicti, sed ad redemptionem ultra vires
eos arctant.
17. Insuper dicunt quod vicecomites ad duos turnos suos per
annum demandant personalem adventum comitum et baronum
tenentium baronias suas in diversis locis et comitatibus; et si
non venerint ibi personaliter, amerciant ipsos sine consideratione
et judicio ; et hoc quia quilibet vicecomes dicit, quod in dictis
turnis est justitiarius quoad diem.
18. Item ubi aliquis habet aliquam partem terrae, scilicet
duas acras terrae vel plus vel minus, sine mansione eidem adja-

VI.] Petition of the Barons. 385
cente, nisi ratione illius terrae ad turnos suos veniat, tunc pro
voluntate sua amerciabitur.
19. Item si aliqua justitiaria mandata fuerit specialiter coram
aliquo justitiario assignato, vel de nova disseisina, vel de morte
antecessoris, vicecomites clamare faciunt in mercatis, quod omnes
milites et libere tenentes patriae veniant ad certum diem et lo
cum audituri et facturi praeceptum regis, et cum ibi non vene
rint, eos amerciant pro voluntate sua.
20. Item petunt remedium de hoc quod si aliquis comes vel
baro, vel ballivus, vel aliquis alius qui libertatem habeat vel
in civitate vel in villata, ceperit aliquem malefactorem et ilium
obtulerit vicecomiti, vel suo ballivo, ad incarcerandum vel cus
todiendum quousque de eo fiat judicium, vicecomes recusat
admittere prisonem ilium, nisi is qui ipsum ceperit finem faciat
per sic quod ipsum recipiat.
21. Item de eo quod multi homines de diversis partibus regni
propter caristiam temporis venientes, et per diversas provincias
transitum facientes, fame et inedia moriuntur, et tunc per legem
terrae visum factum est per coronatores, et quatuor villatas
vicinas, et cum praedictae villatae de ita mortuis nihil sciunt nee
dicunt, nisi quod casu praedicto moriuntur, et quia nihil de
huthesia Englescheria assignatur, amerciatur patria coram jus
titiariis tanquam de murdro.
22. Item de prisis domini regis in nundinis et mercatis et
civitatibus, videlicet quod hi qui assignati fuerint ad praedictas
prisas capiendas, eas rationabiliter capiant, scilicet quantum
pertinet ad praedictos usus domini regis ; unde conqueruntur,
quod dicti captores capiunt in duplo vel in triplo plus quam
cedit ad usus domini regis : capiunt etiam totum illud superfluum
ad opus suum, vel ad opus amicorum suorum retinent, et partem
inde aliquam vendunt
23. Item conqueruntur quod dominus rex de prisis nullam
fere facit pacationem, ita quod plures mercatores de regno
Angliae ultra modum depauperentur, et alii mercatores extranei
ea occasione subtrahunt se de veniendo in terram istam cum
suis mercibus, unde terra magnam incurrit jacturam.
24. Item petunt remedium de sectis de novo levatis in regno,
tam ad comitatus et hundreda, quam ad curias libertatis, quae
nunquam aliquo tempore fieri consueverunt.
25. Item petunt remedium de hoc, quod Judaei aliquando
debita sua et terras eis invadiatas [tradunt] magnatibus et po-
tentioribus reo-ni, qui terras minorum ingrediuntur ea occasione :
et licet ipsi qui debitum debent, parati sint ad solvendum prae
dictum debitum cum usuris, praefati magnates negotium proro-
c 0

386 Henry III. [part
gant, ut praedictae terrae et tenementa aliquo modo sibi rema-
nere possint, dicentes quod sine Judaeo cui debebatur debitum,
nihil possunt nee sciunt facere : et semper differunt solutionem
dictae pecuniae, ita quod occasione mortis vel alicujus alterius
casus, evidens periculum et manifesta patet imminere exhaere-
datio his quorum praedicta tenementa fuerunt.
26. Item petunt remedium de Christianis usurariis, ut de
Caursinis qui degunt Londoniis, cum Christianae religioni con-
trarium videatur manutenere vel fovere aliquos hujusmodi,
saltern ex quo nomen Christiani indu erunt. Et praeterea per
eorum usuras plures depauperantur et destruuntur; et etiam
plures mercandias venientes versus Londonias, tam per aquam
quam per terram, occupant et emunt, ad magnum detrimentum
mereatorum et omnium praedictae civitatis, et ad magnum dam
num domini regis, quia cum dominus rex talliat praedictam
civitatem, in nullo participant nee participare volunt cum prae
dictis civibus in tallagiis et aliis domino regi faciendis.
27. Item petunt remedium de maritagiis alienatis, videlicet
in tali casu ; si aliquis dederit alicui unam carucatam terrae
in maritagio cum filia vel sorore habendam et tenendam eis et
haeredibus de praedictis filia vel sorore exeuntibus, ita videlicet
quod, si praedicta filia vel soror obierit sine haerede de corpore
suo, terra cum pertinentiis integre revertatur ad ipsum qui
terram dederit in maritagium vel ad haeredes suos ; et cum
praedictum donum non sit absolutum sed conditionale, tamen
mulieres post mortem virorum suorum in viduitate sua dant
vel vendunt praedicta maritagia et infeodant pro voluntate sua,
licet haeredes de corpore suo non habuerint, nee hujusmodi
feofamenta hucusque aliquatenus fuerunt revocata. Unde petunt
quod ex aequitate juris, ratione praedictae conditionis, sive per
breve de ingressu, vel aliquo alio modo competenti provideatur
remedium ad revocandum hujusmodi feofamenta, et quod in tali
casu procedatur ad judicium pro ipso petente.
28. Item petunt remedium de hoc, quod dominus rex large
facit militibus de regno suo acquietantiam, ne in assisis ponan
tur, juramentis vel recognitionibus, propter quod in pluribus
comitatibus pro defectu militum non potest capi aliqua magna
assisa, et ita remanent hujusmodi loquelae, ita quod petentes
nunquam justitiam consequuntur.
29. Item in pluribus comitatibus usitatum est, quod si aliquis
defert breve de recto directum proximo capitali domino feodi,
et petens probaverit defaltam curiae ipsius capitalis domini pro
consuetudine regni, et post eat ad comitatum et petat quod ad-
versarius suus summoneatur quod sit ad proximum comitatum,

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 387
veniet superior capitalis dominus feodi ejusdem et petit suain
curiam inde et habebit : et, probata defalta curiae, veniet adhuc
alter superior dominus feodi illius et petit similiter curiam suam
et habebit : et sic de singulis capitalibus dominis quotquot
fuerint superiores. Quod est aperte contra justitiam, cum in
brevi contineatur quod capitalis dominus feodi cui breve diri-
gitur plenum rectum teneat quod vicecomes faciat, etc. —
(Annals of Burton, 439-443.)

No. IV. Provisions of Oxford.
Provisio facta apud Oxoniam.
Provisum est quod de quolibet comitatu eligantur quatuor
discreti et legales milites, qui, quolibet die ubi tenetur comita
tus, conveniant ad audiendum omnes querelas de quibuscunque
transgressionibus et injuriis quibuscunque personis illatis per
vicecomites, ballivos, seu quoscunque alios, et ad faciendum
tachiamenta quae ad dictas querelas pertinent usque ad primum
adventum capitalis justitiarii in partes illas. Ita quod suffici-
entes capiant plegios a conquerente de prosequendo, et de eo de
quo queritur, veniendo et juri parendo coram praefato justitiario
in primo adventu suo. Et quod praedicti quatuor milites in-
rotulari faciant omnes praedictas querelas cum suis attachia-
mentis ordinate et serie, scilicet de quolibet hundredo separatim
et per se. Ita quod praefatus justitiarius in primo adventu
suo possit audire et terminare praefatas querelas sigillatim de
quolibet hundredo. Et scire faciant vicecomiti quod venire
faciant coram praefato justitiario in proximo adventu suo ad
dies et loca quae eis scire faciet, omnes hundredarios et ballivos
suos ; ita quod quilibet hundredarius venire faciat omnes con-
querentes et defendentes de balliva sua, successive, secundum
quod praefatus justitiarius duxerit de praedicto hundredo pla-
citare ; et tot et tales tam milites quam alios liberos et legales
homines de balliva sua per quos rei Veritas melius convinei
poterit, ita quod omnes simul et semel non vexentur, sed tot
veniant quot possunt una die placitari et terminari.
Idem provisum est quod nullus miles de praedictis comi
tatibus, occasione acquietantiae quod non ponatur in juratis
vel assisis, per cartam domini regis deferatur, nee quietus sit
quoad provisionem istam sic factam pro communi utilitate
totius regni. c c 2

388 Henry III. [part
Electi ex parte domini Regis.
Dominus Londoniensis episcopus, dominus Wintoniensis
electus, dominus H. filius regis Alemanniae, dominus J. comes
Warennae ; dominus Guido de Lysinan, dominus W. de
Valentia, dominus J. Comes Warewici, dominus Johannes
Mansel, frater J. de Derlington, Abbas Westmonasterii, do
minus H. de Hengham.
Electi ex parte comitum et baronum.
Dominus Wygornensis episcopus, dominus Symon comes
Leycestrensis, dominus Ricardus comes Gloverniae, dominus
Humfridus comes Herefordiae, dominus Rogerus Marescallus,
dominus Rogerus de Mortuo Mari, dominus J. filius Galfridi,
dominus Hugo le Bigot, dominus Ricardus de Gray, dominus
W. Bardulf, dominus P. de Monteforti, dominus Hugo Dis-
pensarius. Et si contingat aliquem istorum necessitate interesse non
posse, reliqui istorum eligant quem voluerint, scilicet alium ne-
cessarium loco absentis ad istud negotium prosequendum.
Ceo jura le commun de Engleterre a Oxeneford.
Nus, tels et tels, fesum a saver a tute genz, ke nus avuni jure
sur seintes Evangeles, e sumus tenuz ensemble par tel serment,
e promettuns en bone fei, ke cheseun de nus e tuz ensemble nus
entre eiderums, e nus e les nos cuntre tute genz, dreit fesant, e
rens pernant ke nus ne purrum sanz mes fere, salve la fei le rei
e de la corune. E promettuns sur meime le serment, ke nul de
nus ja ren ne prendra de tere ne de moeble par que cest serment
purra estre desturbe, u en nule ren empeyre. E si nul fet
encontre ceo, nus le tendrums a enemi mortel.
Ceo est le serment a vint e quatre.
Cheseun jura sur seintes Evangeles, ke il al honur de Deu, e
a la fei le rei, e al profit del reaume, ordenera e tretera ovekes
les avant dit jures sur le refurmement e le amendement del estat
del reaume. E ke ne lerra pur dun, ne pur promesse, pur amur,
ne pur hange, ne pur pour de nulli, ne pur gain, ne pur perte,
ke leaument ne face solum la tenur de la lettre, ke le rei ad sur
ceo done et sun fez ensement.
Ceo jura le haute justice de Engletere.
II jure ke ben et leaument a sun poer fra ceo ke apent a

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 389
la justicerie de dreiture tenir, a tute genz al prim le rei e del
reaume, solum la purveaunce fete et a fere par les vint et
quatre, et par le cunseil le rei e les hauz humes de la tore, ki li
jurrunt en cestes choses a aider e a meintenir.
Ceo jura le Chanceler de Engletere.
Ke il ne enselera nul bref fors bref de curs sanz le com-
mandement le rei, e de sun cunseil ke serra present : ne enselera
dun de grant garde, ne de grant ... ne de eschaetes, sanz
le assentement .del grant cunseil u de la greinure partie : ne
ke il ne enselera ren ke seit encontre le ordinement, ke est fet
et serra a fere par les vint et quatre, u par la greinure partie.
Ne ke il ne prendra nul loer autrement ke il nest divise as
autres. E lem li baudra un companiun en la furme ke le cunseil
purverra. Ceo est le serment ke les gardens des chastels firent.
Ke il les chastels le rei leaument e en bone fei garderunt al
ces le rei e de ses heyrs. E ke eus les rendrunt al rei u a ses
heyrs et a nul autre, e par sun cunseil et en nule autre manere ;
ceo est a saver, par prodes homes de la tere esluz a sun cunseil,
u par la greinure partie. E ceste furme par escrit dure deske
a duze ans. E de ilokes en avant par cest establement et cest
serment ne seint constreint, ke franchement ne les pussent rendre
al rei u a ses heirs.

Ceo sunt ceus ke sunt jurez del cunseil le rei.
Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis, episcopus Wygornensis, comes
Leycestrensis, comes Glovernensis, comes Mariscallus, Petrus de
Sabaudia, comes Albemarliae, comes Warewik, comes Hereford-
ensis, Johannes Mansel, Johannes filius Galfridi, Petrus de
Monteforti, Ricardus de Gray, Rogerus de Mortuo Mari,
Jacobus de Aldithelege.
Les duze de par le rei unt eslu 1 Le cunte Roger le Marescall,
des duze de par le commun  J Hugo le Bigot.
E la partie ver le commun ad ) Le cunte de Warewik,
eslu des duze ke sunt de par le rei / Johannes Mansell.
E ces quatre unt poer a eslire le cunseil le rei, et quant il unt
eslu, il les mustrunt as vint et quatre ; et la u la greinure partie
de ces assente, seit tenu.

390 Henry III. [part
Ces sunt les duze ke sunt eslu per les baruns a treter a treis
parlemenz per an oveke le cunseil le rei pur tut le commun
de la tere de commun bosoine.
Episcopus Londoniensis, comes Wintoniensis, comes Here-
fordensis, Philippus Basset, Johannes de Bailol, Johannes de
Verdun, Johannes de Gray, Rogerus de Sumery, Rogerus de
Monte Alto, Hugo Dispensarius, Thomas de Gresley, Aegidius
de Argenten.
Ces sunt les vint et quatre ke sunt mis per le commun a treter
de aide le rei.
Episcopus Wigornensis, episcopus Londoniensis, episcopus
Sarum ; comes Leycestrensis, comes Glovernensis, comes Mares
callus, Petrus de Sabaudia, comes Herefordensis, comes Aube-
marliae, comes Wintoniensis, comes Oxoniensis, Johannes filius
Galfridi, Johannes de Gray, Johannes de Bailol, Rogerus de
Mortuo Mari, Rogerus de Monte Alto, Rogerus de Sumery,
Petrus de Monteforti, Thomas de Greley, Fulco de Kerdiston,
Aegidius de Argenton, Johannes Kyriel, Philippus Basset, Aegi
dius de Erdinton.
E si aukun de ces ne i pusse estre u ne voile, a ces ke i
serrunt apent poer de autre eslire en sun liu.
Del estat de seint Eglise.
A remembrer fet ke le estat le seint Eglise seit amende par
les vint et quatre esluz a refurmer le estat del reaume de
Engletere, kant il verrunt liu et tens, solum le poer ke il en
unt par la lettre le rei de Engletere.
De la haute justice.
Derichef ke justice seit mis un u deus, et quel poer il avera,
et ke il ne seit fors un an. Issi ke al chef del an respoine
devant le rei et sun cunseil de sun tens et devant celui ke serra
apres lui. Del tresorer e de le escheclcer.
Autel del tresorer. Mes ke il rende acunte al chef del an.
E bone genz autres seient mis al escheker solum le ordenement
les avant dit vint et quatre. E la vengent totes les issues de
la tere, et en nule part ailm-s. E ceo ke lem verra a amender
seit amende.

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 391
Del Chanceler.
Autel del chanceler. Issi ke al chef del an respoine de sun
tens. E ke il ne ensele hors de curs par la sule volunte del rei ;
mes le face par le cunseil ke serra entur le rei.
Del poer la justice e de bailivis.
La haute justice a poer de amender les tors fez de tutes autres
justices, et de ballifs, e de cuntes, et de baruns, et de tutes
autres genz, solum lei et dreit de la tere. E les brefs seient
pledez solum lei de la tere e en leus deues. E ke la justice ne
prenge ren si ne seit present de pain et de vin et de teles choses,
ceo est a saver, viandes et beifres, sicum lem ad este acustume
a porter as tables de prodes homes a la jornee. E ceste meime
chose seit entendue de tuz les cunseilers le rei et de tuz ses
ballifs. E ke nul ballif par achesun de plai u de sun office ne
prenge nul loer par sa main, ne par autru en nule manere.
E si il est ateint, ke il seit reint, et cil ke done autresi. E si
covent ke le rei done a sa justice et a sa gent ke le servent, ke
il ne eient mester ke il ren prengent de autrui.
De vescuntes.
Les vescuntes seient purveus leus genz et prodes homes et
tere tenanz ; issi ke en cheseun cunte seit un vavasur del cunte
memes vescunte, ke ben et leuement trete la gent del cunte et
dreitement. E ke il ne prenge loer, e ke il ne sei vescunte fors
un an ensemble. E ke en le an rende ses acuntes al echeker, e
respoine de sun tens. E ke le rei lui face del soen, solum sun
afferant coment il pusse garder le cunte dreitement. E ke il
ne prenge nul loer, ne li ne ses ballifs. E si il seient ateint,
seient reinz.
A remembrer fet ke lem mette tel amendement a la Gyuerie
et as gardeins de la Gyurie, ke lem i sauve le serement.
De Eschaeturs.
Bons eschaeturs seient mis. E ke il ne prengent rens des
bens as morz, de queles teres deivent estre en la main le rei.
Mes ke les eschaeturs eient franche administraciun des bens,
deske il averunt fet le gre le rei si dette lui deivent. E ceo
solum la furme de la chartre de franchise. E ke lem enqnerge
des tors fez ke eschaeturs unt fet ca en arere, et seit amende de
tel et de tel. Ne tailage ne autre chose ne prenge, fors si come
il devera solum la chartre de franchise.
La chartre de franchise seit garde fermement.

392 Henry III. [part
Del Eschange de Lundres.
A remembrer fet del eschange de Lundres amender, et de la
cite de Lundres, et de totes les autres citez le rei, ke a hunte et
a destrucciuns sunt alez per tallages et autres oppressions.
De hospitio regis et reginae.
A remembrer fet del hostel le rei et la regine amender.
Des parlemenz, quanz serrunt tenuz per an et content.
II fet a remembrer ke les xxiv. unt ordene ke treis parle
menz seient par an. Le premerein as utaves de Sein Michel : le
seeund le demein de la Chandelur : le terz le premer jor de
June, ceo est a saver, treis sememes devant le Seint John.
A ces treis parlemenz, vendrunt les cunseillers le rei esluz, tut
ne seient il pas mandez pur ver le estat del reaume et pur treter
les cummuns bosoingnes del reaume et del rei ensement. E autre
fez ensement quant mester serra per le mandement le rei.
Si fet a remembre ke le commun eslise xii. prodes homes,
ke vendrunt as parlemenz et autre fez quant mester serra, quant
le rei u sun cunseil les mandera pur treter de bosoingnes le rei et
del reaume. E ke le commun tendra pur estable ceo ke ces xii.
frunt. E ceo serra fet pur esparnier le oust del commun.
Quinze serrunt nomez par ces quatre, ceo est a saver per le
cunt le Marechall, le cunte de Warewik, Hugo le Bigot, et John
Mansel, ki sunt esluz par les xxiv. pur nomer les devant dit
quinze, les queus serrunt de cunseil le rei. E senunt cunfermez
par les avant dit xxiv. u par la greinore partie de els. E averunt
poer del rei conseiler en bone fei del governement del reaume,
et de totes choses ke al rei u al reaume pertenent. E pur
amender et adrescer totes les choses ke il verrunt ke facent
a adrescer et amender. E su le haute justice, et sur totes autres
genz. E si il ne poent tuz estre, ceo ke la greinure partie fra,
serra ferm et estable.
Ceo sunt les nums des cheveteins chasteaus le rei, et de ceus ke
les unt en garde.
Robertus de Neville ; Bamburg, Novum castrum super Tyne.
Gilbertus de Gant; Scardeburg. Willelmus Bardulf; Noting-
ham. Radulfus Basset de Sapercot ; Norhamton. Hugo Bigot ;
Turris Londoniarum. Ricardus de Gray ; Doveria. Nicolaus de
Moules ; Roucestria et Cantuaria. — Wintonia. Rogerus de
Samford ; Porcestria. Stephanus Longe Espee ; Corfe. Matheus

Vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 393
de Besill ; Gloucestria. Henricus de Tracy ; Exonia. Ricardus
de Rochele ; Haldesham. Johannes de Gray ; Herefordia.
Robertus Walrant ; Sarum. Hugo Dispensarius ; Horestan.
Petrus de Monteforti ; Brugewalter. Comes Warewik ; Divises.
Johannes filius Bernardi ; Oxonia. — (Ann. Burton, pp. 446-453.)

Tbanslatioh.
Tins the commonalty of England swore at Oxford.
We, so and so, make known to all men, that we have sworn upon the
holy Gospels, and are held together by such oath, and promise in good
faith, that each one of us and we all together will mutually aid each other.
both ourselves and those belonging to us, against all people, doing riglit
and taking nothing that we cannot without doing mischief, saving faith to
the king and the crown. And we promise under the same oath, none of
us will henceforth take land or moveables by which this oath can be dis
turbed or in anyways impaired. And if any one acts against this, we will
hold him as a mortal enemy.
This is the oath to the twenty-four.
Each swore on the holy Gospels, that he to the honour of God, and
to his faith to the king, and to the profit of the realm, will ordain and treat
with the aforesaid sworn persons upon the reformation and amendment of
the state of the realm. And that he will not fail for gift, nor for promise,
for love, nor for hate, nor for fear of any one, nor for gain, nor for loss,
loyally to do according to the tenour of the letter which the king and his
son have together given for this.
This the chief justice of England swore.
He swears that be will well and loyally according to his power do that
which belongs to the justiciar of right to hold, to all persons, to the profit
of the king and the kingdom, according to the provision made and to be
made by the twenty-four, and by the counsel of the king and the great
men of the land who shall swear in these things to aid and support him.
This the chancellor of England swore.
That he will seal no writ, excepting writs of course, without the com
mandment of the king and of his council who shall be present. Nor shall
he seal a gift of a great wardship, or of a great £ ]*, nor of
escheats, without the assent of the great council or of the major part. And
that he will seal nothing which may be contrary to the ordinance which is
made and shall he made by the twenty-four, or by the major part. And
that he will take no fee otherwise than what is given to the others. And
he shall be given a companion in the form which the council shall provide.
* A blank space in the MS,

394 Henry III. [part
This is the oath which the guardians of the king's castles made.
That they will keep the castles of the king loyally and in good faith for
the use of the king and of his heirs ; and that they will give them up to
the king or to his heirs, aud to none other, and by his counsel and in no
other manner, to wit, by honest men of the land elected as his council, or
by the major part. And this form by writ lasts for twelve years. And
from that time forward by this settlement and this oath they shall not be
hindered so that they cannot freely give them up to the king and his
heirs. These are those who are sworn of the Icing's council.
[The names follow.]
The twelve on the king's side have elected out of the twelve on that of
the commonalty the Earl Roger the Marshall, and Hugh Bigot.
And the party of commonalty have elected out of the twelve who
are on the king's side the Earl of Warwick and John Mansel.
And these four have power to elect the council of the king, and when
they have elected them, they shall present them to the twenty-four ; and
there, where the greater part of these agree, it shall be held.
These are the twelve who are elected by the barons to treat at the three parlia
ments by year with the Icing's council for all the commonalty of the land of
the common need. [The names follow.]
These are the twenty-four who are appointed by the commonalty to treat
of aid to the king.
[The names follow.]
And if any one of these cannot or will not serve, those who shall be
there have power to elect another in his place.
Of the state of holy church.
Be it remembered that the state of the holy church be amended by the
twenty-four elected to reform the state of the realm of England, when they
shall see place and time, according to the power which they have respect
ing it by the letter of the King of England.
Of the chief justice.
Moreover, that a justice be appointed, one or two, and what power he
shall have, and that he be only for a year. So that at the end of the year
lie answer concerning his time before the king and his council and before
him who shall follow him.
Of the treasurer, and of the exchequer.
The like of the treasurer. That he too give account at the end of the
year. And other good persons are to be placed at the exchequer accord
ing to the direction of the aforesaid twenty-four. And there let all the
issues of the land come, and in no part elsewhere. And let that which
shall be seen to require amendment, be amended.

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 395
Of the chancellor.
The like of the chancellor. That he at the end of the year answer
concerning his time. And that he seal nothing out of course by the sole
will of the king. But that he do it by the council which shall be around
the king. Of the power of the justice and bailiffs.
The chief justice has power to amend the wrongs done by all the
other justices and bailiffs, and earls and barons, and all other people,
according to the law and justice of the land. And let the writs be pleaded
according to the law of the land, and in fit places. And that the justice
take nothing unless it be presents of bread and wine, and such things,
to wit, meat and drink, as have been used to be brought to the tables of
the chief men for the day. And let this same thing be understood of
all the king's councillors and all his bailiffs. And that no bailiff, by occa
sion of plea or of his office, take any fee in his own hand, or through the
agency of another in any manner. And if he is convicted, that he be
punished, and he who gives likewise. And if it be fitting, that the king
give to his justiciar and his people who serve him, so that they have no
occasion to take anything from elsewhere.
Of the sheriffs.
Let there be provided as sheriffs, loyal people, and substantial men,
and land tenants ; so that in each county there be a vavasour of the same
county as sheriff, to treat the people of the county well, loyally, and
rightfully. And that he take no fee, and that he be sheriff only for a year
together ; and that in the year he give up his accounts at the exchequer
and answer for his time. And that the king grant unto him out of his own,
according to his contribution, so that he can guard the county rightfully.
And that he take no fee, neither he nor his bailiffs. And if they be con
victed, let them be punished.
Be it remembered that such amendment is to be applied to the Jewry,
and to the wardens of the Jewry, that the oath as to the same may be kept.
Of the escheators.
Let good escheators be appointed; and that they tike nothing of the
effects of the dead, of such lands as ought to be in the king's hand. Also
that the escheators have free administration of the goods until they shall
have done the king's will, if they owe him debts. And that, according to
the form of the Charter of liberty. And that inquiry be made into the
wrongs done which the escheators have done there aforetime, and amend
ment be made of such and such. Nor let tallage on anything else be
taken, excepting such as ought to be according to the Charter of liberty.
Let the Charter of liberty be kept firmly.
Of the exchange of London.
Be it remembered to amend the exchange of London, and the city of
London, and all the other cities of the king which have gone to shame and
destruction by the tallages and other oppressions.

396 Henry III. [part
Of the place of reception of the king and queen.
Be it remembered to amend the hostelry of the king and the queen.
Of the parliaments, how many shall be held by year, and in what manner.
It is to be remembered that the twenty-four have ordained that there be
three parliaments a year. The first at the octave of S. Michael. The
second the morrow of Candlemas. The third the first day of June, to wit,
three weeks before S. John. To these three parliaments the elected coun
cillors of the king shall come, even if they are not sent for, to see the state
of the realm, and to treat of the common wants of the kingdom, and of the
king in like manner. And other times in like manner when occasion shall
be, by the king's command.
So it is to be remembered that the commonalty elect twelve honest men,
who shall come at the parliaments and other times when occasion shall be,
when the king or his council shall send for them, to treat of the wants of
the king and of the kingdom. And that the commonalty shall hold as
established that which these twelve shall do. And that shall be done to
spare the cost of the commonalty.
There shall be fifteen named by these four, to wit, by the Earl Marshall,
the Earl of Warwick. Hugh Bigod, and John Mansel, who are elected by
the twenty-four to name the aforesaid fifteen, who shall be the king's
council. And they shall be confirmed by the aforesaid twenty-four, or by
the major part of them. And they shall have power to counsel the king in
good faith concerning the government of the realm and all things which
appertain to the king or to the kingdom ; and to amend and redress all
things which they shall see require to be redressed and amended. And
over the chief justice and over all other people. And if they cannot all be
present, that which the majority shall do shall be firm and established.
These are the names of the principal castles of the Icing, and of those
who have them in keeping.
[The names follow.]
{Chiefly from the Translation hy Mr. Luard, Ann. Burton, pp. 501-505.)

No. V. Broclamations of the King's Adhesion to the
Provisions.
1. Hbnr' bur3 Godesfultume king on Engleneloande, Lhoauerd
on Yrloand', Duk on Norm' on Aquitain' and eorl on Aniow
send igretinge to alle hise holde ilserde and ileawede on Hun-
tendon' schir'. bset witen 3e wel alle bast we wiUen and unnen
bset. bast ure rsedesmen alle ober j>e moare dasl of heom ba?t
oeob iehosen burj us and J>ur3 jiset loandes folk on ure kuneriche.
habbeb idon and schullen don in be worbnesse of Gode and on
ure treowbe. for )>e freme of ]>e loande. fmrj ]>e besijte of ban
toforeniseide redesmen ; beo stedefsest and ilestinde in alle
jnnge abuten aende. And we hoaten alle ure treowe in |>e

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 397
treowbe. bset heo us ojen. bset heo stedefsestliohe healden and
swerien to healden and to werien bo isetnesses bset beon imakede
and beon to makien bur3 ban toforeniseide rsedesmeu ober burj
be moare dsel of heom alswo alse hit is biforen iseid. And
bset sehc ober helpe pset for to done bi ban ilche obe ajenes alle
men. rigt for to done and to foangen. And noan ne nime of
loande ne of ejte. wherburj bis besigte muje beon ilet ober
iwersed on onie wise. And jif oni ober onie cumen her onjenes :
we willen and hoaten bset alle ure treowe heom healden dead-
liche ifoan. And for bset we willen Jjset bis beo stedefsest and
lestinde ; we senden 3ew }>is writ open iseined wib ure seel, to
halden a manges 3ew inehord. Witnesse us seluen set Lunden'.
bane E3tetenbe day. on be Monbe of Octobr' In be Two and
fowertojbe 3eare of ure cruninge. And bis wes idon astforen
ure isworene redesmen. Bonefac' Archebischop on Kant'bur'.
Walt' of Cantelow. Bischop on Wirechestr'. Sim' of Muntfort.
Eorl on Leirchestr'. Ric' of Clar' Eorl on Glowchestr' and on
Hurtford'. Rog. Bigod Eorl on Northfolk' and Marescal on
Engleneloand'. Perres of Sauueye. Will' of Fort Eorl on
Aubem'. Joh' of Plesseiz Eorl on Warewik'. Joh' Geffrees
sune. Perres of Muntfort. Ric' of Grey. Rog' of Mortemer.
James of Aldithel and setforen obre ino3e.
And al on \o ilche worden is isend in to aevrihce obre shcire
ouer al baere kuneriche on Engleneloande. and ek in tel Ire-
londe. — (Foedera, i. 378, collated with the edition of A. J. Ellis,
London, 1868.) Translation.
Henry, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of
Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to all his faithful, clerk
and lay, in Huntingdonshire, greeting. Know ye all well that we will
and grant that that which our counsellors, all or the greater part of them,
that be chosen by us and by the people of the land of our kingdom, have
done and shall do in honour of God and in loyalty to us, for the bene
fit of the country, by the provision of the aforesaid counsellors, be steadfast
and lasting in all things without end. And we command all our true men
in the troth that they owe us, that they steadfastly hold and swear to hold
and to defend the statutes that be made or to be made by the aforesaid
counsellors or by the greater part of them as is aforesaid ; and that each
help other that for to do by the same oath, against all men, right for to do
and to receive ; and let no one take of land or of goods, whereby this pro
vision may be hindered or damaged in any wise. And if any person or
persons come there against, we will and command that all our faithful hold
them as deadly foes. And for that we will that this be Bteadfast and
lasting we send you this writ open, sealed with our seal, to keep among you
in store. Witness ourself at London, the 18th of October, in the forty-
second year of our reign. And this was done before our sworn counsellors
—Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury ; Walter of Cantelupe, bishop of

398 Henry III. [part
Worcester ; Simon of Montfort, earl of Leicester ; Richard of Clare, earl
of Gloucester and Hertford; Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and marshall of
England ; Peter of Savoy ; William de Eortibus, earl of Albemarle ; John
of Plessis, earl of Warwick ; John, son of Geoffrey ; Peter of Montfort ;
Richard of Grey ; Roger of Mortimer ; James of Audley ; and before other
enough. And all in the same words is it sent into every other shire over
all the kingdom of England and also into Ireland.

2. Henri, par la grace de Deu rei de Engletere, due de Nor-
mandie, de Aquitanie, et cunte de Angou, a tuz ses feus et
leus saluz. Pur coe ke nus desirrums et volums ke hastive
dreiture seit fete par tote nostre reaume autresi ben as poveres
cum a riches, nus volums et comanduns ke tuz les torz ke unt
este fet de nostre tens en vostre cunte, ki unkes le avera fet,
seint mustre as quatre chevalers ke nus avum a coe aturne, si
en avant ne lur eit este mustrez. E nus, al plus hastivement ke
nus purrums, les frum amender et adrescer. Mes si nus ne pur-
rums si hastivement ceste chose fere cume nus vodrums, et cume
mester serreit a vous et a nus, ne nus ne vous devez pas amer-
veiler ke la chose, ke est si longement malement ale a nostre
damage et al vostre, ke eles ne poent si tost estre amendez. Mes
par les premer amendemenz ke serrunt fet al cunte u nus ave-
rum nostre justice et de nos autres prodes homes, pur coe poez
aver certeyn esperance ke ausi fra lem a vous al plus tost ke
lem purra. Sachez ke nus avum fet jurer cheseun de nos
vescuntes icel serment, ke il nus servira lewement, et lewement
tendra a son poer ceo ke est desuz escrit ; ceo est a saver, ke il
fra dreiture communement a tute gent solum le poer ke il a de
sun office. E ceo ne lerra pur amur, ne pur hayne, ne pur pour
de nul, ne pur nule coveytise, ke il ausi ben et ausi tost ne face
hastive dreiture al povere home cume al riche ; ne de nuly ren
prendra par li, ne par autre en nule manere, par art ne par
engyn, par achesun de la baylie, fors solement mangers et beyfres
ke lem est acustume a porter as tables, ausi cume a une jornee
al plus ; ne ke il ne avera fors eyne chevaus en lyu ou il her
berge ovekes autre par achesun de sa bayllie ; ne oveke nul ne
herbergera ke eit meins de quarante livere de tere, ne en nule
mesun de religion ke eit meins de value de cent mars cheseun an
de teres ou de rentes ; ne ovekes les lyus dites ne herbergera ke
une fiet par an, ou deus al plus. E ceo ne fra fors par lur priere
et par lur bone volunte. E ke ceo a custume ne trerra. E si
il covent ke il herberge, ke plus ne prendra de presenz ne de
autre chose ke plus vaile ke duze deners. E ke de serganz ne
avera fors tant cum li covendra convenablement tenir pur garder
sa bayllie, e teus serganz prendra, des queus il seit si seur ke il

vi.] Provisions of Oxford. 399
pusse respoudre de lur fet. E ke le pais ne seit trop greve pur
lur manger ne pur lur beyfres. E ceul tant cume il sunt en
bayllie, nul home elerc ne lay, franc ne vilein, de mesun de
religion ne de vilee, ne demanderunt ne prendrunt aygnel, garbe,
blee, ne leine, ne nul autre manere de moble, ne deners ne ke le
vaille, si come plusurs unt acustume ca en arere. E co lur face
jurer le vescunte kant il les mettra en bailie. E ke cuntez,
hundredes, wapetakes, ne nul autre manere de baillies de nostre
reaume debaudra a ferme a nulli. E seient certeins vescuntes,
et tote maneres de autres baillis, ke si nul est ateint de nule
manere de autre prise ke suz est escrit par achesun de sa baillie,
ke il serra reint ausi ben le donur come le recevur; kar nus
avum purveu par le cunseil de nos hauz homes ke tuz jurs mes
seit fete plenere et hastive dreiture a tuz sanz nule manere de
luer. E pur co nus comanduns et defenduns a tuz et a totes,
ke a nul de nos baillis rens ne offrent, ne promettent, ne donent,
sur peine de estre reint; kar quant le vescunt vendra al chef
del an sur sun acunte, lem li livera ses covenables despenses ke
avera fet, pur sa baillie garder et pur le luer de ses serganz. E
pur co le donums nus del nostre, ke nus ne volums ke il eient
achesun de rens prendre de autru. E nus volums ke nul de nos
baillis ke nus metums en nostre tere, viscunte ne autre, demorge
en sa baillie plus de un an. E pur co le vous fesums a saver ke
si duresces ou torz seient fetes par les avant dites baillis, ke vus
meins les dotez, et plus seurement lurs torz mostrez. Teste-
moigne memes a Westmostre, le vintime jur de Octobre, le an de
nostre regne xiii. Translation.
Henry, by the grace of God king of England, duke of Normandy, Aqui-
taine, and count of Anjou, to all his faithful and loyal subjects, health
Forasmuch as we desire and wish that speedy justice be done through the
whole of our realm, as well to the poor as to rich, we wish and command
that all the wrongs which have been done in our time in your county,
whoever shall have done them, be shown to the four knights whom we
have assigned for this, if they have not before been shown to them. And
we, aB speedily as we can, will have them amended and redressed. But if
we cannot as speedily do this as we wish, and as occasion shall be to you
and to us, neither we nor you ought to wonder that what has for so long
gone on ill to our loss and to yours, cannot so quickly be amended. But
by the first amendments that shall be done in the county where we shall
have our justiciar and our other proved men, by this you can have certain
hope that thus it shall be done to you as soon as possible. Know that we
have made each one of our sheriffs swear this oath, that he will serve us
loyally, and loyally will keep according to his power that which is written
above, to wit, that he will do right in common to all people, according to
the power which he has from his own office. And that he will not fail for

400 Henry III. [part
love, not for hate, nor for fear of any, nor for any greed, as well and as
soon to do speedy justice to poor as to rich ; and that he will not take
from any one anything by himself nor by another in any manner, hy art
or by device, by occasion of the bailiwick, excepting only meat and drink
which are accustomed to be brought on the tables, and that as for one day
at the most ; nor that he shall have more than his own horse in the place
where he lodges with another by occasion of his bailiwick ; nor shall he
lodge with any one who has less than forty librates of land, nor in any
religious house which has less than the value of ioo marks each year in
lands or in rents ; nor shall he lodge in the said places more than once
a year, or twice at most ; and that he shall not do except at their prayer
and their good will ; and that that shall not be drawn into a custom. And
if it be convenient for him to lodge, that he shall take no more of presents
nor of other things than is worth twelve pence. And that of servants he
shall have only so many as shall be rightful for him to have conveniently
to protect his bailiwick, and those servants shall he take of whom he may
be sure that he can answer for their deeds. And that the country be not
too much pressed for their meat or for their drink. And they, so long as
they are in the bailiwick, shall not ask nor take from any man, clerk or lay,
free or villein, from religious house or township, lamb, sheaf, corn, nor wool,
nor any other kind of moveable property, nor money, nor what is worth
it, as many have been accustomed aforetime. And this the sheriff is to
make them swear when he puts them in charge. And that he shall not
deliver up counties, hundreds, wapentakes, nor any other kind of baili
wicks of our realm to farm to any one. And let them be certain, sheriffs
and all kinds of other bailiffs, that if any one is convicted of any kind of
other prisage than is written above, by occasion of his bailiwick, that he
shall be punished, as well the giver as the receiver. For we have provided,
by the counsel of our great men. that for ever after there be done full and
speedy justice to all without any kind of fee. And for this we command
and prohibit to all men and all women, that to no one of our bailiffs shall
they offer, or promise, or give anything, on pain of being punished ; for
when the sheriff shall come at the end of the year upon his account, there
shall be paid to him his proper expenses which he shall have made to
guard his bailiwick and to fee his servants. And for that we give him of
our own, because we will not that he have occasion to take anything from
another. And we will that no one of our bailiffs whom we put in our
lands, sheriff or other person, remain in his bailiwick more than a year.
And for that we cause you to know, that if hardships or wrongs are done
by the aforesaid bailiffs, that you fear them less and more surely show their
wrong doings. Witness ourselves at Westminster, the 20th day of October,
in the 42nd year of our reign. — (Ann. Burton, pp. 453, 505.)

No. VI. A.D. 1 259. The Provisions of the Barons.
These were drawn up in pursuance of the plan initiated
by the Provisions of Oxford, and were published and ratified
by the king on the feast of S. Edward, 1259. They were
republished by Henry in 1262, when he was at one with the
barons; and again in 1264, during his captivity. They were,

vi.] Provisions of Westminster. 401
after the general pacification, embodied in the Statute of Marl
borough in 1267.
Anno ab Incarnatione Domini M°CC°LoIX° regni autem
Henrici regis, filii regis Johannis xliii0, convenientibus apud
Westmonasterium in quindena Sancti Michaelis ipso domino
rege et magnatibus suis, de communi consilio et consensu
dictorum regis et magnatum factae sunt provisiones sub-
scriptae per ipsos regem et magnates et publicatae in hunc
modum. 1. De sectis faciendis ad curias magnatum et aliorum domi
norum ipsarum curiarum, provisum est et concorditer statutum
quod nullus qui per cartam feofatus est, distringatur de cetero
ad sectam faciendam ad curiam domini sui, nisi per formam
cartae suae specialiter teneatur ad sectam faciendam ; hiis tan
tum exceptis quorum antecessores vel ipsimet hujusmodi sectam
facere consueverunt ante primam transfretationem dicti domini
regis in Britanniam, a tempore cujus transfretationis elapsi
fuerunt xxix. anni et dimidius tempore quo haec constitutio
facta fuit : et similiter nullus feofatus sine carta a tempore con-
quaestus vel alio antiquo feofamento distringatur ad hujusmodi
sectam faciendam, nisi ipse vel antecessores sui eam facere con
sueverunt ante primam transfretationem domini regis in Bri
tanniam. 2. Et si haereditas aliqua, de qua tantum una secta debebatur,
ad plures haeredes participes ejusdem devolvatur, ille qui habet
einesciam haereditatis illius unicam faciat sectam pro se et parti-
cibus suis : et participes sui pro portione sua contribuant ad
sectam illam faciendam. Similiter etiam si plures feofati fuerint
de haereditate aliqua, de qua unica secta debebatur, dominus
illius feodi unicam habeat inde sectam, nee possit de praedicta
haereditate nisi unicam sectam exigere. sicut fieri prius con
suevit. Et si feofati illi warantum vel medium non habeant qui
inde eos acquietare debeat, tunc omnes feofati contribuant pro
portione sua ad sectam illam faciendam.
3. Si autem contingat quod domini curiarum tenentes suos
contra hanc provisionem pro hujusmodi secta distringant, tunc
ad querimoniam tenentium illorum attachientur quod ad curiam
regis veniant ad brevem diem inde responsuri; et unicum
habeant essonium si fuerint in regno ; et incontinenti delibe
rentur conquerenti averia sive districtiones aliae hae occa
sione factae, et deliberata remaneant donee placitum inter eos
terminetur. Et si domini curiarum, qui districtiones hujusmodi
fecerint, ad diem ad quem attachiati fuerint non venerint, vel
Dd

402 Henry III. [part
diem per essonium sibi datum non observaverint, tunc mandetur
vicecomiti quod eos ad diem ilium venire faciat, ad quem diem
si non venerint, mandetur vicecomiti quod distringat eos per
omnia quae habent in ballia sua, ita quod regi respondeat de
exitibus, et quod habeat eorum corpora ad certum diem praefi-
gendum, ita quod, si die illo non venerint, pars conquerens eat
inde sine die, et averia sive aliae districtiones deliberata rema
neant donee ipsi domini sectam illam recuperaverint per con-
siderationem curiae domini regis ; et cessent interim districtiones
hujusmodi, salvo dominis curiarum jure suo de sectis illis per-
quirendis in' forma juris, cum inde loqui voluerint. Et cum
domini curiarum venerint responsuri conquerentibus de hujus
modi districtionibus, si super hoc convincantur, tunc per con-
siderationem curiae recuperent conquerentes versus eos damna
sua quae sustinuerunt occasione praedictae districtionis. Simili
autem modo si tenentes post hanc constitutionem subtrahaut
dominis suis sectas quas facere debent, et quas ante tempus
supradictae transfretationis et hactenus facere consueverunt,
per eandem justitiam et celeritatem quo ad dies praefigendos
et districtiones adjudicandas consequantur domini curiarum
justitiam de seetis illis, una cum damnis suis, quemadmodum
tenentes sua damna recuperant. Et hoc scilicet de damnis
recuperandis intelligatur de subtractionibus sibi factis, et non tie
subtractionibus factis praedecessoribus ipsorum ; verum tamen
domini curiarum versus tenentes suos seisinam de sectis hujus
modi recuperare non poterunt per defaltam, sicut nee hactenus
fieri consuevit. De sectis autem quae ante tempus supradictae
transfretationis subtractae fuerunt, currat lex communis sicut
prius currere consuevit.
4. De turno vicecomitis provisum est, ut necesse non habeant
ibi venire archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, comites,
barones, nee aliqui religiosi seu mulieres, nisi specialiter eorum
praesentia exigatur ; sed teneatur turnus sicut temporibus prae
decessorum domini regis teneri consuevit. Et si qui in hun
dredis diversis habeant tenementa, non habeant necesse ad
hujusmodi turnum venire, nisi in balliis ubi fuerint eonver-
santes ; et teneantur turni secundum formam Magnae Cartae
regis, et sicut temporibus regum Johannis et Bicardi teneri
consueverunt. 5. Provisum est etiam quod nee in itinere Justitiarum nee in
comitatibus, nee in curiis baronum, de cetero ab aliquibus reci-
piantur fines pro pulchre placitando, neque per sic quod non
occasionentur. 6. In placito vero dotis quod dicitur, unde nihil habet, dentur

vi.] Provisions of Westminster. 403
de cetero quatuor dies per annum ad minus, et plures si com
mode fieri posset.
7. In assisis ultimae praesentationis, et in placito quare im
pedit de ecclesiis vacantibus, detur dies de quindena in quinde-
nam, vel de tribus septimanis in tres septimanas, prout locus
propinquus fuerit vel remotus. Et in placito Quare Impedit,
si ad primum diem, ad quem summonitus fuerit, non veniat nee
essonium mittat impeditor, tunc attachietur ad diem alium, quo
die si non venerit nee essonium mittat, distringatur per magnam
districtionem superius dictam. Et si tunc non venerit, per ejus
defaltam scribatur episcopo quod reclamatio impeditoris ilia vice
conquerenti non obsistat, salvo impeditori alias jure suo, cum
inde loqui voluerit.
8. De cartis vero exemptionis et libertatis ne ponantur impe-
trantes in assisis, juratis vel recognitionibus, provisum est, ut si
adeo necessarium sit eorum juramentum quod sine eo justitia
exhiberi non possit, veluti in magna assisa et perambulationibus
et ubi in cartis vel scriptoris conventionum fuerint testes nomi
nati, aut in attinctis vel casibus aliis consimilibus, jurare cogan-
tur, salva sibi alias libertate et exemptione sua praedicta.
9. Si haeres aliquis post mortem sui antecessoris infra aetatem
exstiterit, et dominus suus custodiam terrarum suarum habuerit,
si dominus ille dicto haeredi, cum ad legitimam aetatem per
venerit, terram suam sine placito reddere noluerit, haeres ille
terram suam ut de morte sui antecessoris recuperabit, una cum
damnis quae sustinuerit per illam detentionem a tempore quo
legitimae fuerit aetatis ; quod si haeres in morte sui anteces
soris plenae fuerit aetatis, et haeres ille apparens et pro haerede
cognitus inventus sit in haereditate ilia, capitalis dominus ejus
eum non ejiciat nee aliquid ibi capiat vel amoveat, sed tantum
simplicem seisinam faciat per recognitionem dominii sui.
10. Et si capitalis dominus haeredem hujusmodi extra
seisinam malitiose teneat, per quod per actionem mortis ante
cessoris vel consanguinitatis oporteat ipsum placitare, tunc
damna sua recuperet sicut in actione novae disseisinae.
11. Nulli de cetero liceat ex quacunque causa districtiones
facere extra feodum suum, neque in regia aut communi strata,
nisi domino regi et ministris suis.
1 2. Provisum est etiam quod si terra quae tenetur in socagium
sit in custodia parentum haeredis, eo quod haeredes infra aetatem
fuerint, custodes illi vastum facere non possunt neque venditio-
nem nee aliquam destructionem de haereditate ilia, sed salvo
eam custodiant ad opus dicti haeredis ; ita quod cum ad aetatem
pervenerit, sibi respondeant per legitimam computationem de
D d 2

404 Henry III. [part
exitibus dictae haereditatis ; salvis ipsis custodibus rationabilibus
misis suis. Nee etiam possunt dicti custodes maritagium dicti
haeredis dare vel vendere nisi ad commodum ipsius haeredis.
13. Nullus escaetor, aut inquisitor, vel Justitia ad assisas
aliquas capiendas specialiter assignatus, vel ad querelas aliquas
audiendas et terminandas, de cetero potestatem habeant amerci-
andi pro defalta communis summonitionis, nisi capitalis Justitia
vel Justitiarii itinerantes in itineribus suis.
14. Viris autem religiosis non liceat ingredi feodum alicujus
sine licentia capitalis domini, de quo scilicet res ipsa immediate
tenetur. 15. De essoniis autem provisum est quod in comitatibus, hun
dredis aut curiis baronum, vel alibi, nullus habeat necesse jurare
pro essonio suo warantizando.
16. Nullus de cetero excepto rege placitum teneat in curia
sua de falso judicio facto in curia tenentium suorum, quia
hujusmodi placita ad coronam specialiter pertinent et dignitatem
regis. 17. Provisum est etiam quod si averia alicujus capiantur et
injuste detineantur, vicecomes post querimoniam inde tibi
factam, ea sine impedimento vel contradictione ejus qui dicta
averia cepit, deliberare possit, si extra libertates capta fuerint ;
et si infra libertates hujusmodi capiantur averia, et ballivi
libertatum ea deliberare noluerint, tunc vicecomes per defectum
dictorum ballivorum ea faciat deliberari.
18. Nullus de cetero distringere possit libere tenentes suos ad
respondendum de libero tenemento suo, neque de aliquibus ad
liberum tenementum suum spectantibus, sine brevi regis, nee
jurare faciat libere tenentes suos contra voluntatem suam, de-
sicut nullus hoc facere potest sine praecepto regis.
19. Provisum est etiam quod si ballivi qui compotum dominis
suis reddere tenentur se subtraxerint, et terras vel tenementa
non habuerint per quae distringi possint, tunc per eorum cor
pora attachientur, ita quod vicecomites in quorum balliis in-
venientur, eos venire faciant ad compotum suum reddendum.
20. Item firmarii tempore suarum firmarum vastum vel ven-
ditionem vel exilium non faciant de boscis, domibus, hominibus-
nee de aliis aliquibus ad tenementa quae ad firmam habuerint
spectantibus, nisi special em habeant concessionem per scripturam
suae conventionis mentionem habentis quod hoc facere possint.
Et si fecerint, et de hoc convincantur, damna plene refundant.
21. Justitiarii itinerantes de cetero non amerciant villatas in
itinere suo, pro eo quod singuli xii. annorum non venerint coram
vicecomitibus et coronatoribus ad inquisitiones de morte hominis

vi. J Summons of Three Knights of the Shire. 405
aut aliis ad coronam pertinentibus, dum tamen de villis illis
veniant sufficienter per quos inquisitiones hujusmodi plene fieri
possint. 22. Murdrum de cetero non adjudicetur coram Justitiis ubi
infortunium tantummodo adjudicatum est ; sed locum habeat
murdrum in interfectis per feloniam et non aliter.
23. Provisum est insuper quod nullus qui coram Justitiis
itinerantibus vocator ad warantum de placito terrae vel tene-
menti, amercietur de cetero pro eo quod praesens non fuerit,
excepto primo die adventus ipsorum Justitiarum : sed si
warantus ille sit -infra comitatum, tunc injungatur vicecomiti
quod ipsum infra diem tertium vel quartum secundum locorum
distantiam faciat venire, sicut in itinere Justitiarum fieri consue
vit ; et si extra comitatum maneat, tunc rationabilem habeat
summonitionem xv. dierum ad minus secundum discretionem
Justitiarum et legem communem.
24. Si clericus aliquis pro crimine aliquo vel retto quod ad
coronam pertineat, arestatus fuerit, et postmodum de praecepto
regis in ballium traditus vel replegiatus exstiterit, ita quod hii
quibus traditur in ballium eum habeant coram Justitiis, non
amercientur de cetero illi quibus traditus fuit in ballium, vel
alii plegii sui, si corpus suum habeant coram Justitiis, licet
coram eis propter privilegium clericale respondere nolit vel non
possit. — (Statutes of the Realm, i. 8- 11.)

No. VII. A.D. 1 26 1. Writ summoning three Knights of the
Shire to Barliament at Windsor.
Bex Vicecomiti Norfolchiae et Suffolchiae, salutem. Cum ex
parte episcopi Wigornensis, comitum Leycestriae et Gloucestriae
et quorundam aliorum procerum regni nostri vocati sint tres
milites de singulis comitatibus nostris quod sint coram ipsis
apud Sanctum Albanum in instanti festo Sancti Matthaei Apo
stoli secum tractaturi super communibus negotiis regni nostri,
et nos et praedicti proceres nostri in eundem diem apud Winde-
soram convenerimus ad tractandum de pace inter nos et ipsos,
tibi praecipimus quod illis militibus de ballia tua, qui vocati
sunt coram eis ad diem praedictum, firmiter injungas ex parte
nostra ut, omni occasione postposita, ad nos die praedicto veniant
apud Windesoram, et eis etiam districte inhibeas ne dicto die
alibi quam ad nos accedant, sed eos modis omnibus venire facias
coram nobis ad diem praedictum, nobiscum super praemissis
colloquium habituros, ut ipsi per effectum operis videant et in
telligent quod nihil attemptare proponimus nisi quod honori et

406 Henry III. [part
communi utilitati regni nostri noverimus convenire. T. B. apud
Windesoram, XI. die Septembris. — (Report on the Dignity of a
Peer, App. i. p. 23.)

No. VIII. A.D. 1264. Award of S. Lewis.
Ludovicus, Dei gratia, Francorum rex, universis praesentes
litteras inspecturis, salutem. Notum facimus quod carissimus
consanguineus noster Henricus illustris rex Angliae et subscripti
barones Angliae in nos compromiserunt, prout continetur in lit
teris eorum infra scriptis : tenor autem litterarum ipsius regis
talis est ; ' Henricus, Dei gratia, Eex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae
et dux Aquitanniae, omnibus ad quos praesentes litterae per-
venerint, salutem. Noveritis quod nos compromisimus in domi
num Ludovicum regem Erancorum illustrem super provisionihus,
ordinationibus, statutis, et obligationibus omnibus Oxoniensibus,
et super omnibus contentionibus et discordiis quas habemus et
habuimus usque ad festum Omnium Sanctorum nuper praeteri-
tum, adversus barones regni nostri, et ipsi adversus nos, occa
sione provisionum, ordinationum, statutorum vel obligationum
Oxoniensium praedictarum ; promittentes et per dilectos et
fideles nostros Willelmum Belet militem et Robertum Fulconis
clericum de mandato nostro speciali in animam nostram jurantes
tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, quod quicquid idem rex Franciae
super omnibus praedictis vel eorum aliquibus de alto et basso
ordinaverit vel statuerit nos observabimus bona fide, ita tamen
quod idem dominus rex Franciae dicat super his dictum suum
citra Pentecosten proximo venturam. In cujus rei testimonium
praesentibus litteris sigillum nostrum fecimus apponi. Nos
autem Edwardus praedicti domini regis Angliae primogeni-
tus ; Henricus filius Bicardi regis Alemanniae ; Rogerus le
Bigod comes Norfolciae et marescallus Angliae ; Johannes de
Warenna ; Willelmus de Valentia ; Humfredus de Bohun comes
Herefort et Essex ; Hugo le Bigod ; Philippus Basset ; Johannes
Filius Alani; Robertus de Brus; Rogerus de Mortuo Mari;
Johannes de Verdun ; Willelmus de Breus ; Johannes de Baillol ;
Henricus de Percy ; Reginaldus Filius Petri ; Jacobus de Aldi-
thele ; Alanus le Zuche ; Bogerus de Clifford ; Hamo Extraneus;
Johannes de Grey ; Philippus Marmion ; Robertus de Neville ;
Johannes de Vallibus ; Johannes de Muscegros ; Warinus de
Bassingburn ; Adam de Gesemuth ; Bogerus de Somery ; Ri
cardus Foliot ; Rogerus de Leyburn; et Willelmus le Latimere;
praedicto compromisso, per dictum dominum nostrum regem
Angliae facto, sicut praedictum est, consentimus et juramus tac-

vi.J Award of S. Lewis. 407
tis sacrosanctis evangeliis, quod quicquid dominus rex Franciae,
super omnibus praedictis vel eorum aliquibus, de alto et basso,
ordinaverit vel statuerit, observabimus bona fide ; ita tamen
quod idem dominus rex Franciae dicat super his dictum suum
citra Pentecosten proximo futuram, sicut superius est expres-
sum. In cujus rei testimonium praesenti scripto, sigillo domini
nostri praedicti regis Angliae signato, sigilla nostra fecimus
apponi. Datum apud Windesoram, Dominica proxima post
festum Sanctae Luciae Virginis A.D. M°CC°LX°IH°. Confec-
tioni istius instrumenti interfuerunt Johannes de Chishul,
Willelmus de Wilton ; frater Johannes de Derlington ; magister
Ern. cancellarius regis Alemanniae, Bogerus de Messenden, et
plures alii.'
Litterae vero baronum tales sunt ; ' Universis praesentes
litteras inspecturis, H. Londoniensis, W. Wigornensis epis
copi ; Simon de Monteforti comes Leycestriae et senescallus
Angliae ; Hugo le Despenser justitiarius Angliae ; Humfredus
de Boun juvenis ; H. de Monteforti ; S. de Monteforti ju-
venis ; Adam de Novomereato ; Petrus de Monteforti ; Badulfus
Basset de Sapecot ; Baldewinus Wake ; Robertus de Ros ;
Willelmus le Blond ; Willelmus Marescallus ; Walterus de
Coleville ; Bicardus de Grey ; Willelmus Bardoulf ; Ricardus
de Tanny ; Henricus de Hastings ; Johannes Filius Johannis ;
Robertus de Veteri Ponte ; Johannes de Vescy ; Nicolaus de
Segrave; Galfridus de Lucy; salutem in Domino. Noveritis quod
nos compromisimus in dominum Ludovicum, regem Franciae
ilhistrem super provisionibus, ordinationibus, statutis, et obliga-
tionibus omnibus Oxoniae, et super omnibus contentionibus et
discordiis quas habemus et habuimus, usque ad festum Omnium
Sanctorum nuper praeteritum, adversus dominum nostrum regem
Angliae ilhistrem et ipse adversus nos, occasione provisionum,
ordinationum, statutorum, vel obligationum Oxoniensium prae-
dictarum : firmiter promittentes, et jurantes tactis sacrosanctis
evangeliis, quod quicquid idem rex Franciae super omnibus
praedictis vel eorum aliquibus de alto et basso, ordinaverit vel
statuerit, nos observabimus bona fide, ita tamen quod idem
dominus rex Franciae dicat super his dictum suum citra Pen
tecosten proximo venturam. Actum Londoniis, die Sanctae
Luciae Virginis, A.D. M°CC°LXoIII°.'
Insuper praedictus rex Angliae ex una parte et superius
nominati ex alia parte barones, de omnibus contentionibus
exortis inter eos post praedictum festum usque in praeteritum
diem Sanctae Luciae occasione praedicta, in nos compromiserunt
et promiserunt per juramenta tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis prae-

408 Henry III. [part
stita, bona fide se servaturos quicquid statuerimus et ordina-
verimus de his vel eorum aliquibus, ita tamen quod citra Pente-
costen proximo venturam dicamus super his dictum nostrum,
et super omnibus quae super rebus in compromissum deductis
vel circa ipsas interim contigerit attemptari. Nos vero, parti
bus propter hoc convocatis Ambiani, dicto rege personaliter et
quibusdam de baronibus per se et aliis per procuratores com-
parentibus coram nobis ; auditis hine inde propositis et etiam
defensionibus ac rationibus partium plenius intellectis, atteudentes
per provisiones, ordinationes, statuta et obligationes Oxonienses,
et per ea quae ex eis et occasione eorum subsecuta sunt, juri et
honori regio plurimum fuisse detractum, regni turbationem,
ecclesiarum depressionem et depraeditationem, et aliis personis
ipsius regni, ecclesiasticis et saecularibus, indigenis et alienigenis,
gravissima dispendia provenisse ; et quod verisimiliter timebatur
ne graviora contigerint in futurum, cominunicato honorum et
magnatum consilio ; In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus
Sancti praedictas provisiones, ordinationes, statuta et obliga
tiones omnes, quocunque modo censeantur, et quidquid ex eis
vel occasione eorum subsecutum est, per dictum nostrum, seu
ordinationem nostram, cassamus et irritamus, maxime cum ap-
pareat summuni pontificem eas per litteras suas cassas et irritas
nunciasse ; ordinantes quod tam dictus rex quam barones et
alii quicunque praesenti compromisso consenserunt, et de prae
dictis observandis se quoquomodo astrinxerunt, se de eisdem
quietent penitus et absolvant. Adjicimus etiam quod ex vi seu
viribus praedictarum provisionum sive obligationum seu ordina-
tionum, vel alicujus jam super hoc concessae potestatis a rege,
nullus nova statuta faciat neque jam facta teneat vel observet,
nee propter non-observantiam praedictorum debeat aliquis alte
rius capitalis vel aliter inimicus haberi, vel poenam propter hoc
aliquam sustinere. Decernimus etiam quod omnes litterae, super
praemissis provisionibus et eorum occasione confectae, irritae
sint et iuanes, et ordinamus quod ipsi regi Angliae restituantur a
baronibus et reddantur. Item dicimus et ordinamus quod castra
quaecunque fuerint tradita custodienda ad securitatem seu occa
sione praedictorum et adhuc sunt detenta, libere a dictis baroni
bus eidem regi reddantur, tenenda ab eodem rege sicut ea
tenebat ante tempus dictarum provisionum. Item dicimus et
ordinamus quod libere liceat praedicto regi capitalem justitia
rium, cancellarium, thesaurarium, consiliarios, justitiarios mi-
nores, vicecomites et quoscunque alios officiales ac ministeriales
regni sui ac domus suae praeficere, destituere et amovere, pro
suae libito voluntatis, sicut faciebat et facere poterat ante tem-

vi. J Government by the Barons. 409
pus provisionum praedictarum. Item retractamus et cassamus
illud statutum factum quod regnum Angliae de cetero per
indigenas gubernetur, necnon ut exirent alienigenae non re-
versuri, exceptis illis quorum moram fideles regni communiter
acceptarent ; ordinantes per dictum nostrum quod liceat alieni-
genis morari in dicto regno secure; et quod rex possit alienigenas
et indigenas vocare secure ad consilium suum, quos sibi viderit
utiles et fideles, sicut facere poterat ante tempus praedictum.
Item dicimus et ordinamus, quod dictus rex plenam potestatem
et liberum regimen habeat in regno suo et ejus pertinentiis,
et sit in eo statu et in ea plenaria potestate in omnibus et per
omnia sicut erat ante tempus praedictum.
Nolumus autem nee intendimus per praesentem ordinationem
derogare in aliquo regiis privilegiis, cartis, libertatibus, statutis,
et laudabilibus consuetudinibus regni Angliae, quae erant ante
tempus provisionum ipsarum. Ordinamus etiam quod idem rex
praedictis baronibus indulgeat et remittat omnem rancorem
quem habet adversus eos occasione praemissorum, et similiter
barones eidem ; et quod unus alteram, occasione praemissorum
de quibus in nos exstitit compromissum, per se vel per alium de
cetero non gravet in aliquo vel offendat. Hanc autem ordina
tionem nostram seu dictum nostrum protulimus Ambianis, in
crastino beati Vincentii Martyris, A.D. M°CC0LX0III°, mense
Januario. In cujus rei testimonium praesentibus litteris nos
trum apponi fecimus sigillum. Actum anno, mense, die et loco
praedictis. — (Foedera, i. pp. 433, 434.)

A.D. 1264. Documents connected with Simon de
Montfort's Administration.
The surrender of the king and his son immediately after the
battle of Lewes placed the supreme authority in the hands of the
Earl of Leicester. The text of the Mise of Lewes, which contained
the terms of the surrender, is not preserved, but it is known to
have included an agreement for a second arbitration as to all
controversies between the king and his adversaries. Until this
award should be given, it was necessary that some system of
administration should be devised ; the royal castles were imme
diately entrusted to adherents of the barons ; and on the 4th of
June writs were issued in the king's name, appointing guardians

41 o Henry III. [part
of the peace in each county, aud summoning four knights from
each to treat with the king in parliament on the 22 nd of
the same month. (No. I.) The parliament assembled and ap
proved a scheme of government, which was to hold good until
the Mise of Lewes was executed, by which the supreme power
was placed in the hands of the king, with the assistance of
nine counsellors, of whom three were to be in constant attend
ance upon him. This body was to be nominated by three
primary electors. (No. II.) The three electors were the Bishop
of Chichester and the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester.
On the 6th of July the whole force of the country was sum
moned to London for the 3rd of August, to resist the army which
was coming from France under the queen and her son Edmund.
The invading fleet was prevented by the weather from sailing
until too late in the season. Early in September, Henry of Al-
main, son of King Richard, was sent to lay the terms of arbi
tration before the King of France. The papal legate, Guy
Foulquois, who soon after became Clement IV, threatened the
barons with excommunication, but the bull containing the sen
tence was taken by the men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and
was thrown into the sea. On the 1 4th of December the Earl
of Leicester, in Henry's name, summoned the famous parliament
of 1265, to meet at Westminster on the 20th of January.
(No. III.) To this were invited a small number of barons, a
very large body of ecclesiastics, two knights from each shire,
and two burghers from each town. This is often regarded as
the ' origin of popular representation ;' but it is not in any sense
entitled to this praise. The novelty was simply the assembling
the representatives of the towns in conjunction with those of the
counties : this was now done for the first time for the purpose
of the national council ; but we have seen that for all purposes
of local self-government it had long been usual, and that the
idea of the National Council was rapidly becoming that of the
concentration of the local machinery. The really popular repre
sentation was that of the shires rather than that of the boroughs,
and this, which in its essence was of immemorial antiquity, had
long been incorporated in the parliamentary constitution. The

vi.] Summons of Four Knights of the Shire. 411
credit of making both the popular elements necessary to the
complete parliament belongs to Edward I.
On the 10th of March, in the parliament thus summoned,
Edward subscribed the peace of June, 1264 ; and on the 20th the
Earl of Leicester was put in possession of the earldom of Chester
and other estates, by the surrender of which Edward obtained the
terms of reconciliation. He was kept, however, still under strict
surveillance. His escape on the 28th of May, and the quarrel of
the Earls of Gloucester and Leicester, threw new life into the
royal party. Earl Simon fell at Evesham on the 4th of August.
But the elements of opposition were unquenched. After a long
siege, Henry III, in November 1266, admitted the rebels (who
were at Kenilworth) to surrender. During the siege the Dic
tum de Kenilworth (No. VI.) was drawn up for the general paci
fication of the kingdom; and in July, 1267, the last of the
king's enemies who were left in arms, in Ely, were admitted
by Edward to the benefits of that agreement. The parliament
of Marlborough, November 1267, re-enacted most of the legal
reforms included in the Provisions of the Barons. Imme
diately after this Edward prepared to join the Crusade. He
left England in May, 1269; and Henry retained undisturbed
possession of the royal authority until his death, November 16,
1272.

No. L A.D. 1264. Writ for Conservation of the Peace and
Summons to Parliament.
Rex Adae de Novo mercato, salutem. Cum jam, sedate turba-
tione nuper habita in regno nostro, pax inter nos et barones
nostros, Divina cooperante gratia, ordinata sit et firmata ; ac ad
pacem illam per totum regnum nostrum inviolabiliter observan-
dam, de consilio et assensu baronum nostrorum provisum sit,
quod in singulis comitatibus nostris per Angliam, ad tuitionem et
securitatem partium illarum, custodes pacis nostrae constituantur
donee per nos et barones nostros de statu regni nostri aliter
fuerit ordinatum ; cumque nos, de vestra fidelitate simul et indus-
tria fiduciam gerentes, vos de consilio dictorum baronum nos
trorum custodem nostrum assignaverimus in comitatu Lincolniae
quamdiu nobis placuerit; vobis mandamus, in fide qua nobis

413 Henry III. [part
tenemini firmiter injungentes, quatenus custodiae pacis nostrae
ibidem et hiis quae ad conservationem pacis nostrae pertinent,
diligenter intendatis, ut praedictum est ; firmiter et publice per
totum comitatum praedictum inhibentes, ex parte nostra, ne
quis sub poena exhaeredationis et periculo vitae et membrorum
super aliquem currat nee aliquem depraedetur, nee homicidia
vel incendia, roberias, toltas, seu alia hujusmodi perpetret enor
mia, nee cuiquam damnum aliquod inferat contra pacem nos
tram ; nee etiam de cetero arma portet in regno nostro, sine
licentia nostra et mandato nostro speciali ; et si quos hujusmodi
malefactores et pacis nostrae perturbatores, vel etiam, ut prae
dictum est, arma portantes, inveneiitis, eos sine dilatione arestari
et salvo custodiri faciatis donee aliud inde praeceperimus. Et
ad hoc si necesse fuerit, totum posse dicti comitatus cum toto
posse comitatuum adjacentium, vobiscum assumatis, custodibus
ipsorum comitatuum ad consimilia cum opus fuerit, viriliter
auxiliantes. Et si forte ipsos malefactores evadere contingat,
quod nulla ratione vellemus, tunc de nominibus eorum nobis
constare faciatis, ut quod justum fuerit de ipsis fieri faciamus.
Et quia instanti parliamento nostro, de negotiis nostris et regni
nostri, cum praelatis, magnatibus et aliis fidelibus nostris trac-
tare necessario nos oportebit, vobis mandamus quatenus quatuor
de legalioribus et discretioribus militibus dicti comitatus, per
assensum ejusdem comitatus ad hoc electos, ad nos pro toto
comitatu illo mittatis, ita quod sint ad nos Londoniis in octavis
instantis festi Sanctae Trinitatis ad ultimum, nobiscum tractaturi
de negotiis praedictis ; vos autem in hiis omnibus exsequendis
tam fideliter et diligenter vos habeatis, ne per negligentiam
vestri ad vos et vestra graviter capere debeamus. Teste Rege
apud Sanctum Paulum Londoniis, quarto die Junii. — (Foedera,
i. 442.) No. II. A.D. 1264. Form of Peace determined on in
the Parliament.
Haec est forma pacis a domino rege et domino Edwardo filio
suo, praelatis et proceribus omnibus et communitate tota regni
Angliae, communiter et concorditer approbata; videlicet, quod
quaedam orclinatio facta in parliamento Londoniis habito circa
festum Nativitatis beati Johannis Baptistae proximo praeteritum,
pro pace regni con servanda quousque pax inter dictum domi
num regem et barones apud Leues, per formam cujusdam misae
praelocuta compleretur, duratura omnibus diebus praedicti
domini regis, et etiam temporibus domini Edwardi postquam in

vi.] Constitution of Government. 413
regem fuerit assumptus, usque ad terminum quem ex nunc
duxerit moderandum, firma maneat, stabilis et inccncussa; dicta
autem ordinatio talis est.
Forma regiminis domini regis et regni.
Ad reformationem status regni Angliae eligantur et nomi-
nentur tres discreti et fideles de regno, qui habeant auctoritatem
et potestatem a domino rege eligendi seu nominandi, vice domini
regis, consiliarios novem ; tres ad minus alternatim seu vicissim
semper sint in curia praesentes ; et dominus rex per consilium
eorundem novem, ordinet et disponat de custodia castrorum
et omnibus aliis regni negotiis : praeficiat etiam dominus rex per
consilium praedictorum novem, justitiarium, cancellarium, thesau
rarium, et alios officiales majores et minores, in hiis quae spectant
ad regimen curiae et regni. Jurabunt autem primi electores
sive nominatores quod secundum conscientiam suam eligent vel
nominabunt consiliarios quos credent honori Dei et ecclesiae,
domino regi et regno, utiles et fideles. Consiliarii quoque ac
omnes officiales, majores et minores, in sua creatione jurabunt
quod officia sua pro posse suo, ad honorem Dei et ecclesiae et ad
utilitatem domini regis et regni, absque munere, praeter escu-
lenta et poculenta quae communiter in mensis praesentari solent,
fideliter exsequentur. Quod si praedicti consiliarii vel aliqui
seu aliquis eorum, in administratione sibi commissa, male ver-
sati vel versatus fuerint aut fuerit, seu ex alia causa mutandi
fuerint, dominus rex per consilium priorum trium electorum
seu nominatorum quos amovendos viderit, amoveat, et loco
eorum, per eosdem, alios fideles et idoneos subroget et sub-
stituat. Si autem officiales majores vel minores, in officiis suis
male versentur, dominus rex per consilium praedictorum novem
ipsos amoveat et alios sine dilatione per consilium praedictorum,
loco eorum, substituat. Quod si primi tres electores seu nomi
natores in electione vel nominatione consiliariorum, aut forte
consiliarii in creatione officialium, vel aliis negotiis domini
regis et regni gerendis seu disponendis, discordes fuerint, quod
a duabus partibus concorditer factum fuerit vel ordinatum
firmiter observetur ; dummodo de illis duabus partibus, unus
sit praelatus ecclesiae in negotiis ecclesiam contingentibus. Et
si contingat duas partes dictorum novem in aliquo negotio non
esse Concordes, de discordia ilia stabitur ordinationi primorum
trium electorum vel nominatorum aut majoris partis eorundem.
Et si videatur communitati praelatorum et baronum concorditer
expedire, quod aliqui vel aliquis, loco aliquorum aut alicujus

414 Henry III. [part
primorum trium nominatorum subrogentur vel substituantur,
dominus rex, per consilium communitatis praelatorum et baro
num, alios vel alium substituat. Omnia autem praedicta faciat
dominus rex per consilium praedictorum novem in forma supra-
dicta, vel ipsi vice et auctoritate domini regis, praesenti ordi-
natione duratura, donee misa apud Lewes facta, et postea a
partibus sigillata, fuerit concorditer consummata ; vel alia pro-
visa quam partes concorditer duxerint approbandam. Haec
autem ordinatio facta fuit Londoniis de consensu, voluntate et
praecepto domini regis, necnon praelatorum, baronum ac etiam
communitatis tunc ibidem praesentis. In cujus rei testimonium
domini R. Lincolniensis et Hugo Eliensis episcopi, R. conies
Norfolciae et Marescallus Angliae ; R. de Veer comes Oxoni-
ensis ; Humfredus de Bohun, Willelmus de Monte Canisio,
et major Londoniensis, signa sua huic scripturae apposue-
runt. Actum in parliamento Londoniis, mense Junii A.D.
M°CC°LX°IV<>. Item ordinatum est quod status ecclesiae Anglicanae in statum
debitum reformetur. Item ordinatum est quod praedicti tres
electores et consiliarii, de quibus fit mentio in praedicta ordina-
tione Londoniensi, et castrorum custodes, et ceteri ballivi
domini regis, semper sint indigenae; alienigeuae vero pacifice
veniant, morentur et redeant ; et tam laici in suis possessionibus
quam clerici in suis beneficiis residere volentes ; mercatores
etiam et alii omnes pro suis negotiis procurandis, libere veniant
et pacifice commorentur ; dum tamen pacifice sine armis et
suspecta multitudine veniant, et quod nullus eorum ad aliquod
offici-im vel ballivam in regno vel hospitio domini regis aliqua-
tenus assumatur. Cartae vero libertatum generalium et forestae
indigenis a domino rege dudum concessae, et statuta super
gravaminum revocationibus, de turnis vicecomitis, sectis curiae
et aliis, quae dominus rex anno praeterito in singulis comi
tatibus per suas litteras patentes fecerat publican, cum lauda-
bilibus regni consuetudinibus et diutius approbatis, in perpetuum
observentur, et provideatur qualiter melius et fortius valeant
observari. Item provisum est quod dominus rex et dominus
Edwardus baronibus, et hiis qui cum eis steterunt, omnem inju-
riam et rancorem remittant, ita quod nullum ipsorum, occasione
eorum quae facta sunt in turbatione praeterita, gravent vel
a suis gravari permittant, et faciant omnes ballivos suos in
assumptione ballivae jurare quod nullum occasione praedicta
gravabunt, sed omnibus aequaliter justitiam exhibebunt, et pro
videatur bona securitas quomodo haec omnia firmiter obser
ventur. — (Foedera, i. 443.)

vi.] Summons to Parliament. 415

No. III. A.D. 1264. Summons to the Parliament q/1265.
Henricus, Dei gratia, Rex Angliae, dominus Hiberniae et
dux Aquitanniae, venerabili in Christo patri Roberto eadem
gratia episcopo Dunelmensi, salutem. Cum post gravia turba-
tionum discrimina dudum habita in regno nostro, carissimus
filius Edwardus primogenitus noster pro pace in regno nostro
assecuranda et firmanda obses traditus exstitisset, et jam sedata,
benedictus Deus, turbatione praedicta, super deliberatione ejus
dem salubriter providenda, et plena securitate tranquillitatis et
pacis ad honorem Dei et utilitatem totius regni nostri firmanda,
et totaliter complenda, ac super quibusdam aliis regni nostri
negotiis quae sine consilio vestro et aliorum praelatorum et
magnatum nostrorum nolumus expediri, cum eisdem tracta'tom
habere nos oporteat ; vobis mandamus, rogantes in fide et dilec-
tione quibus nobis tenemini, quod omni occasione postposita et
negotiis aliis praetermissis, sitis ad nos Londoniis in octavis
Sancti Hilarii proximo futuris, nobiscum et cum praedictis prae
latis et magnatibus nostris quos ibidem vocari fecimus super
praemissis tractaturi et consilium vestrum impensuri. Et hoc
sicut nos et honorem nostrum et vestrum necnon et communem
regni nostri tranquillitatem diligitis nullatenus omittatis. Teste
rege apud Wygorniam, XIIII. die Decembris.
The same writ was addressed to the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of
Carlisle, the Dean of York, ten abbots and nine priors of the northern
province, and to ten bishops and four deans of the southern. A similar
one was issued at Woodstock on the 24th of December, to fifty-five abbots,
twenty-six priors, the Master of the Temple, and the Prior of the
Hospitallers ; also to five earls and eighteen barons.
Item mandatum est singulis vicecomitibus per Angliam quod
venire faciant duos milites de legalioribus, probioribus et discreti
oribus militibus singulorum comitatuum ad regem Londoniis in
octavis praedictis in forma supradicta.
Item in forma praedicta scribitur civibus Eboraci, civibus
Lincolniae, et ceteris burgis Angliae, quod mittant in forma prae
dicta duos de discretioribus, legalioribus et probioribus tam
civibus quam burgensibus.
Item in forma praedicta mandatum est baronibus et probis
hominibus Quinque Portuum. . . . — (Report on the Dignity of
a Peer, App. i. p. 33.)

41 6 Henry III. [part

No. IV. A.D. 1265. Confirmation oftlie Charters.
Bex omnibus de comitatu Eboracensi, salutem. Cum propter
hostilem turbationem habitam in regno nostro, de unanimi
assensu et voluntate nostra et Edwardi filii nostri primogeniti,
praelatorum, comitum, baronum et communitatis regni nostri, pro
regni ipsius pace pro cujus securitate dictus Edwardus et Henricus
filius regis Alemanniae nepos noster obsides dati fuerunt, concor
diter sit provisum, quod quaedam ordinatio de unanimi assensu
nostro, praelatorum, comitum ac baronum praedictorum super
nostro et recrni nostri statu Londoniis, mense Junii anno regni
nostri XL0 VI 11° facta, inviolabiliter observetur, universitatem
vestram scire volumus quod nos ordinationem ipsam et pacem
et tranquillitatem regni bona fide observare et in nullo contra-
venire ad sancta Dei evangelia juravimus, hoc adjecto in eodem
sacramento specialiter et expresse, quod occasione factorum
praecedentium tempore turbationis aut guerrae praecedentis
neminem occasionabimus aut inculpabimus de illis aut de parte
illorum quos tanquam inimicos diffidavimus, puta comites Ley-
cestriae et Gloucestriae et alios sibi adhaerentes, ac barones
seu cives ngstros Londoniarum, et Quinque Portuum, nee alicui
de praedictis dampnum faciemus aut fieri procurabimus nee
per ballivos nostros aliquatenus fieri permittemus. Juravimus
insuper quod ea omnia quae pro liberatione dictorum filii nostri
ac nepotis sunt provisa et sigillo nostro sigillata, quantum ad
nos pertinet, inviolabiliter observabimus et ab aliis pro posse
nostro faciemus observari. Volentes et consentientes expresse
quod si nos vel dictus Edwardus filius noster contra praedictam
ordinationem, provisionem nostram, seu juramentum, quod
absit, in aliquo venire, seu pacem et tranquillitatem regni
nostri turbare, seu occasione factorum praecedentium tem
pore turbationis ac guerrae praecedentis, aliquem de praedictis,
aut de parte praedictorum quos diffidavimus, occasionare seu
alicui de eis dampnum facere aut fieri procurare praesumpseri-
mus, liceat omnibus de regno nostro contra nos insurgere et ad
gravamen nostrum opem et operam dare juxta posse ; ad quod ex
praesenti praecepto nostro omnes et singulos volumus obligari
fidelitate et homagio nobis factis non obstantibus ; ita quod nobis
in nullo intendant sed omnia quae gravamen nostrum respiciunt
faciant ac in nullo nobis tenerentur, donee quod in hae parte
transgressum fuerit seu commissum satisfactione congrua in
statum debitum, secundum praedictorum ordinationis et pro-
visionis nostrae seu juramenti formam, fuerit reformatum ; quo

vi.] Confirmation of the Charters. 417
facto nobis sicut prius intendentes existant. Et si aliquis alius
de regno nostro contra praedicta venire seu pacem et tranquilli
tatem regni nostri turbare praesumpserit, seu nobis vel Edwardo
filio nostro aut alicui alteri contra praedicta vel aliquod praedic
torum venientibus opem, consilium, consensum, vel auxilium
quoquo modo praestiterit, si hoc notorium fuerit aut de hoc
per considerationem consilii nostri et magnatum terrae nos
trae convictus fuerit, de unanimi assensu nostro, Edwardi filii
nostri, comitum, baronum, et communitatis regni nostri, pro
visum est et statutum quod corpus ipsius, si inventum fuerit,
capiatur ; alioquin a regno nostro utlagetur : et sive inventus
fuerit sive non, tam ipse quam haeredes sui imperpetuum ex-
haeredentur ; et de terris et tenementis ipsorum fiat prout de
terris eorum qui de felonia convicti sunt secundum leges et con
suetudines regni nostri fieri consuevit. Ad haec de unanimi
assensu et voluntate nostra, Edwardi filii nostri, praelatorum,
comitum, baronum et communitatis regni nostri concorditer
provisum est, quod cartae antiquae communium libertatum et
forestae, communitati regni nostri per nos dudum concessae, in
quarum violatores ad petitionem nostram sententia excommuni-
cationis dudum lata est et per sedem apostolicam specialiter con-
firmata, necnon et omnes articuli de nostro et magnatum terrae
nostrae communi assensu dudum provisi, quos nuper apud
Wigorniam existentes per singulos comitatus sub sigillo nostro
transmisimus, inviolabiliter observentur imperpetuum : ad quo
rum observationem sacramento ad sancta Dei evangelia corpora-
liter praestito sponte nos obligamus ; et omnes justiciaries,
vicecomites et quoscunque ballivos de regno nostro tam nostros
quam aliorum simili sacramento volumus obligari, ita quod nullus
teneatur alicui ballivo obedire donee sacramentum praestiterit.
Et si quis contra cartas ipsas vel articulos praedictos in aliquo
venire praesumpserit, praeter perjurii reatum et excommuni-
cationis sententiam quae incurret, per considerationem curiae nos
trae graviter puniatur ; salvo in praemissis prout decet privilegio
clericali. Et quia volumus quod haec omnia firmiter et inviola
biliter observentur, universitati vestrae firmiter injungendo ac
praecipiendo mandamus, quatinus vos omnes et singuli praedicta
omnia et singula, sicut superius scripta sunt, faciatis, teneatis et
inviolabiliter observetis, et ad ea omnia facienda tenenda et
observanda, ad sancta Dei evangelia sacramento corporaliter
praestito, ad invicem vos obligetis. In cujus rei testimonium
cartas et ordinationes praedictas cum praesentibus litteris patenti-
bus vobis sub sigillo nostro transmittimus in comitatum nostrum
sub custodia fidedignorum ad hoc electorum ad rei memoriam
e 0

41 8 Henry III. [part
salvo custodiendas. Contra quas ne quis ignorantiam prae-
tendere possit in futurum, ad minus bis in anno in pleno comi
tatu ipsas praecipimus publicari, ita quod fiat prima publicatio in
proximo comitatu post instans festum Paschae, secunda vero fiat
in proximo comitatu post festum Sancti Michaelis, et sic deinceps
fiat annuatim. Volumus insuper quod, salvis omnibus supra-
dictis, omnes aliae ordinationes et articuli per nos et consilium
nostrum hactenus provisi, qui poterunt ad honorem Dei et
ecclesiae, fidem nostram et regni nostri commodum, observari,
inviolabiliter observentur et teneantur. Ut autem praemissa
omnia et singula firma maneant et inconcussa, reverendi patres
episcopi per regnum constituti ad instantiam nostram sen
tentiam excommunicationis fulminarunt in omnes illos qui con
tra praemissa vel aliquod praemissorum scienter venerint aut
venire temptaverint cum effectu, quorum jurisdiction! seu coher
cioni spontanea voluntate quantum ad praemissa nos submitti-
mus ; privilegiis nostris omnibus impetratis aut impetrandis seu
proprio motu domini papae nobis concessis aut in posterum con-
cedendis in hoc pure renunciantes, prout in litteris super hoc
confectis penes dictos praelatos residentibus plenius continetur.
In cujus rei testimonium has litteras nostras fieri fecimus
patentes. Teste meipso apud Westm. XIVto die Martii, anno
regni nostri XLIX0. — (Blackstone's Charters, pp. 74-78.)
No.V. A.D. 1265. Summons to Parliament at Winchester.
Rex decano et capitulo Eboracensi, salutem. Cum praelatos
et magnates regni nostri jam vocari fecerimus quod sint ad nos
apud Wintoniam primo die Junii proximo venturo ad tractandum
nobiscum super nostris et regni nostri negotiis quae sine eorum
praesentia finaliter expleri nolumus, vobis mandamus in fide et
dilectione quibus nobis tenemini, firmiter injungentes quatenus
modis omnibus duos de discretioribus concanonicis vestris ad
dictos diem et locum mittatis qui plenam habeant potestatem
vice vestra ad tractandum nobiscum una cum praefatis praelatis
et magnatibus super negotiis antedictis, et ad ea faciendum
nomine vestro quae vos ipsi facere possetis si praesentes ibidem
essetis. Et hoc sicut nos et utilitatem regni nostri diligitis nul-
latenus omittatis. T. R. apud Gloucestriam, XV. die Maii. —
(Report on the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 36.)

vi.] Dictum de Kenilworth. 419

No. VI. A.D. 1266. Dictum de Kenilworth.
In Nomine Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis, Amen. Ad
honorem et gloriam omnipotentis Dei Patris et Filii et Spiritus
Sancti, et gloriosae et praecelsae Dei Genitricis Virginis Mariae
et omnium beatorum quorum in terris meritis et intercessio-
nibus gubernamur ; sacrosanctae Catholicae atque Apostolicae
Romanae Ecclesiae quae est omnium fidelium mater et magistra ;
sanctissimi patris et domini nostri Clementis ipsius universalis
ecclesiae Summi Pontificis ; ad honorem et bonum, prosperum,
et pacificum statum Christianissimi principis domini Henrici
regis Angliae illustris et totius regni et ecclesiae Anglicanae ;
nos vero W. Exoniensis, W. Bathoniensis et Wellensis, N. Wy-
gornensis et R. Menevensis episcopi, Gilbertus de Clare comes
Gloucestriae et Hertford, et Humfridus de Bohun comes Her-
ford., P. Basset, Johannes de Baillol, Bobertus Walraund, Alanus
de la Suche, Bogerus de Someri et Warinus de Bassingbourne,
providendum super statum terrae nominatim super facto exhae-
redatorum, habentes a domino rege praedicto et ab aliis baroni
bus, consiliariis regni, et proceribus Angliae plenariam potesta
tem, secundum formam conscriptam in litteris publicis sigillis
praedictorum regis et aliorum munitis ; ea quidem gratia Divina
favente providimus quae secundum juris et aequitatis semitas
Dei beneplacito et pari regni putavimus convenire, nullius in
hae parte acceptantes personam, sed habentes prae oculis solum
Deum, ante omnia igitur tanquam in conspectu Dei Omnipotentis
facientes et ex ordine caput membris aptissime praemittentes :
1. Dicimus et providimus quod serenissimus princeps dominus
Henricus rex Angliae illustris dominium suum, auctoritatem et
regiam potestatem habeat, plenarie obtineat, et libere exerceat
sine cujuscunque impedimento vel contradictione per quam con
tra jura approbata et leges ac regni consuetudines diu obtentas,
dignitas regia offendatur ; atque ab universis et singulis majo
ribus et minoribus ipsius regni hominibus, ipsi domino regi et
mandatis ac praeceptis suis licitis plene obediatur et humiliter
iutendatur. Et omnes et singuli per brevia ad curiam domini
regis justitiam petant et in justitia respondeant, sicut ante tem
pus hujus turbationis hactenus fieri consuevit.
2. Rogamus etiam ipsum dominum regem et ipsius pietati
cum reverentia suademus, ut tales ad justitiam faciendam et
reddendam proponat, qui non sua sed ea quae Dei et justitiae
sunt quaerentes, subjectorum negotia secundum leges et consue-
e e 2

420 Henry III. [part
tudines regni laudabiles recte eomponant, et ex hoc roboratum
justitia reddant solium regiae majestatis.
3. Rogamus pariter et suademus eidem domino regi ut liber
tates ecclesiasticas, cartas libertatum et forestae, quas servare et
custodire tenetur expresse et proprio juramento, plene custodiat
et observet.
4. Provideat etiam dominus rex quod concessiones quas fecit
hactenus, spontaneus non coactus, observentur, et alia necessaria
quae per suos ex ejus beneplacito sunt excogitata, stabiliat dura
tura. Et etiam Anglicana ecclesia suis libertatibus et consue
tudinibus, quas habuit et habere debuit ante tempus hujusmodi
turbationis, plene restituatur et eis uti libere permittatur.
5. Dicimus et providemus ut praefatus dominus rex universis
et singulis qui, ab initio praesentis turbationis regni et occasione
ipsius usque ad hoc tempus, in ipsum vel in coronam regiam
commiserunt injuriam quamlibet vel offensam, et qui ad pacem
ipsius venerunt infra xl. dies post publicationem hujusmodi
nostrae provisionis, omnino remittat et parcat ; ita quod nullo
modo nullaque causa vel occasione propter hujusmodi praeteritas
injurias vel offensas, in eosdem offensores ullam exercet ultio-
nem ; aut ipsis poenam vitae, membri, carceris, vel exilii aut
pecuniae inferat vel vindictam ; exceptis hiis qui in praesenti
nostra provisione inferius continentur.
6. Dicimus etiam et providemus ut omnia loca, jura, res, et
alia ad coronam regiam pertinentia, ipsi coronae et domino regi
restituantur, per eos qui ea detinent occupata, nisi ostendant se
ilia per rationabilem warantiam ab ipso domino rege vel a suis
antecessoribus possidere.
7. Dicimus etiam et providemus quod universa scripta,
obligationes et instrumenta, quae praefatus dominus rex, vel
dominus Edwardus ejus primogenitos, vel alii fideles fecerint,
seu exposuerint hactenus, occasione provisionum Oxoniae vel
occasione turbationis in regno habitae, ad instantiam quondam
Simonis de Monteforti, comitis Leycestriae, et suorum compli
cium, penitus adnihilentur et cassentur, et pro cassis et pro nullis
penitus habeantur. Facta etiam dicti Simonis et complicium
suorum praejudicialia et damnosa, et contractus super rebus
immobilibus ab eis facti dum essent in suo potentatu, adnihi
lentur et pro nullis habeantur.
8. Rogantes humiliter tam dominum legatum quam domi
num regem ut ipse dominus legatus sub districtione ecclesiastica
prorsus inhibeat, ne Simon comes Leycestriae a quocunque pro
sancto vel justo reputetur, cum in excommunicatione sit de
functus, sicut sancta tenet ecclesia ; et mirabilia de eo vana et

vi.] Dictum de Kenilworth. 421
fatua ab aliquibus relata nullis unquam labiis proferantur ; et
dominus rex haec eadem sub poena corporali velit districte
inhibere. 9. Supplicamus reverenter et humiliter venerabili patri nos
tro domino O. Sancti Adriani diacono cardinali et apostolicae
sedis legato, ut cum tam domino regi expedire cognoverit quam
aliis hominibus, majoribus et minoribus de regno, qui cartas
juratas minime observarunt, ad quas observandas omnes per
excommunicationis sententiam jam latam, inde non observances,
tenebantur, beneficium absolutionis impendat.
10. Rogamus etiam et suademus quod nullus, cujuscunque
conditionis existat, blada aut victualia quaelibet vel alia quae
cunque bona, sub nomine mutui vel provisione futurae solu
tionis, capiat sine licentia eorum quorum res seu bona sunt ;
salvis regni consuetudinibus approbatis.
11. De Londoniis laudamus et praefatum dominum regem
hortamur et rogamus, ut ipse provideat per consilium suum de
statu reformando civitatis, quoad terras, redditus, dominium et
libertates, et hujusmodi provisio cito fiat.
12. Super statu et negotio exhaeredatorum, inter cetera quae
ordinavimus et statuimus, volentes secundum Deum et aequitatis
tramitem incedere, ita duximus providendum, de assensu vene-
rabilis patris O. Sancti Adriani diaconi cardinalis et apostolicae
sedis legati et nobilis Henrici de Alemannia similiter habentium
potestatem, quod non fiat exhaeredatio sed redemptio, videlicet,
quod incipientes guerram et perseverantes usque nunc ; item
violenter et malitiose detinentes Norhampton contra regem ;
item expugnantes et debellantes regem apud Lewes ; item capti
apud Kenilworth qui venerunt de praedatione Wyntoniae, vel
alibi fuerint contra regem, quibus rex non remisit ; item bel-
lantes apud Evesham contra regem ; item qui fuerunt apud
Cestrefeud contra regem in bello ; item qui gratis et voluntarie
et non coacti miserunt servitia sua contra regem vel filium
ejus ; item ballivi et ministri comitis Leycestriae qui vicinos
depraedati sunt, et homicidia, iucendia et mala alia procurarunt;
— solvent quantum valet terra eorum per quinque annos ; et si
isti solvant redemptionem, rehabeant terras suas, ita quod, si
terra vendi debeat, nullus earn habeat nisi ille qui eam tenet ex
dono domini regis, si tantum velit dare quam quilibet commu
niter emens, et eisdem terminis ; similiter si ad firmam debeat
dari, nullus sit propinquior eo qui eam tenet ex dono domini
regis, si tantum velit dare quam quilibet alius pro eo ad firmam
velit dare, et eisdem terminis habeat ; similiter satisfaciens pro
tota tena habeat totam, pro medietate medietatem habeat, et

422 Henry III. [part
pro tertia parte statim tertiam partem habeat. Quod si ultimo
termino statuto redimens non satisfecerit, medietas terrae re-
manentis remaneat illis quibus terrae collatae sunt per dominum
regem; liberum autem sit redimenti infra ilium terminum ven-
dere totum vel partem terrae secundum formam venditionis su
perius annotatam, et similiter ad firmam tradere.
13. Et si aliqui habeant nemora et velint vendere ad re-
demptionem suam, ille qui tenet eam ex dono domini regis
habeat fidelem suum qui recipiat inde pecuniam, et exhaere-
datus ille qui vendit silvam habeat unum de quo confidat ; et
isti duo recipientes solvant in conspectu illorum denarios, quos
recipiunt de nemore, illis quibus debet dari redemptio.
14. Item comes de Fenariis puniatur quantum valet terra
sua per vii. annos, et milites et armigeri qui fuerunt praedones,
et cum principalibus praedonibus in bellis et depraedationibus,
si non habeant terras et habeant bona, solvant pro redemptione
sua medietatem honorum suorum, et inveniant fidejussionem
competentem quod pacem regis et regni amodo conservabunt.
Qui vero nihil habuerint veniant et jurent ad sancta Dei evan
gelia, et inveniant fidejussionem competentem quod pacem regis
et regni amodo servabunt, et subeant satisfactionem competentem
et poenitentiam secundum judicium ecclesiae, exceptis bannitis
quibus solus rex potest remittere.
15. Ceterum domini haeredum infra aetatem et in custodia
existentium solvant pro eis ; et, cum venerint haeredes ad legi
timam aetatem, solvant redemptionem dominis eisdem terminis
per tres vel per duos annos, quibus alii solverunt ; ita quod
domini terrae habeant custodias haeredum cum maritagiis usque
ad legitimam aetatem haeredum. Si autem domini terrae nolunt
solvere redemptionem illis quibus terrae datae sunt per dominum
regem, iidem habeant custodiam haeredum cum maritagiis sine •
disparagatione, usque ad legitimam aetatem haeredum, et tunc
haeredes solvant prout alii solverunt eis eisdem terminis.
16. Custodiae autem, quae debentur domino regi, maneant
illis quibus concessae sunt per dominum regem, et, cum per-
venerint ad legitimam aetatem, solvant redemptionem eisdem
terminis quibus alii, et nulla fiat destructio ab hiis qui habent
custodias; sin autem, fiat justitia contra illos secundum quod
continetur in Magna Carta.
17. Omnes de castro sint in communi via et forma pacis,
exceptis Henrico de Hastinges, et mutilatoribus nuncii domini
regis ; qui vii. annis puniantur vel in misericordia domini regis
se ponant.
18. Si quis autem ad helium de Lewes fuerit cum domino

vi.] Dictum de Kenilworth.

4^3

rege et post bellum sit exhaeredatus, quia noluit venire ad filium
regis et ejus adjutorium, dicat rex voluntatem suam de eo per
fidele dictum suum.
19. Nemora ab eis qui tenent nunc non vendantur nee
destruantur aliquo modo, nisi post terminum ultimum non ob-
servatum ; necessaria tamen ad custodiam vel restaurationem
domorum habeant illi quibus terrae locatae sunt per regem ; sin
autem, graviter puniantur.
20. Si aliquis sit de quo timetur quod velit guerram facere
seu procurare, provideant se domini legatus et rex securitatem
quam viderint expedire, mittendo extra regnum ad tempus
vel aliter sicut expedire viderint ; ita tamen quod, si contingat
ilium impediri a solutione suae redemptionis, propter hoc non
exhaeredetur. 21. Si aliquis non sit contentus ista provisione, subeat judi
cium in curia domini regis infra festum Sancti Hilarii ; extra
regnum vero existens habeat inducias transmarinas secundum
legem et consuetudinem terrae, ita tamen quod teneat se in pace,
aliter non sit in forma pacis.
22. Quia rex tenetur multis qui eum juverunt et ei fideliter
affuerunt, quibus de terris non providit, et quidam plus habent
quam habere debent, provideat dominus rex de redemptione
capienda quod abundanter eos respiciat, ne sit materia novae
guerrae. 23. Provideant etiam se domini legatus, rex, et Henricus
de Alemannia, quod eligant xii. qui ista diligenter et fideliter
exsequantur, et ilia faciat dominus rex et haeredes sui firmiter
observari et manuteneri. Isti inquirant et compleant quae
a supradictis xii. electis sunt ordinata, secundum formam or-
dinationum quae jam factae sunt ; sin autem, faciant aestima-
tiones rationabiles et veraces secundum quod xii. providebunt
executores. 24. Firmarii qui fuerunt contra dominum regem careant
firmis suis, salvis juribus dominorum quibus reddant censum
annuum, detinentes firmas, et elapso termino revertantur ad
veros dominos.
25. De castris aedifieatis per cartas domini regis et con-
sensum ejus et sine consensu exhaeredati, dicimus quod, post
redemptionem solutam termino trium annorum, solvat dominus
terrae infra sex annos custum qui imponebatur ante publicatio-
nem per consensum regis, vel rationabile escambium terrae.
26. Laici manifeste procurantes negotia domini comitis
et complicium suorum, attrahendo homines per mendacia, per
falsitates instigando parti comitis et complicium suorum, et

424 Henry III. [part
detrahendo partem domini regis et filii sui, puniantur quantum
valet tena eorum per duos annos.
27. Coacti vel metu ducti qui venerunt ad bellum, qui non
expugnaverunt nee malum fecerunt ; impotentes qui vi vel metu
miserunt servitia sua contra regem vel filium suum ; coacti vel
metu ducti qui fuerunt praedones et cum principalibus praedo-
nibus depraedationes fecerunt, et quando commode poterant, a
praedationibus cessaverunt et ad domos suas redierunt, ex-
istentes in pace, redimantur quantum valet terra eorum per
unum annum.
28. Emptores scienter rerum alienarum valorem bonorum
quae emerunt restituant, et sint in misericordia domini regis,
qui contra justitiam fecerunt, quia illud inhibuit dominus rex
jam dimidio anno elapso.
29. Illi qui ad mandatum comitis Leycestriae ingressi sunt
Norhamptoniam, nee pugnaverunt nee malum fecerunt, si ad
ecclesiam fugerunt quando regem venientem viderunt, et hoc sit
attinctum per bonos ; illi, qui tenebant de comite Leycestriae
et venerunt ad mandatum ejus, solvent quantum valent terrae
eorum per dimidium anni.
Isti qui ex feodo comitis tenebant solum sint in misericordia
domini regis.
30. Impotentes, et illi qui malum non fecerunt, statim reha
beant terras suas, et recuperent damna sua in curia domini
regis ; et puniantur accusatores quod amodo rex non credat
eis de facili, et talis poena fiat eis qualis debet fieri illis qui
injuste fecerunt fideles regis exhaeredari, sine tamen periculo
vitae et mutilationis et exhaeredationis ; malitiose accusati
statim rehabeant terras suas et recuperent damna sua in curia
regis ut supra.
31. Mulieres autem habeant haereditates suas et dotes de
primis dominis ; de terris autem maritorum qui fuerunt contra
regem, habeant secundum quod rex statuit, et redimantur.
32. Redemptio eorum qui fuerunt contra dominum regem
stet, sed in illis qui in nullo fuerunt contra regem, nee stet
redemptio ; sed statim rehabeant terras suas et recuperent damna
sua, ut supra.
33. De malitiose accusatis dictum est et accusantes puni
antur ut supra. Submissio facta dicto domini regis vel aliorum
dominorum per vos vel per concordiam vel pacem factam stet in
robore suo.
34. De Simone de Monteforti comite et filiis comitis nihil
dicimus, quia dominus rex Angliae factum eorum posuit in
manus regis Franciae.

vi.] Dictum de Kenilworth.

425

35. Omnes recepti in pace per illos qui habuerunt potes
tatem, remaneant in statu in quo recepti sunt. Omnes qui
redempti sunt non teneantur respondere de damnis et trans-
gressionibus per eos factis super illos quos impugnaverunt tem
pore turbationis praedictae, sed damna et transgressiones ex utra
que parte remittantur, salva tamen actione cuicunque se non
intromittenti de dicta turbatione et salvo quod ad ecclesiam
pertinet. 36. Et quia periculosum videtur quod castra essent in
potestate eorum qui male egerunt contra regem, dicimus et
providimus de castris de Eardele, Byham et Certeleye, quod
pro ipsis detur rationabile excambium.
37. Omnes de cetero teneant firmam pacem, et nullus
faciat homicidia, incendia, roberias, nee aliquas transgressiones
contra pacem ; et qui fecerit et convictus fuerit habeat judicium
et legem secundum consuetudinem regni.
38. Item omnes quorum interest jurent super Sancta
Evangelia, quod nullus capiet vindictam, nee procurabit, nee
consentiet, nee fieri sustinebit quod vindicta capiatur, occasione
turbationis. Et si aliquis vindictam capiat, puniatur per curiam
domini regis, et satisfaciant ecclesiae hii qui eam laeserunt.
39. Si quis etiam non velit dictum istud tenere, vel judi
cium curiae domini regis per pares subire, et sic exhaeredati qui
se dicunt tales, nullum jus habeant ad recuperandum terras.
Et si aliquis qui tenet terras exhaeredatorum rebellet dicto,
nihil juris per donum domini regis vendicare possit in terra vel
redemptione. Insuper quicunque isti dicto non consenserit, sit
publicus inimicus domini regis et filiorum suorum et communi
tatis ; populus et clerus, quantum canonica jura permittant, pro-
sequantur eum tanquam inimicum pacis ecclesiae et regni.
40. Imprisonati seu incarcerati, praestita sufficienti et rationa
bili securitate, liberentur per obsklem vel per aliam securitatem
competentem et rationabilem, secundum provisionem dictorum
legati et regis.
41. Nullus praeterea occasione praeteritae turbationis possit
aliquem exhaeredare, qui sibi aliquo jure succedere debeat.
Datum et public-atom in castro apud Kenilworthe, pridie
kalendas Novembris anno gratiae M0CC°LX°VI0, regni vero
domini Henrici regis Angliae anno quinquagesimo primo. —
(Statutes of the Realm, i. 12-17.)

PART VII.
SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS ; Edward I.
A.D. 1272-1307.
Archbishops of Canterbury. Robert Kilwardby, 1273-1278; John
Peckham, 1279-1292 ; Robert Winchelsey, 1294-1313.
Chief Justices of the King's Bench. Ralph de Hengham, 1273-1289;
Gilbert de Thornton, 1 289-1 295; Eoger Brabazon, 1295.
Chancellors. Walter de Merton, 1272; Robert Burnell, 1273-1292;
John Langton, 1292 ; William Greenfield, 1302; William of Hamilton,
1304; Ralph Baldock, 1307.
JM 0 prince ever came to the English throne better qualified to
rule strongly and well than Edward I. He had benefited by
early experience, by intercourse with great men, by much know
ledge of the world outside of England, and by the warnings and
examples of his father's reign. His own personal character was
high, pure, and true. The part which he had taken in English
politics before his accession was settled for him by circumstances
rather than by choice. He had more than once revolted in
disgust from the foolish falseness of Henry, and it was only
when he found that he must not expect even bare justice from
the reforming party that he threw himself heart and soul upon
his father's side. From the temperament of the Angevin family
he was nearly free : a tendency to legal captiousness does however
present itself to view in many of his most important transac
tions, a flaw inherent in the very turn of his mind, brought into
prominence moreover by the condition of the age and by the
character of his advisers.
The age of the lawyers was coming in : Edward's great
advisers were lawyers rather than clerks and bishops : the great

Character of the Reign. 427
men who were his examples were, like Lewis IX, Frederick II,
and Alfonso the Wise, framers of laws and constitutions : the
great distinguishing mark of his reign in English history is
legal definition. Legal chicanery was the most characteristic
sin of the Angevin house : and a disposition to take advantage
of the letter of the law marks the greatest errors of Edward's
own policy — his severities in Wales, his assumptions in Scot
land, and especially the arbitrary measures by which he placed
himself in such a position as to be obliged to confirm and
extend the provisions of the Great Charter.
The temper of the age was in itself a temptation to this : the
period lies midway between the prolific premature life of the
early thirteenth century and the splendid formal hollowness of
the fourteenth. The principles and policy which had been
springing up in the first half were being clothed in forms and
hardened into definitions : fifty years more would see the forms
stronger and the definitions harder still, but the life, the genius,
the spirit of all, fainting and wearing out under the incubus of
false chivalry, cruel extravagance, and the lust of war.
In every branch of administration the process of definition
goes on, almost uniformly. Parliament, convocation, the central
courts of law, the provincial jurisdictions, take their permanent
historic forms : the theory of representation, so long in the
process of crystallisation, becomes fixed in the assemblies of,
both Church and State. The Courts of King's Bench, Exchequer,
and Common Pleas take each to itself a distinct staff of judges
and a distinct sphere of work. The administration of justice in
the shires is completed and made symmetrical by a long series
of statutes. The relations of Church and State are not indeed
settled, but a strong effort is made to reduce them to order, by
defiance of Rome, by the act of Mortmain, by the summoning
of the clergy to parliament, and by securing representation in
the church assemblies. In taxation, in legislation, in the admi
nistration of justice and police, the same tendency is visible :
a tendency in the age, which produced other legislators besides
Edward, and which brought out the weakness of other kings
who, like Philip the Fair, had none of Edward's merits : a

428 Edward I. [part
tendency which, in Edward's case, falls in with the genius of the
man, giving prominence to both his virtues and his faults.
The first half of the reign was occupied with legislation and
with the war in Wales, the second with constitutional develop
ment and war with France and Scotland. The two features
common to both periods are war and financial difficulties :
the latter owing of course in some measure to the former, but
largely increased by the evils of the late reign, the impoverish
ment of the crown, and the ignorance on the part of both
government and people of what may be by anticipation called
the principles of political economy. Edward's expedients for
the raising of money are most diversified i the petition for
thirtieths, twentieths, fifteenths, twelfths, elevenths, tenths,
ninths, eighths, sevenths, sixths, fifths, thirds, runs up the whole
scale of fractions, reaching the climax in the demand of a half of
clerical revenue, or rather perhaps in the seizure of all the
wool. When direct request for a subsidy is hopeless, he falls
back on the old feudal aids, his daughter to be married, or his
son to be knighted ; or the scutage ; or respite of distraint of
knighthood, itself an expansion of the scutage system ; or an
increase in the customs ; or, last and meanest, a revival of the
almost forgotten talliage on demesne. It is true that during
great part of the reign these taxes were light, for it is only
from 1290 to 1297 that there is any pretence of severe exaction ;
that they were taken with scrupulous regard to the legal letter
of royal obligations : and that Edward's own outlay was mode
rate, and free, as far as possible, from personal extravagance.
But they were irritating and confusing to the people, and con
tributed one chief ingredient towards the troubled atmosphere
of the reign. Of the wars which contributed the other, it is
unnecessary to speak here.
The legislation of Edward I was in some respects a consolida
tion of the principles which had been brought into organised
working by Henry II. The Statute of Winchester bears this
relation to the Assize of Arms ; the Statute of Mortmain to the
Constitutions of Clarendon ; the distraint of knighthood to the
system of scutage ; the statute Quia Emptores to the antifeudal

vn.] Excerpts. 429
measures, and the arrangements of the courts of law to the
numerous judicial devices, of the first Angevin king. Most of
these were indeed rooted in a far more distant past ; but Henry
nursed them into life after a long winter of tyranny, and Edward
pruned and trained them after the neglected luxuriance of a pre
mature summer.
Up to the reign of Edward I every document belonging to
every branch of administration has a constitutional value. After
this reign much that has had historical interest becomes merely
archaeological. This is owing in part to the permanence of the
type defined under this king, and in part to the permanent dis
tribution of the system which he and his advisers arranged in
the different departments of work : the definition of each part,
and the definition of each function, of the machine of state. For
instance, the ordinary courts of law, the practice of trial by jury,
the organisation of national defence and police, cease to have
the direct bearing on constitutional history which they have
had : and the name of ' constitutional ' becomes restricted to the
parliamentary history and to the departments of state which
exist in close dependence upon or in temporary rivalry with it.
In the political history the result of the same process is to pro
duce local and personal partisanships rather than political par
ties. The struggles of the succeeding century are not about the
framework of the constitution, but about the management of
it : the vessel is complete, but the helm is contested by Royalists
and Lancastrians ; by men of the south and men of the north ;
supporters of the court and prerogative, and supporters of the
old liberties, the natural opposition. Exceepts.
A.D. 1273. Ann. Winton. p. 113. Hoc anno, scilicet post
festum Sancti Hilarii, facta convocatione omnium praelatorum
et aliorum magnatum regni apud Westmonasterium, post mor
tem illustris regis Henrici, convenerunt archiepiscopi et episcopi,
comites et barones, abbates et priores, et de quolibet comitatu
quatuor milites et de qualibet civitate quatuor, qui omnes in
praesentia dominorum W. scilicet archiepiscopi Eboracensis, B.
de Mortuomari, et R. Burnell clerici, qui in loco domini Edwardi

430 Edward I. [part
regis Angliae praefuerunt, sacramentum eidem domino Edwardo
tanquam terrae principi praestiterunt, et de pace regni fideliter
et firmiter custodienda praeceptum susceperunt ; ubi dominus
Walterus de Mertona cancellarius constitutus est, et ut moram
trahat apud Westmonasterium, tanquam in loco publico, usque
ad adventum principis ; et ubi provisum est quod nulli sint
justitiarii itinerantes usque ad adventum principis, sed in
banco. A.D. 1274. Ann. Winton. p. 118. Hoc anno dominus Ed
wardus rex Angliae de Terra Sancta et de Wasconia reversus,
secunda die mensis Augusti in Angliam applicuit apud Dorober-
niam, et die Dominica proxima post Assumptionem Beatae Ma
riae Virginis, per impositionem manuum R. archiepiscopi Can
tuariensis de ordine Praedicatorum, unctus est in regem et coro-
natus apud Westmonasterium, praesente domino rege Scotiae et
multis aliis.
A.D. 1275. Ann. Winton. p. 119. In quindena Paschae
quae fuit in principio mensis Maii, facta communi convocatione
omnium magnatum regni, tenuit dominus rex Edwardus mag
num parliamentum suum apud Westmonasterium, ubi quam-
plures de regno, qui aliqua feoda de corona regia tenuerunt, ea
dicto domino regi reddiderunt, compositione tamen facta cum
quibusdam ut ea tenere valeant quoad vitam. In quo parlia
mento de assensu communi quasdam novas leges constituit ob-
servandas ad communem utilitatem totius regni.
Patent Roll, July 24, 1276. . . . Cum in primo generali
parliamento nostro post coronationem nostram in crastino oc
tavis Paschae anno regni nostri tertio, de voluntate nostra, et
oonsiliariorum nostrorum consilio et communitatis regni nostri
ibidem convocatorum consensu . . . ordinaverimus. . . .
Ann. Winton. p. 119. Item mense Octobris circa festum
Sancti Lucae Evangelistae, iterum tenuit ibidem aliud magnum
parliamentum in quo quidem alias leges constituit inter Judaeos
observandas, ubi de communi assensu archiepiscoporum, episco
porum, comitum et baronum, concessum fuit dicto domino regi
quintum decimum quorundam bonorum laicorum omnium pos-
sessionum regni Angliae in subsidium, causa suae novitatis, ut a
quibusdam dicebatur.
Close Rolls, Oct. 24. . . Praelati, comites, barones et alii
de regno nostro, quintam decimam de omnibus bonis mobilibus,
ad relevationem status nostri, nobis concesserint gratiose. . . .

vii.] Excerpts. 431
A.D. 1276. Ann. Waverl. p. 386. Post Pascha, ad parlia
mentum Westmonasterii multis proceribus regni congregatis, rex
pacem suam exhaeredatis concessit. In quo parliamento quin
tam decimam- omnium honorum temporalium tam clericorum
quam laicorum, inaudito more ad unguem taxatam, rex jusserat
levari et confiscari. . . . Item in eodem parliamento concessit
dominus rex et demandavit per totum regnum Angliae quod
cartae de communibus libertatibus et de forestis in suo robore
permanentes ab omnibus per omnia observarentur.
Ann. Winton. p. 120. Praeterea cum anno praecedenti con
cessum fuerit domino regi quintum decimum omnium bonorum
laicorum in regno, dictus dominus rex, pauperibus parcere volens,
ordinavit et statuit ut qui ad valentiam xv. solidorum non ha
bent in bonis ad hujusmodi contributionem nullatenus compel-
lerentur. A.D. 1277. Matt. Westm. p. 408. In quindena Pasehae rex
recedens a Westmonasterio versus Walliam properavit cum omni
militari servitio terrae suae Angliae, barones de scaccario et jus
titiarios de banco usque Salopiam secum dueens.
Ann. T. Wykes, p. 274. Rex utique reversus de Wallia cepit
de quolibet feodo militis per regnum xl. solidos pro scutagio,
illis dumtaxat quietis a solutione scutagii, qui secum in Wallia
personaliter vel per substitutos idoneos militabant.
A.D. 1278. Cheon. W. Rishangee, p. 93. Tenuit rex par
liamentum Gloverniae in octavis Sancti Johannis Baptistae, in
quo edita sunt statuta quae ' de Glovernia ' appellantur.
Stat. Glotjcest. Preamble. Le rei pur le amendement de
sun reaume, e pur plus plenere exhibicion de dreit, si com le
profit de office regal demaunde, appelez le plus descrez de sun
regne, ausi bien des greindres cum les meindres, establi est e
concordaument ordeine. . . .
Ann. Waverl. p. 390. Item in medio mensis Octobris do
minus Eadwardus rex tenuit magnum parliamentum apud West
monasterium, ubi dominus rex Scotiae venit et homagium dicto
domino regi Angliae fecit.
Cheon. W. de Hemingbubgh, ii. 6. Cito post inquietavit rex
quosdam ex magnatibus terrae per justitiarios suos, scire volens
quo warranto tenerent terras ; et, si non haberent bonum warran-
tum, seisivit statim terras illorum ; vocatusque est inter ceteros
comes de Warenna coram justitiarios regis, et, interrogatus quo
warranto teneret, produxit in medium gladium antiquum et

432 Edward I. [part
aeruginatum et ait, 'Ecce, domini mei, ecce warrantum meum.
Antecessores enim mei cum Willelmo bastardo venientes con-
quaesti sunt terras suas gladio, et easdem gladio defendam a quo-
cunque eas occupare volente. Non enim rex per se terram
devicit et subjecit, sed progenitores nostri fuerunt cum eo par
ticipes et coadjutores.'
A.D. 1279. Ann. Waverl. p. 391. Johannes de Peccham
archiepiscopus Cantuariensis . . . iii. kalendas Augusti facta
convocatione quorundam episcoporum comprovincialium apud
Badinges, quaedam generalia statuta promulgavit observanda.
Ann. Osney, p. 286. In quodam parliamento facto apud
Londoniam circa festum Omnium Sanctorum, rex instanter petiit
a clero Angliae quintam decimam bonorum suorum in subsidium
quod, uti praetactum est, a populo regni sui nuper extorsit, ut
esset clerus sicut et populus. Archiepiscopus autem Eboracensis
cedens petitioni regiae pro se et pro clero suae metropolis quin
tam decimam per duos annos primus concessit. Cantuariensis
aliquantulum ut poterat rebellando, responsum suum super hoc
usque in parliamentum post Pascha posuit in suspenso, et tunc
regis instantia coeroitus pro se et clero suo decimam trium anno
rum domino regi concessit.
A.D. 1280. Wilkins, Cone. ii. 42. Clerici diocesis Ebora
censis excepto archidiacono Bichmundiae . . . concedunt . . .
deeimam beneficiorum suorum ecclesiasticorum secundum taxa-
tionem Norwycensem prius factam . . . per duos annos duntaxat.
lb. Clerus nostrae provinciae . . . (sc. Cantuariensis) . . .
concesserit domino regi quintam decimam bonorum suorum . . .
per tres annos solvendam.
Ann. Waveel. p. 392. Dominus rex de consilio quorundam
pontificum et baronum statuit quod religiosae personae de cetero
in acquisitione terrarum seu reddituum non crescerent. . . .
A.D. 1281. Ann. Osney, p. 285. Nonis Octobris ... J.
Cantuariensis archiepiscopus convocatis universis episcopis, ab
batibus, prioribus, ac universis praelatis et clericis suae metro
polis, apud Lamheye sollemne concilium celebravit ; in quo
constitutiones Ottonis et Ottoboni . . . innovavit et in posterum
inviolabiliter observandas fore decrevit. ... In eodem concilio
proposuerat quasdam libertates ad coronam domini regis spec-
tantes et a multis retroactis temporibus usitatas annullare,
videlicet cognitionem juris patronatus. prohibitiones regias in
placitis de catallis et hujusmodi quae spiritualitatem mere con-
tingere videbantur ; cui rex per quosdam de suis in eodem

vn.] Excerpts. 433
concilio publice se opposuit, et intentando nlinas inhibuit ne
quid statuere praesumeret in praejudicium seu depressionem
regiae libertatis. Unde factum est ut territus archiepiscopus
a sua praesumptione resiliret.
A.D. 1282. Ann. Osney, p. 288. Convocatis regni magna
tibus statuit parliamentum suum apud Wigorniam in festo
Nativitatis Sancti Johannis Baptistae. . . .
Ann. Waveel. p. 399. Item hoc anno clerus et populus
primo quintam decimam, et postmodum tricesimam, bonorum
suorum domino regi concesserunt.
A.D. 1283. Ann. Dunstapl. p. 294. Statim post Pascha
bona omnium eorum, qui habebant ultra dimidiam marcam in
catallis, per duodecim juratos de visneto suo taxabantur pro
tricesima domino regi concessa : et tunc bona nostra extra bur
gum cum aliis sunt taxata : et bona infra curiam per burgenses ;
at tamen moderate. Postea taxatio praedicta revocata fuit per
breve domini regis quoad viros religiosos et quoad mercatores
qui alias dominum regem nomine mutui adjuvarunt ad guerram
contra Wallenses. Eisdem anno et tempore nomine domini regis
petita est a clero decima de omnibus proventibus ecclesiasticis
per triennium ... in subsidium guerrae suae contra Walliam.
Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis habuit super hoc tractatum Lon
doniae cum coepiscopis suis, praelatis omnibus, atque clero, ubi a
procuratoribus totius cleri fuit manifeste contributioni hujus
modi contradietum.
Ann. Osney, p. 294. Circa festum Sancti Michaelis rex, con
vocatis regni sui magnatibus et majoribus civium Angliae
apud Salopesbyriam, tenuit ibi parliamentum suum et adduci
fecit illuc David qui apud Rothelan fuerat captivatus : ibique
per consideiationem magnatum ibidem congregatorum, pensatis
impietatis suae meritis, judicialiter adjudicatus est morti.
Cheon. W. de Hemingbuegh, ii. 14. Post festum Sancti
Michaelis tenuit idem rex parliamentum suum apud Actone
Burnel ubi fecit statutum sic vocatum.
Stat, de Mercatoribus. Preamble. Le rei par luy e par
sun conseil ad ordine e establi. . . .
A.D. 1284. Ann. Osney, p. 299. Ante festum Nativitatis
Dominicae rex Angliae ... ad partes rediit Anglicanas et
fuit BristoUis in eodem festo Natalis. Quo expleto, convocatis
quibusdam de magnatibus, singulare, non generate, tenuit parlia:
mentum. ... F f

434 Edward I. [part
A.D. 1285. Ann. Osney, p. 304. In quindena Paschae con
vocatis proceribus regni rex cum majoribus et peritioribus de
statu regni diffusum coepit habere tractatum ; protractoque
parliamento usque ad Nativitatem Sancti Johannis Baptistae,
edidit quaedam statuta toti regno pernecessaria quibus leges
antiquas, quae per regni turbationem dormitaverant, excitabat ;
quasdam quae per abusum corruptae fuerant ad statum debitum
revocabat; quasdam vero minus evidentes seu perspicuas decla-
rabat, quasdam vero novas utiles et honestas superaddidit ; com-
pilationemque ipsorum statutorum, circa festum Apostolorum
Petri et Pauli in aula Westmonasteriensi in praesentia totius
populi, divulgari fecit et legi in publico. . . .
Statutes op the Realm, i. 71. Stat. Westm. ii. Preamble.
. . . Dominus rex, in parleamento suo post Pascha anno regni
sui tertio decimo apud Westmonasterium, multas oppressiones
et legum defectus, ad suppletionem praedictorum statutorum
apud Gloucestriam editorum, recitari fecit et statuta edidit.
Statutes of the Realm, i. 104. Supplicabant domino regi
in parliamento suo apud Westmonasterium post Pascha anno
regni sui xiii., plures de regno suo, tam praelati, viri religiosi et
aliae personae ecclesiasticae, quam comites et barones et ceterae
personae saeculares seu laieae, ut idem dominus rex cartas a
progenitoribus suis regibus Angliae vel ab aliis, concessas prae-
decessoribus seu antecessoribus ipsarum personarum, et eis, de
sua gratia confirmaret ; unde idem dominus rex habito super
hoc cum suo consilio tractatu, concessit quod confirmationes
cartarum illarum fiant. . . .
Ann. Dunstapl. p. 317. Scutagium etiam pro Wallia ibidem
generaliter per totam Angliam est concessum.
A.D. 1286. Ann. Osney, p. 306. In quindena Paschae facta
est per regis evocationem congregatio maxima magnatum totius
regni, tam saecularium personarum quam ecclesiasti earum, apud
Londoniam ad tractandum de regni regimine. . . . Rex . . .
committens regni sui custodiam Edmundo comiti Cornubiae,
circa festum Ascensionis Dotninicae transfretavit in Galliam.
A.D. 1289. Ann. Osney, p. 316. Circa Purificationem
Beatae Virginis convocatis edicto publico apud Londoniam regni
magnatibus, episcopus Eliensis domini regis thesaurarius de man
dato regis, ut dicebat, petiit a comitibus et baronibus, immo
etiam generaliter ab universis incolis regni, subsidium ad opus
regis, ad sublevationem expensarum quas triennio jam elapso
fecerat in partibus Gallicanis. At illi ponentes responsum in

vn.] Excerpts.

435

ore comitis Gloucestrensis, praecise respondebant se nihil penitus
praestituros, nisi prius personaliter viderent in Anglia faciem
regis; thesaurarius, prospiciens se nihil posse proficere, coepit
talliare civitates et burgos et dominica regis per totum regnum,
imponens eis intolerabilem pecuniae quantitatem, statuto tem
pore persolvendam.
Tb. p. 318. Rex ... in Angliam applicuit Dovoriae pridie
idus Augusti.
Ann. Waverl. p. 408. Cito post parliamento apud West
monasterium omnium procerum convocato, omnes justitiarios ab
officiis suis amovit ac animadversione condigna secundam de-
merita corripuit et punivit.
A.D. 1290. Cheon. W. de Hemingbuegh, ii. 20. Tenuit
rex parliamentum suum Londoniis post Pascha, ubi fecit statuta
Westmonasterii tertia . . . ordinatumque est per regem et
secretum consilium quod certo die infra horam primam et ter
tiam omnes Judaei in singulis civitatibus caperentur et deinde
expellerentur a terra.
Ann. Dunstapl. p. 362. Et quia dicta expulsio Judaeorum
multum placuit Anglicanae ecclesiae et populo, clerus concessit
regi decimam bonorum spiritualium secundum taxationem Nor-
wicensem ; et baronagium et clerus concesserunt quintam
decimam bonorum temporalium, taxandam et assidendam per
legales homines secundum verum valorem inter gulam Augusti
et feBtum Sancti Michaelis.
Ann. Osney, p. 326. Circa festum Sancti Michaelis ....
pessimis et protervis domini regis consiliariis persuadentibus,
ipsumque regem ad hoc pertinaciter inducentibus, exiit edic-
tum a rege toti regno perniciosum nimis et deplorabile, videlicet
ut universi regnicolae tam clerici quam laici, saeculares pariter
et religiosi, quintam decimam partem omnium bonorum suorum
saecularium mobilium solverent fisco regio, congerendam sub in-
tolerabili taxatione, graviore quidem quam aliquis praedecessorum
suorum retroactis temporibus consueverat aestimare. . . .
Ann. Wigokn. p. 503. Rex indixit quintam decimam secun
dum quod bona uniuscujusque inter gulam Augusti et festum
Omnium Sanctorum plus valebant, et in die Animarum ad hoe
inquirendum de singulis hundredis duodecim sunt jurati.
Ann. Eliens. MS. Qui (sc. octo episcopi) omnes in crastino
Dominicae . . . (sc. Oct. 2) in capitulo Eliensi concilium cele-
brantes, decimas ecclesiarum Cantuariensis provinciae secundum
F f a

436 Edward I. [part
taxationem Norwicensem dicto regi ad unum annum conces-
serunt. Rot. Parl. i. 45. Placita de parliamento apud Clypston, a
die Sancti Michaelis in unum mensem, anno XVIII0.
A.D. 1291. Rot. Parl. i. 66. Placita de parliamento apud
Assherugge in crastino Epiphaniae, anno XIX0.
Ann. Osney, p. 331. Circa festum Sancti Michaelis dominus
papa de plenitudine potestatis concessit regi Anglorum decimam
omnium possessionum personarum ecclesiasticarurn tam religio-
sarum quam saecularium, exceptis duntaxat Templariis et Hos-
pitalariis, percipiendam per sex annos continuos, in subsidium
futurae suae peregrinationis in Terram Sanctam ad debellandum
inimicos cruris Christi, non secundum antiquas taxationes sed
secundum verum valorem, ad quem bona ipsa intolerabili aesti-
matione taxari de novo constituit.
A.D. 1292. Rot. Pael. i. 70. De parliamento apud Lon
donias in crastino Epiphaniae Domini anno Begis Edwardi
XXmo. Ib. p. 78. Rex ... in pleno parliamento suo et de com
muni consilio suo statuit. . . .
A.D. 1293. Rot. Pael. i. 91. Placita coram ipso domino
rege et consilio suo ad Parliamentum suum post Pascha apud
Londonias in manerio archiepiscopi Eboracensis, anno regni
domini regis Edwardi XXI0.
Statutes of the Realm, i. 112. . . . Dominus rex ad par
liamentum suum post Pascha anno regni sui XXImo ad instan-
tiam magnatum regni sui concessit et firmiter extunc praecepit
observari. . . .
Rot. Pael. i. 112. Placita coram ipso domino rege et consilio
suo ad parliamentum suum post festum Sancti Michaelis anno
regni regis Edwardi XXI0. . . . Habito super hoc consilio et
tractatu diligenti cum archiepiscopis, episcopis, comitibus, baroni
bus, thesaurario et baronibus de scaccario, justitiariis et ceteris
de consilio clericis et laicis tunc ibi praesentibus, concordatum
est. . . .
Statutes of the Realm, i. 113. . . . Dominus rex ....
in parliamento de termino Sancti Michaelis anno regni sui
XXI0 incipiente anno XXII0. statuit. . . .
A.D. 1294. Matt. Westm. p. 421. Eadwardus rex Angliae
tenuit parliamentum suum apud Westmonasterium post festum
Pentecostes ; cui interfuerunt Johannes rex Scotiae et omnes

vii. J Excerpts. 437
magnates Angliae, ubi recitabantur in auditu ibidem existentium
motiones et continuationes hujus guerrae, insuper legationes et
sponsiones pacis Angliae reformandae . . . Denique in hoc assen-
tiunt omnes recuperare Vasconiam vi et armis. Tunc rex Scotiae
concessit regi Angliae per triennium omnes terras suas quae
sibi jure haereditario competebant in regno Angliae, in sub
sidium Vasconiae adipiscendae, regno Scotiae solummodo con-
tentus : ceterique comites et magnates de facultatibus suis
auxilium pollicentur.
Cheon. W. de Hemingbuegh, ii. 54. Eodem etiam anno
circa festum Ascensionis Domini omnes lanas terrae suae seisivit,
tam clericorum quam laicorum, et sic seisitas tenuit quousque
mercatores, data maxima pecuniae summa, eas quasi de novo
redimerent et haberent.
Ann. Wigoen. p. 516. Cito per ministros regis summa
saccorum lanae diligenter scrutata in Anglia et inventa, rex
decrevit quod de singulis saccis lanae approbatae quinque
marcas, et de sacco communis lanae tres marcas regi redderent
venditores. Cheon. W. de Hemingb. ii. 53. Rex Angliae, nescio quorum
fretus consilio, omnem pecuniam numeratam et omne depositum
in ecclesiis cathedralibus, domibus religiosis, et universis gazo-
phylaciis clericorum et laicorum, fratrumque Praedicatorum et
Minorum ceterorumque ordinum omnium, quarto scilicet die
Julii hora tertia, per ministros suos ad hoc praeordinatos, quasi'
ex improvise, cepit et in aerarium suum Londoniis reponi jussit,
multamque pecuniam consecutus est quam nunquam postea
restituit Ib. p. 54. Eodem anno vocavit rex per litteras suas archi
episcopos, episcopos, decanos ecclesiarum cathedralium et archi-
diaconos in propriis personis, clerumque uniuscujusque diocesis
per duos procuratores, ut in festo Sancti Matthaei apostoli coram
eo apparerent Londoniis. Quibus ibidem existentibus ait rex
' Domini carissimi, jam satis constat, ut audistis, de famosa ista
guerra quae inter regem Franciae et nos initium sumpsit ....
quoniam videtis comites, barones et milites vestros, quod non
solum bona verum etiam corpora sua pro vobis exponunt . . .
et vos igitur qui corpora vestra exponere non potestis, justum
est et rationi consonum ut de bonis vestris subveniatis. . . .
Quia recenter duo facta sunt in quibus admiramini, placare vobis
volumus et in hae parte respondere. Praecepimus quod omnes
lanae terrae arestarentur ; et hoc non sine causa fecimus, quia
nostrae voluntatis fuit ut de bonis terrae ipsa tena conservaretur

438 Edward I. [part
illaesa. Aliud est : datum fuit nobis intelligi quod moneta
terrae nostrae corrupta fuit et falsata, unde praecepimus quod
statutum monetae in suo robore teneretur, nihil maii suspicantes,
sed in hoc facto . . . fines mandati nostri quidam egressi sunt
et deceperunt nos ; unde parati sumus emendas facere pro libito
vestrae voluntatis.' . . . Respondit Oliverus Lincolniensis epi
scopus . . . ' detur igitur dies ad consulendum.' . . Datusque
est dies tertius. ... In unum tandem votum concordabant
omnes ut offerrent regi duas decimas in uno anno solvendas;
quod audiens rex indignatus est, et per suos satellites comminatus
se extra protectionem suam clerum velle ponere nisi medietatem
omnium bonorum concederent et votis ejus annuerent in hae
parte : statimque quasi stipula corda eorum dissipate sunt ;
quidam enim regi placere volentes festinanter, alii vero timore
perterriti subsequenter, concesserunt, et quia immunitas ec
clesiae, .... laesa fuit et violate, petiit clerus a rege
jubente quosdam articulos ; jussit enim rex postquam votis
ipsius paruerant, ut et ipsi ab eo peterent remedia quae vellent.
Et petierunt imprimis ut statutum de manu mortua, quod in
praejudicium sanctae matris ecclesiae fuerat editum, deleretur ;
cui quidem articulo respondit ipse rex, quod illud statutum
de consilio magnatum suorum fuerat editum et ordinatum, et
ideo absque eorum consilio non erat revocandum : ceteris autem
articulis quos proposuerant respondit de facili ; ita quod frustrati
et delusi reversi sunt ad propria, obligati tamen ad medietatem
concessam. Matt. Westm. p. 422. Praecepit saecularium militum bona
taxari et sibi per Angliam decimari. Mercatoribus et civibus
commorantibus in civitatibus muratis et villulis nundinariis,
senarium denarium ex omnibus quae possederant ejus necessi-
tatibus indixit persolvendum.
Patent Rolls, Nov. 12. Comites, barones, milites et omnes
alii de regno nostro in subsidium guerrae nostrae . . . decimam
de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus . . . concesserunt.
A.D. 1295. Ann. Wigoen. p. 522. Ad vincula Sancti Petri
rex tenuit parliamentum Londoniis, ubi uterque cardinalis pro
guerra quae orta est inter regem Angliae et regem Franciae de
pace publice praedicavit.
Matt. Westm. p. 425. In vigilia Sancti Andreae, accersito
clero, magnatibus, et populo apud Westmonasterium, de sub-
stantiis suis ad tuitionem regni petiit rex iterum sibi subsidium
exhiberi. Et concessa est ei undecima pars a quibus anno prae
terito decima solvebatur ; de quibus autem sexta, nunc vero

vn.] Excerpts. 439
septima est collata. Porro archiepiscopus Cantuariensis, in-
dulta sibi conferendi cum suffraganeis suis super hae re licentia,
unanimi assensu offerebat regi decimam ecclesiasticorum bono
rum. Qua etiam oblata sed minime admissa, redierunt iterum
episcopi super his tractaturi. Cernens igitur rex eorum con-
stantiam, misit ad eos quinquagenarium, magnum videlicet
justitiarium de banco, et eos qui sub eo fuerant, qui dixerunt
' Episcopi, haec dicit rex ; " oblatum vestrum neque accepto
neque acceptabo," sed festinanter descendite voluntatem ejus
supplendo, saltern quartern partem vel tertiam concedendo.'
Helias autem noster archiepiscopus cum clero de loco suo non
descendit. . . . Interim misit rex alium quinquagenarium can
cellariae suae et eos qui sub ipso erant: petierunt et hi quae
praedestinati poscebant. At in omnibus his non est clerus motus
a proposito suo, sed quoniam praeconcesserant decimam iterum
obtulerunt. Videns ergo rex suam petitionem vires cleri
excedere, nolens eos contristare, in crastino Conceptionis Beatae
Mariae eorum gratum acceptavit oblatum.
Patent Bolls, Dec. 4. Comites, barones, milites et alii de
regno nostro in subsidium guerrae nostrae . . . liberaliter fece
runt undecimam de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus; et cives,
burgenses et alii probi homines de dominicis nostris civitatibus
et burgis ejusdem regni septimam de omnibus bonis suis mobi
libus, exceptis his quae in decima ultima nobis concessa excipie
bantur, nobis curialiter concesserint. . .
A.D. 1296. Ann. Trivet, p. 352. Bex Angliae profectus in
Angliam apud Sanctum Edmundum parliamentum tenuit in
crastino Animarum, in quo a civitatibus et burgis concessa est
regi octava, a populo vero reliquo duodecima pars bonorum.
Clerus ob constitutionem Bonifacii papae hoc anno editam (sc.
litteras papae; Clericis laicos, Feb. 24, 1296), quae prohibet
sub poena excommuuicationis ne talliae vel exactiones a clero per
saeculares principes quocunque modo exigantur, vel eis solvantur
de rebus ecclesiae, regi pro guerca petenti subsidium denegavit.
Rex autem, ut de meliori responso deliberaret, negotium in aliud
parliamentum tenendum Londoniis in crastino Sancti Hilarii
distulit. Patent Rolls, Dec. 16... Comites, barones, milites et alii
de regno nostro in subsidium guerrae . . . duodecimam de omni
bus bonis suis mobilibus, et cives, burgenses et alii probi homines
de omnibus et singulis civitatibus, et burgis regni nostri, de
quorumcunque tenuris aut libertatibus fuerint, et de omnibus

440 Edward I. [part
dominicis nostris, octavam de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus . . .
concesserint. A.D. 1297. Ann. Trivet, p. 353. In parliamento Londoni-
ensi post festum Sancti Hilarii, clero in denegatione subsidii
persistente, rex ipsum a sua protectione exclusit, pro qua tamen
redimenda multi per se, multi vero per mediatores, regi bonorum
suorum dederunt postea quintam partem. Rex archiepiscopum
in hae parte rigidiorem comperiens, terras ejus omnes seisivit, et
de bonis ejusdem debita in rotulis scaccarii inventa praecepit
cum celeritate levari.
W. de Hemingeurgh, ii. 119. Quadragesimali tempore
praecepit rex ut omnes qui lanas haberent et coiia, ad certos
portus maris infra diem certum cariarent, sub poena perditionis
earundem et incarcerationis gravisque forisfacturae regis. Quod
cum ipsi fecissent, ministri regis omnes saccos lanae quinarium
numerum excedentes, datis talliis, acceperunt ad opus regis, et ab
unoquoque sacco numerum quinarium non excedente, ab ipsis
eorum dominis nomine malae toltae quadraginta solidos extor-
serunt. Insuper praecepit rex ut contra passagium suum in
Flandriam de quolibet comitatu acciperentur per vicecomitem
duo millia quarteria frumenti, et tantundem avenae, et ad portus
maris ducerentur. Factumque est sic, et talliabantur homines ad
certum numerum quarteriorum, etiam qui bladum non habebant;
accipiebantur et ab eis carnes bovinae et porcinae ad certum
numerum, et multae fiebant oppressiones in populo terrae.
Ib. p. 121. In festo Sancti Matthiae apostoli ejusdem anni,
convocatis optimatibus regni absque clero, tenuit rex parliamen
tum suum apud Salesbire, ubi rogavit quosdam magnatum ut in
Vasconiam transfretarent, et coeperunt singuli se excusare. In-
dignatusque rex comminabatur quibusdam eorum vel quod irent
vel quod terras eorum daret aliis qui ire vellent. Et in hoc
verbo scandalizati sunt multi et schisma coepit oriri inter eos.
Comes etiam Herefordensis et comes Marescallus excusaverunt se,
dicentes quod officia sua quae sibi jure haereditario competebant
facerent libenter eundo cum ipso rege. Iterataque prece rogatus
est comes Marescallus ut iret : et ait ' Libenter tecum vadam, 0
rex, praeeedendo faciem tuam in acie prima, sicut mihi competit
haereditario jure.' Et rex ' Etiam sine me ibis cum aliis.' At
ille, 'Non teneor, nee est meae voluntatis, O rex, sine te iter
arripere.' Et iratus rex prorupit in haec verba, ut dicitur ; 'Per
Deum, comes, aut ibis aut pendebis.' Et illi, ' Per idem jura
mentum, 0 rex, nee ibo nee pendebo.' Et licentia non accepta
recessit, dissolutumque est concilium quoad diem hanc. Con-

vn.] Excerpts. 441
festim vero duo comites isti, Herefordensis et Marescallus,
associatis sibi multis magnatibus et plusquam triginta bannerettis
electis, creverunt in populum multum, numeratique sunt in equis
armatis mille quingenti viri expediti ad bellum, et coepit eos
timere rex, dissimulavit tamen. Illi autem profecti in terras
suas noluerunt permittere ministros regis nee lanas, nee coria,
nee extraordinarium quicquam, capere aut aliquid exigere ab
invitis ; quin immo interdixerunt eis ingressum in terras suas
sub poena capitis et membrorum, et se ad resistendum prae-
parabant. Matt. Westm. p. 430. Congregatis archipraesule Cantuari-
ensi et quibusdam aliis coepiscopis suflraganeis suis apud Sanctum
Paulum Londini, XXVI. die Martii, iterum pro statu ecclesiae
consulturis, insurgentes protenus duo causidici et duo de ordine
Praedicatorum fratres, regalem et temporalem favorem aucu-
pantes, conati sunt argumentis probare clerum ipsi regi in
tempore belli, non obstante prohibitione apostolica, de suis
facultatibus posse licite subvenire ; insuper prohibito sub poena
incarcerationis, ne quis contra ipsum regem et eos qui jam-
pridem suam protectionem quaesierant excommunicationis sen
tentiam promulgaret, provocatione facta pro se ad Romanam
curiam et pro ipsis. Recesserunt igitur omnes oneratis suis
conscientiis per archiepiscopum sic dicentem 'salvet suam
animam unusquisque.'
Illo tempore voce praeconaria proclamatum fuit per Angliam
ut possessores lanarum exponerent ipsas venditioni infra men
sem in civitatibus assignatis, alioquin tanquam forisfactura
cederent ipsi regi : quae quidem in die Sancti Georgii, quasi
modo praelocuto callide congregatae pro forisfactura regis in
Flandriam sunt transvectae. His et aliis extortionibus turbati,
comites et barones Angliae parliamentum suum per se in foresta
de Wyre, quae est in Marchia, statuerunt. . . .
In crastino translationis Beati Thomae Martyris, citatis
comitibus et baronibus regni Londini, mandante rege suo con-
stabulario et suo marescallo, comitibus Northfolchiae et Here-
fordiae, adunati populi coram ipsis apud Sanctum Paulum,
adbreviare quot equitaturas quisque posset invenire ipsi regi
processuro ad bellum ; responderunt supplicando quatenus im-
peraret alicui alteti de domo sua illud offieium, eo quod non
citati immo rogati diverterant ad eundem. Et displicuit
sermo iste in oculis regis, assignatis interim duobus aliis mili
tibus in hujusmodi officio exsequendo. Eodem tempore, ad-
misso archiepiscopo Cantuariensi in gratiam regis atque reddita
sibi baronia sua, pridie idus Julii, ante magnam aulam regiam

442 Edward I. [part
Westmonasterii elevatus rex super gradum ligneum cum filio
suo et archiepiscopo, necnon comite Warwici, coram eo astante
populo, erumpentibus lacrymis veniam de commissis humillime
postulavit, dicens se minus bene et tranquille quam regem
deceret ipsos rexisse, portiunculas facultatum suarum quas sibi
dederant, seu quas ministri ejus ipso inscio extorserant, ideo
acceptasse ut injuriosos hostium conatus, sitientium sanguinem
Anglicanum, sumpta reipublicae particula, massa quietius possi-
denda, potentius expngnaret. Et addens, 'Ecce expositurus
meipsum discrimini propter vos. Peto, si rediero, suscipiatis me
velut in praesentia habetis, et ablata omnia reddam vobis.
Quod si non rediero, in regem vestrum meum filium coronetis.'
Haec autem, arehipraesule resoluto in lacrymas pollicente se
fideliter observare, totus populus fidelitatem extensis manibus
stipulantur. Absentantibus interea sponte praefatis comitibus
usque quo eorum petitio pro alleviati one patriae audiretur,
dixerunt quidam non fore proficuum regi in Flandriam transfre-
tare, neque ipsos sibi illic servitia, ab antecessoribus suis insueta,
praebere, praesertim ipsis Scottis jamdudum more Wallensium,
adhuc se praesente, recidivatis ad pugnam. Postularunt etiam,
allegata primitus communitatis exinanitione, ne de cetero per
Angliam tallagia usurparet ; rursum ut libertates, contentae in
Magna Carta ac de Foresta, in usu extunc efncacius haberen-
tur, et voluntarias super his inductas exactiones de cetero
quasi in irritum revoearet. Super quibus non protenus ex-
auditi cum indignatione recesserunt dicti comites et barones.
Quo viso rex, instinctu unitatis confovendae suasuque victoriae
adquirendae, articulos in praedictis cartis contentos innovari
insuper et observari mandavit, exigendo pro hae concessione ab
incolis octavum denarium sibi dari, qui mox concessus est a
plebe in sua tunc camera circumstante. Petiit etiam a clero
subsidium, qui respondit se velle summo pontifiei litteras sup-
plicatorias dirigere pro conferendi licentia obtinenda.
Patent Rolls, July 30. Comites, barones, milites et ceteri
laici regni nostri extra civitates, burgos et dominica nostra,
octavam partem omnium bonorum suorum mobilium, et cives,
burgenses et alii probi homines, de omnibus et singulis civi
tatibus et burgis ejusdem regni nostri, de quorumcunque tenuris
aut libertatibus fuerint, et de omnibus dominicis nostris, quintam
partem omnium suorum bonorum mobilium . . nobis concesserint.
W. Rishangee, Chron. p. 175. Rege moram adhuc faciente
apud Wynchelseyam, venerunt ad eum nuncii ex parte comitum
sui regni, petitiones in scriptis hujusmodi proponentes ; ' Haec

vn.] Excerpts. 443
sunt nocumenta quae archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, et priores,
comites et barones et tota terrae communitas, monstrant domino
nostro regi, et humiliter rogant eum ut ea ad honorem suum et
salvationem populi sui velit corrigere et emendare. In primis
videtur toti communitati terrae quod praemunitio facta eis per
breve domini nostri regis non erat sufficiens, quia non exprime-
batur certus locus quo debebant ire; quia secundum locum
oportebat facere providentiam et pecuniam habere. Et sive de-
berent servitium facere sive non ; quia dictum est communiter,
quod dominus noster vult transfretare in Flandriam, videtur toti
communitati quod ibi non debent aliquod servitium facere ; quia
nee ipsi nee praedecessores sui seu progenitores unquam fecerunt
servitium in terra ilia. Et quamvis ita esset quod deberent
ibi servitium facere ut alibi ; tamen non habent facultatem faci
endi ; quia nimis afflicti sunt per diversa tallagia, auxilia, prisas,
videlicet, de frumento, avena, braseo, lanis, coriis, bobus, vaccis,
carnibus salsis, sine solutione alicujus denarii, de quibus se de
buerant sustentasse. Praeter haec dicunt quod auxilium non
possunt facere, propter paupertatem in qua sunt propter tallagia
et prisas antedictas ; quia vix habent unde se sustentent, et
multi sunt qui nullam sustentationem habent, nee terras suas colere
possunt. Praeter haec tota terra communitatis sentit se valde
gravatam, quia non tractantur secundum leges et consuetudines
terrae secundum quas tractari antecessores sui solebant, nee
habent libertates quas solebant habere, sed voluntarie excludun-
tur. Sentiunt enim se multi gravatos super hoc quod solebant
tractari secundum articulos contentos in Magna Carta, cujus
articuli omnes sunt omissi in majus damnum populo universe
Propter quod rogant dominum nostrum regem quod velit ista
corrigere ad honorem suum et populi sui salvationem. Praeter
haec communitas terrae sentit se nimis gravatam de Assisa
Forestae quae non est custodita sicut consuevit : nee Carta
Forestae observatur, sed fiunt attachiamenta pro libitu extra
assisam aliter quam fieri consuevit. Praeterea tota communitas
sentit se gravatam de vectigali lanarum, quod nimis est onerosum,
videlicet de quolibet sacco quadraginta solidos, et de lana fracta
de quolibet sacco septem marcas ; lana enim Angliae ascendit
fere ad valorem medietatis totius tenae, et vectigal quod inde
solvitur ascendit ad quintam partem valoris totius terrae. Quia
vero communitas optat honorem et salutem domino nostro regi,
sicut tenetur velle, non videtur eis quod sit ad bonum regis quod
transeat in Flandriam, nisi plus esset assecuratus de Flandren-
sibus pro se et pro gente sua, et simul cum hoc propter tenam
Scotiae quae rebellare incipit, ipso existente in terra ; et aesti-

444 Edward I. [part
mant quod pejus facient cum certificati fuerint quod rex mare
transient. Nee solum pro terra Scotiae sed etiam pro terris
aliis quae non sunt adhuc modo debito stabilitatae.'
Has petitiones cum rex apud Odemer juxta Wynchelseyam
recepisset, respondit se talibus non posse sine suo consilio respon-
dere ; cujus pars jam aliqua transiit in Flandriam, pars vero
aliqua Londoniis est relicta. . . . Duodecimo kalendas Septem-
bris, rex Angliae naves ingressus, indissoluta classe, sulcato mari,
sexto die sequenti applicuit in Flandria. . . .
Matt. Westm. p. 430. ... In vigilia Sancti Bartholomaei
Apostoli . . . accedentes praefati comites et barones ad scacca
rium domini regis apud Westmonasterium, prohibuerunt baro
nibus loci illius ne levare facerent per vicecomites octonarium
denarium a populo Anglicano, dicentes de conscientia suorum
non emanasse, sine quorum assensu tallagium non debet exigi vel
imponi. W. Rishanger, p. 178. . . . inhibuerunt ne levari facerent
octavum denarium a populo, qui regi concessus fuerat apud
Sanctum Edmundum. Iuduxerunt etiam cives Londoniarum
ut pro recuperandis suis libertatibus secum starent.
W. Hemingbuegh, ii. 147. Consiliarii regis nostri . . . insti-
terunt apud filium regis . . . ut comites praedictos Marescallum
scilicet et Herefoidensem, . . . rogaret et interpellaret ad pacis
unitatem et amorem. Missis ergo litteris suis rogavit eos ut
ad parliamentum suum, eo quod patris sui locum tenebat in
Anglia, venirent Londoniis X. die Octobris celebrandum. Qui
novi praeceptoris et futuri principis rogatum amplectentes, vene
runt ad eundem diem, non tamen nudi, immo cum mille quin-
gentis equis armatis et magna copia peditum electorum. Portas
tamen civitatis noluerunt ingredi nisi primo concederetur eis
quod in omnibus portis civitatis ponerentur prius custodes
eorum ne forte absque armis ingressi velut oves in ovili claude-
rentur. Quo conccsso ingressi sunt, ubi tandem post consilia
multa et tractatus varios, mediante venerabili patre Cantuariensi
archiepiscopo magistro scilicet Roberto de Wynchelse, cujus
memoria in benedictione est, non fuit alia forma ad quam con
sentire voluerunt nisi quod ipse dominus rex Magnam Cartam
cum quibusdam articulis adjectis, et Cartam de Foresta, conce-
deret et confirmaret ; et quod nullum auxilium seu vexationem
a clero vel populo peteret vel exigeret in posterum absque
magnatum voluntate et assensu ; et quod omnem rancorem
remitteret eis et omnibus sibi associatis.

vn.] Excerpts. 445
Matt. Westm. p. 431. . . . Eadwardus filius regis . . . Magnas
Cartas . . . renovavit consilio senum usus, easdem confirtnante
patre suo apud Gandavum Vto idus Novembris.
W. Hemingbuegh, ii. 155. Pro hae autem confirmatione car
tarum praedictarum cum suis adjunctis praedictis dederunt
magnates tenae cum communi populo nonum denarium ; archi
episcopus Cantuariensis cum suo clero decimum denarium ; et
Eboracensis electus cum suo clero qui propinquiores periculo
exstiterunt, quintum denarium, in subsidium guenae regis in
regno Scotiae; lanas etiam religiosorum et aliorum de populo
prius acceperat rex, cum protestatione tamen quod allocarentur
in eodem quinto.
Patent Rolls, Oct. 14. . . . Archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates,
priores, comites, barones, milites et alii de regno nostro extra
civitates, burgos et dominica nostra, nonam partem omnium
bonorum suorum . . . nobis concesserunt. . . .
A.D. 1298. W. Rishangee, p. 185. Rex . . . parliamentum
tenuit Eboraci [in festo Pentecostes] . . . suis indixit ut cum
equis et armis parati essent Rokesburgiae in festo Sancti
Johannis Baptistae. . . . Sub eisdem diebus comites Herefordiae
et Marescallus, quia confirmatio cartarum fuerat facta in terra
aliena, petiverunt ad majorem securitatem eas iterum confirmari.
Spopondenmt autem pro rege episcopus Dunelmensis ac comites
Johannes Surreyae, Willelmus Warwici, Radulfus Gloverniae,
quod obtenta victoria rex eas post suum reditum confirmaret.
A.D. 1299. W. Hemingburgh, ii. 182. Rex . . . tendens
Londonias . . . tenuit . . . ibidem parliamentum suum in prin-
cipio Quadragesimae, ubi per praedictos comites . . . facta est con-
tentio magna super confirmatione Magnae Cartae. . . . Qui cum
abiissent, audierunt responsum non acceptabile quidem sed varia
ble ; articulos enim quos ipsi petierant sic confirmaverat rex ut
in fine adjiceret ' salvo jure coronae nostrae.' Quod auditom
displicuit, et recesserunt ad propria impacati. Consiliarii autem
regis, timentes seditionem populi, tradiderunt utrasque cartas sic
consignatas vicecomitibus Londoniensibus ut in publico lege-
rentur : factumque est sic in coemeterio Sancti Pauli congregato
populo universo : dumque viderentur imprimis cartae sic con-
signatae, benedixerunt Dominum et regem, sed audito fine cap-
tioso, confestim improperantes, maledictionem pro benedictione
intulerunt. Dissolutumque est consilium, et comites nostri ut
eonvenirent iterato in quindenam Paschae ante eorum recessum
diem receperunt. In quo quidem colloquio Londoniis celebrato
rex quasi omnia petita concessit et votis eorum paruit. Com-

446 Edward I. [part
promiseruntque quantum ad equitationem forestarum omnium
in regno Angliae in tres episcopos, tres comites, et tres barones,
ut ipsi, Deum habentes prae oculis, forestas equitari facerent, et
dubia emergentia secundum Dominum et justitiam dirimerent
et declararent.
Statutes of the Realm, i. 131. . . .Nous par commun
assentement des Prelate, des countes, e des barouns de meisme
le roiaume, avoms sur ceo ordene e establi remedye ...15 May.
(a.d. 1299.)
A.D. 1300. W. Hemingb. ii. 186. Rex . . . tenuit parlia
mentum suum apud Westmonasterium Londoniis in sequenti
Quadragesima,. ubi confirmationes praedictarum cartarum reno-
vavit et statuta fecit super eisdem cum aliis contentis plurimis.
Statutes of the Realm, i. 136. Pur ceo que les poynz de
la grant Chartre des Franchises et la Chartre de la Foreste . . .
ne unt pas este tenuz e gardez avant ces heures . . . nostre
seigneur le Boi les ad de novel grante, renovele, e conferme, "et
a la request des prelats, contes et barouns en soen parlement a
Westmonster, en quaremme Ian de soen regne vint et utisme, ad
certeine fourme et peyne ordene e establi, encontre tuz iceaus
que contre les poyntz des avandites chartres ou nul poynt de
eles, en nul manere vendront . . . . Le roi ad grante a soen
poeple qil eient eleccion de leur viscontes en cheseun conte ou
visconte ne est mie de fee sil voelent. . . .
Matt. Westm. p. 433. . . .Pro hoc confirmationis effectu
concesserunt comites et barones regi quintam decimam partem
bonorum suorum mobilium.
A.D. 1 30 1. Patent Roils, Oct. 24. . . . Cum vos sicut
ceterae communitates aliorum comitatuum regni nostri nobis
nuper in parliamento nostro Lincolniae (sc. Jan. 20, 1301) con-
cesseritis quindecimam omnium bonorum vestrorum mobi
lium. . . .
A.D. 1302. W. Hemingb. ii. 223. In octavis Sancti Jo
hannis Baptistae tenuit rex parliamentum suum Londoniis, et
exegit a clero et populo quintum decimum denarium de suis
temporalibus : scutagium etiam exegit eodem anno in Quadra
gesima et ceteris militibus concessit ut a suis tenentibus illud
facerent. Batent Rolls, Nov. 7. . . . Cum primo die Junii anno
regni nostri xviii0 praelati, comites, barones, et ceteri magnates de
regno nostro concorditer pro se et tota eommunitate ejusdem
regni in pleno parliamento nostro nobis concesserint quadra-

vn.] Order for Proclamation of the King's Peace. 447
ginta solidos de singulis feodis militum in regno nostro, in
auxilium ad primogenitam filiam maritandam . . . cujus auxilii
levationi faciendae pro dicto communitatis aisamento hucusque
supersedimus . . . assignavimus vos ad praedictum auxilium . . .
ad opus nostrum levandum et colligendum.
A.D. 1304. W. Hemingb. ii. 233. Exegit rex a civitatibus
suis et burgis sextum denarium secundum taxationem bonorum
suorum. Patent Rolls, Feb. 6. Constituimus vos ... ad assiden-
dos tallagium nostrum in civitatibus, burgis, et dominicis
nostris. A.D. 1306. Patent Rolls, Nov. 10. Archiepiscopi, epi
scopi, abbates, priores, comites, barones, milites, liberi homines
ac communitates comitatuum regni nostri tricesimam . . .
civesque et burgenses ac communitates omnium civitatem et
burgorum ejusdem regni necnon tenentes de dominicis nostris
vicesimam . . . concesserint.
A.D. 1307. W. Hemingb. ii. 252. In eadem Quadragesima
tenuit dominus rex Angliae parliamentum suum apud Carliolum,
fecitque ibi statuta quaedam.
Statutes of the Realm, i. 152. . .Dominus rex postdeliber-
ationem plenariam et tractatum cum comitibus baronibus pro
ceribus et aliis nobilibus a communitatibus regni sui habitum in
praemissis de consensu eorum unanimi et concordi ordinavit et
statuit . . .

A.D. 1272. Ordee foe the Peoclamation of the
King's Peace.
The reign of Edward I began on the 20th November, 1272 ;
on which day the oath of fealty was taken by the barons at
Westminster : and from this date he was called king. His
absence from England on the crusade rendered this necessary.
His predecessors, as a rule, became kings on their coronation,
and the doctrine that during the vacancy of the throne the
king's peace was interrupted made it necessary that the corona
tion should take place as early as possible. Henry II, Eichard I,
and John had each been in France when his predecessor died,
and during the interval before the coronation had been entitled
Duke of Normandy, or, sometimes, ' dominus Angliae ;' and the

448 Edward I. [part
maintenance of the peace had been ensured by the chief justiciar.
On this occasion the distance of Palestine from England ren
dered such delay very dangerous ; the archbishopric of Canter
bury was vacant, and the office of chief justiciar, in its ancient
sense, had come to an end. The royal council appears therefore
to have recognised Edward's hereditary right, and the fealty of
the barons, as perfecting his title to the name of king, previous
to coronation ;, and from henceforth (with the single exception
of Edward III) to the deposition of Henry VI the date of the
king's accession was the day following the death of his prede
cessor. From that event onwards the throne has never been
regarded as vacant by death ; the new reign beginning from the
moment at which the old one ceases.
Edwardus Dei gratia rex Angliae, dominus Hyberniae et
dux Aquitanniae, vicecomiti Eboracensi, salutem. Cum de-
functo jam Celebris memoriae domino Henrico rege, patre
nostro, ad nos regni gubernaculum, successione haereditaria ac
procerum regni voluntate et fidelitate nobis praestita, sit de-
volutum, per quod nomine nostro, qui in exhibitione justitiae
et pacis conservatione omnibus. et singulis de ipso regno sumus
ex nunc debitores, pacem nostram dicti magnates et fideles
nostri jam fecerunt proclamari ; tibi praecipimus quod per
totam ballivam tuim in singulis civitatibus et burgis, feriis,
mercatis, et locis aliis, pacem nostram publice clamari et firm
iter teneri facias, inhibendo omnibus et singulis sub periculo
exhaeredationis, necnon amissionis vitae et membrorum, ne quis
pacem nostram infringere praesumat. Nos enim omnibus et
singulis, in omnibus juribus et rebus ipsos contingentibus,
contra quoscunque tam majores quam minores parati sumus
et erimus plenam, auctore Domino, justitiam exhibere.
Testibus, W. Eboracensi archiepiscopo ; E. Cornubiae et G.
Gloucestriae comitibus ; apud Westmonasterium XXIII. die
Novembris anno regni nostri primo. — (Foedera, i. 497 ; Liber
de Antiq. Legg. p. 155.

A.D. 1275. The First Parliament of Edward I.
Edward held his first general parliament in 1275, in the second
week after Easter, beginning April 2 2 ; and to it are te be referred

vii.] First Parliament of Edward I. 449
two very important acts, the Statute of Westminster the
First, and the grant of the custom on wool, woolfells, and
leather. I. The parliament itself contained, as stated in the preamble
of the statute, ' the commonalty of the land,' as well as the
prelates and barons : and this expression is further illustrated
by the fact that the grant of the custom is said to be made by
the communitates as well as by the magnates, and at the in
stance of the merchants. It would appear almost certain that
some representatives of the commons must have been present,
but no writs for such attendance are forthcoming : it is possible
that the country may have been consulted by special commis
sioners, or the consent of the commons secured by other means.
II. This is said to be the first general parliament of Edward :
it is to be distinguished therefore from the terminal sessions for
judicial business which, during this reign, are also called parlia
ments, but the business of which was conducted by the king's
ordinary council.
III. The statute is said to be made by the king, ' par son
conseil, e par le assentement des Erceveskes,' &c, a form which
seems to show an intentional deviation from the proper ' consilio
et consensu.' In this substitution of concilium for consilium
lurks probably the principle that the king could enact on his
own authority— the principle of the Roman and later feudal
lawyers, who were at this time getting a firm grasp on the law
of England. Historically, it is to such a period as this that the
king's power of ordaining in his own council, as distinct from
enacting with counsel and consent of parliament, must be
traced. In the letters patent, however, which were directed to
the Sheriffs for the publication of the Statute in the hundred
courts and county courts, it is said to be made by the king de
commune consilio Praelatorum et magnatum. (Statutes, i. 39.)
The use of the French language by Edward I, a curious feature
in a policy essentially English, is also traceable to the lawyers,
and perhaps to the influence of the law schools of the Continent.
IV. The wool, the staple produce of England, had been a
coveted object of taxation early in the century : large quantities

450 Edward I. [part
of it had been seized for Richard's ransom in 1 1 94, and by the
barons in 1 264, and it was in many ways peculiarly amenable to
royal exactidn. We have now the first indication of legislative
enactment touching it. The custom, although heavy, seems to
have been granted to the crown in a way that was for the time
constitutional ; and the royal attempts to increase it illegally
were stoutly resisted. It was not sufficient to satisfy the king's
necessities at the time. Another parliament was held in the
autumn of 1275, to which knights of the shire were certainly
summoned, and in which the first grant of a fifteenth of move
ables was made on behalf of the community, from lay property
only. I. Statute of Westminster the First.
Ces sunt les Establisemenz le Rey Edward le fiuz le Eey
Henry, fez a Weymoster a son primer parlement general apres
son corounement apres la cluse Paske Ian de son regne tierz, par
son conseil e par le assentement des Erceveskes, Eveskes, Abbes,
Priurs, Contes, Barons, et la Communaute de la tere ileokes
somons. . . .
V. Pur ceo que elections deivent estre fraunches, le rey defent
sour sa greve forfeture que nul, haut home ne autre, par poer de
armes ne par malice ne desturbe de fere fraunche Election. . . .
XXXVI. Pur ceo que avaunt ces ures ne fut unkes resonable
aide a fere fiuz Chivalers, ou a filles marier, mise en certein, ne
quant ele devoit estre prise, ne quel houre, par quei les uns leve-
rent outraiouse aide plus tost que ne sembloit mester, dont le
pople se senti grevee ; purveu est que desoremes de fee de
Chivaler entier solement seient donez vint souz, e de vintliveres
de tere tenues par socage vint souz, e de plus plus, e de meins
meins, solum le afferaunt ; e que nul ne puisse lever tiel aide de
fere son fiuz Chivaler taunt que son fiuz seit de age de quinze
aunz, ne a sa fille marier taunt que ele seit de age de set aunz ;
et de ceo serra fet mencion en la brief le rey forme sur ceo, quant
il le veille demaunder. . . .
Translation.
These be the Acts of King Edward, son to King Ilenry, made at West
minster at his first parliament general after his coronation, on the Monday
of the Easter Utas, the third year of his reign, by his council and hy the

vn.] Custom on Wool. 451
assent of archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and the com
munity of the realm being thither summoned. . . .
V. And because elections ought to be free, the king commandeth upon
great forfeiture that no man by force of arms, nor by malice or menacing,
shall disturb any to make free election. . . .
XXXVI. Forasmuch as before this time reasonable aid to make one's
6on knight or to many his daughter was never put in certain, nor how
much should be taken, nor at wnat time, whereby some levied unreason
able aid, and sooner than seemed necessary, whereby the people were
sore grieved ; it is provided that from henceforth of a whole knight's fee
there be taken but xx. s. and of xx. pound land holden in socage xx. » ;
and of more more and of less less after the rate. And that none shall levy
such aid to make his son knight until his son. be fifteen years of age, or to
marry his daughter until she be of the age of seven years; and of that
there shall be made mention in the king's writ formed on the same, when
any will demand it. . . . — Statutes of the Realm, i. 26, 35.
II. Grant of Custom on Wool, Woolfells, and Leather.
Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos praesens scriptum perve
nerit Willelmus de Valencia comes Penbrok, salutem in Domino.
Cum archiepiscopi, episcopi, et alii praelati regni Angliae, ac
comites, barones, et nos et communitates ejusdem regni ad iu-
stantiam et rogatom mereatorum pluribus de causis unanimiter
concesserimus magnifico principi et domino nostro carissimo
domino Edwardo Dei gratia regi Angliae illustri, pro nobis et
haeredibus nostris, dimidiam marcam de quolibet sacco lanae et
dimidiam marcam pro singulis trescentis pellibus lanutis quae
faciunt unum saccum, et unam marcam de qualibet lesta corio-
rum, exeuntibus regnum Angliae et terram Walliae, percipi-
endas de cetero in singulis portubus Angliae et Walliae tam
infra libertates quam extra ; nos ad requisitionem et instantiam
praedictorum mereatorum concedimus, pro nobis et haeredibus
nostris, quod idem dominus rex et haeredes sui in singulis por
tubus nostris in Hibernia, tam infra libertates nostras quam
extra, habeant dimidiam marcam de quolibet sacco lanae et
dimidiam marcam de singulis trescentis pellibus lanutis quae
faciunt unum saccum, et unam marcam de qualibet lesta corio-
rum exeuntibus terram Hiberniae, percipiendam per manus
custodum et ballivorum ipsius regis, salva nobis forisfactura
illorum qui sine licentia et waranto ipsius domini regis, per lit
teras suas patentes sigillo suo ad hoc proviso signatas, hujusmodi
lanas, pelles, seu coria, per feoda nostra ubi libertates habemus
extra Hiberniam ducese praesumpserint. De quibus dictus
dominus rex et haeredes sui percipient et habebunt dimidiam
marcam de lanis et pellibus et unam marcam de lestis coriorum
in forma praedicta ; ita tamen quod in singulis portubus nostris
Gg 2

452 Edward I. [part
ubi brevia praedicti domini regis non currunt, eligantur duo de
discretioribus et fidelioribus hominibus portuum illorum, qui
praestito sacramento de lanis pellibus et coriis in dictis portubus
arestandis quousque mercatores lanarum, pellium et coriorum
praedictorum, warantum suum inde sub sigillo domini regis ad
hoc proviso habuerint, dictam consuetudinem fideliter colligant
et recipiant ad opus ipsius domini regis et sibi inde respondeant.
In cujus rei testimonium praesenti scripto sigillum nostrum
apposuimus. Datum in generali parliamento praedicti domini
regis apud Westmonasterium, die Dominica in festo Sancti
Dunstani episcopi anno regni ejusdem regis tertio. — (Parlia
mentary Writs, i. 2.)

A.D. 1277. Summons to an Ecclesiastical Council.
The following series of documents shows the growth of the
representative system in the construction of Church Councils
during this century : —
1. A summons by Archbishop Langton of the bishops, deans
of cathedrals, archdeacons, abbots, and conventual
priors.
2. A summons by the same archbishop, directing, in addition
to the above, the presence of proctors for the chapters
of the collegiate churches and for the monasteries.
Both these are for ecclesiastical business only.
3. A summons by Archbishop Boniface, directing the pre
sence of bishops, deans, abbots, and priors ; and of the
archdeacons with letters of proxy from the clergy of
their archdeaconries.
4. A summons by Archbishop Kilwardby, directing the
bishops to bring with them three or four of their
greater clergy.
The presence of proctors of the parochial clergy, although
such proctors were present in the Barliament of 1255,
is not yet regarded as an indispensable part of an
ecclesiastical assembly.

vn.] Ecclesiastical Councils. 453
5. A mandate addressed by Archbishop Kilwardby to the
Bishop of London as dean of the province, directing
him to summon the bishops of the province, with the
greater members of their chapters, the archdeacons and
the proctors of the clergy.
None of these writs corresponds exactly with the summons
to convocation in its modern sense.
I. A.D. 1225. Summons to a Council of Bishops.
Stephanus Dei gratia Cantuariensis archiepiscopus totius
Angliae primas et sanctae Bomanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis, vene
rabili fratri E. eadem permissione Londoniensi episcopo, salutem
in Domino. Fraternitati vestrae mandamus quatenus omnes
suffraganeos nostros vocetis, ut veniant Londonias in crastino
Epiphaniae Domini, et vocent decanos cathedralium ecclesiarum
et archidiaconos suos abbates etiam et priores conventuales, ut
similiter Londonias veniant, audituri mandatum domini papae,
termino memorato. Hujus igitur auctoritate mandati vobis
mandamus quatenus dictis die et loco secundum formam prae-
scriptam compareatis. Vos igitur secundum formam prae-
scriptam praesentiam vestram dictis die et loco exhibeatis.
Valete. — (Wilkins, Concilia, i. 602.)
II. A.D. 1225. Summons to a Convocation of the Prelates,
Archdeacons, and collegiate and monastic Clergy.
Mandamus vobis quatenus pro officii vestri debito faciatis
vocari omnes episcopos, abbates non exemptos a nobis, et omnes
priores et omnes decanos cathedralium ecclesiarum et praeben-
dalium, et omnes archidiaconos ; et significetis singulis capitulis
ut mittant procuratores tam videlicet ecclesiarum cathedralium
quam praebendalium et monasteriorum et aliarum domorum
religiosarum ac coUegiatarum, in virtute obedientiae et sub
poena suspensionis eis districtius injungentes, ut intersint Lon
doniensi concilio, quod erit Dominica post Pascha, qua cantatur
Misericordia Domini ; et significetis omnibus praedictis ut in
tersint, deliberent, et plene instructi venirent ad respondendum
nuncio domini papae super petitione ex parte domini papae, et
hoc faciant omni occasione et dilatione postpositis. Ut autem
sciatis qui sint abbates exempti a nobis, eos vobis duximus no-
minandos ; videlicet abbas Sancti Albani, abbas Westmonasterii,
abbas Sancti Edmundi, abbas Sancti Augustini Cantuariensis.

454 Edward I. [part
Hujus igitur auctoritate mandati vobis mandamus quod dictis
die et loco praefato intersitis concilio ; omnes insuper superius
nominates secundum formam ejusdem mandati vocandos citari
faciatis, ut sub poena superius expressa plene instructi, eisdem
die et loco praefato intersint concilio. — ( Wilkins, Concilia,
i. 602.)

III. A.D. 1258. Summons to a Convocation in which t/te
Archdeacons act as Proctors for the parochial Clergy.
Bogerus, Dei gratia Coventrensis et Lichfeldensis episcopus
dilecto filio archidiacono Staffordiae, salutem, gratiam, et bene-
dictionem. Mandatum venerabilis patris Bonifacii Dei gratia
Cantuariensis archiepiscopi, totius Angliae primatis, recepimus
in haec verba : ' Bonifacius permissione Divina, Cantuariensis
archiepiscopus, totius Angliae primas, venerabili in Christo
patri R. Dei gratia Coventrensi et Lichfeldensi episcopo, salutem
et fraternae dilectionis in Domino semper augmentum. Cum
propter ecclesiae Anglicanae eventus et causas quas fraterni-
tatem vestram ignorare non convenit, fratrum nostrorum con-
gregationem videamus opportunam, devotionem vestram roga
mus, monemus, et exhortamur in Domino, sub obedientiae
debito firmiter injungentes quatenus die Jovis proxima ante
instans festum Sancti Barnabae Apostoli apud Mertonani curetis
vestram praesentiarn exhibere, qualibet occasione cessante, ut
in hae urgenti necessitate ecclesia nostro regimini commissa
per vos et alios fratres nostros gratum habeat providi consilii
fulcimentum. Vocetis etiam decanos cathedralium ac aliarum
ecclesiarum, necnon abbates, priores majores, insuper et archi
diaconos vestrae diocesis universos, ut cum litteris suorum sub-
ditorum procuratoriis loco et die antedictis compareant, ut quod
communi deliberatione provisum fuerit ex membrorum cohae-
rentia firmius roboretur. Datum apud Lamhedam XIII kalen
das Maii, A.D. M° CC° L° VIII0.' Hoc igitur mandatum vice
nostra diligentius exsequamini, ac nihilominus vos ipsi com-
pareatis dictis die et loco, cum litteris procuratoriis cleri totius
archidiaconatus vestri, ut vestri praesentia firmius roboretur
quod ad utilitatem ecclesiae Anglicanae de consilio et assensu
vestro contigerit provideri. Datum VI0 kalendas Maii, ponti-
ficatus nostri anno primo. — (Ann. Burton, p. 411.)

vii. J Ecclesiastical Councils. 455
IV. A.D. 1273. Summons to a Convocation in which the
Diocesan Clergy are represented by Episcopal Nominees.
Robeetus, miseratione Divina Cantuariensis archiepiscopus
totius Angliae primas venerabili in Christo fratri et domino
H. Dei gratia Londoniensi episcopo, salutem et fraternae
dilectionis in Domino sempiternum augmentum. Postquam
cura sollicitudinis pastoralis officii nobis fuit Divina per-
missione commissa et injuncta, ad statum ecclesiarum. et eccle-
siasticarum personarum quoad potuimus nostrae mentis intu-
itum dirigentes, multa circa ea corrigenda et reformanda com-
perimus, quae de fratrum et coepiscoporum nostrorum salubri
consilio necesse est sine morae dispendio, per Dei adjutorium,
digne corrigere et in melius reformare. Hinc est quod
venerandae paternitati vestrae tenore praesentium mandamus
quatenus omnes ecclesiae nostrae Cantuariensis suffraganeos
auctoritate nostra vocetis, quod conveniant apud Novum Tem-
plum Londoniis die Mercurii proximo post instans festum
Sancti Dionysii, super statu ecclesiarum et ecclesiasticarum
libertatum, ac aliis quibusdam articulis necessariis, nobiscum
tractaturi, provisuri, et ordinaturi, quod ad Dei honorem et
ecclesiae Suae sanctae visum fuerit conveniens expedire. Et ut
negotium hujusmodi saniori consilio fulciatur, injungatis ex parte
nostra singulis episcopis ecclesiae nostrae suffraganeis, ut qui
libet eorum vocet et ducat secum ad praedictam congregationem
tres vel quatuor personas de majoribus, discretioribus et pru-
dentioribus, suae ecclesiae et dioceseos, ut communi mediante
consilio tantum ecclesiae Dei negotium, Ipsius misericordia
sufitagante, felicem sortiatur effectum. Vos etiam sub forma
consimili dictis die et loco compareatis, et faciatis 110s per litteras
vestras patentes, praesentium tenorem continentes, de hujus
mandati nostri executione diligenti certiores. Datum apud
Aldington, VIIm0 idus Septembris, consecrationis nostrae anno
primo. — (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 26.)
V. A.D. 1277. Summons to a Convocation, in which the
Diocesan Clergy are represented by their Proctors.
Robeetus Cantuariensis archiepiscopus H. Londoniensi
episcopo salutem, etc. Meminimus in congregatione nostra
communi dudum habita Northamptoniae negotia varia utili
tatem pariter et honorem totius ecclesiae Anglicanae tangentia
in medio fuisse proposita, in quorum executione, licet viae
de communi consilio excogitatae fuissent, et executores viarum

45 6 Edward I. [part
praedictarum varii deputati ; quia tamen in quibusdam negotiis
seu executionibus eorundem nobis adhuc exitus est incertus,
quaedam autem penitus inconsummata existunt, emerserunt
autem quaedam nova, quae ad aversionem nostrorum jurium,
consuetudinum, libertatum, et grave periculum ecclesiae Angli
canae redundant ; fraternitati vestrae per praesentia scripta
mandamus quatenus omnes fratres et coepiscopos seu suffra-
ganeos nostros auctoritate nostra faciatis peremptorie per vestras
litteras evocari, quatenus nobiscum in civitate Londoniarum in
crastino Beati Hilarii in propriis personis conveniant una cum
aliquibus personis majoribus de suis capitulis, et locoram archi-
diaconis, et proouratoribus totius cleri diocesium singularum,
nobiscum super negotiis memoratis tam praedictis quam in-
stantibus efficacius tractaturi ; ut eisdem eorundem communi
mediante consilio finis imponatur laudabilis, ut ita incerta
certitudinem et inconsummata consummationem et emergentia
nova consilium debitum sortiantur. Qualiter autem hoc no
strum mandatum fueritis executi, nos per vestras litteras
patentes harum seriem continentes, certificare curetis die et loco
praedictis. Datum apud Mechlindon XVI0 kalendas Decembris,
A.D. M°CC0LXX°VII0.— (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 30.)

A.D. 1278. Writ foe Distraint of Knighthood.
This custom is illustrated by writs dating from the early
years of Henry III.
In relation to Edward's reign, it must be regarded chiefly as
one of a class of expedients for raising money. The necessities
of the crown were large ; its estates impoverished ; in 1275 the
custom on wools and a fifteenth on moveables had been granted.
It was not until 1279 that the ecclesiastical revenues were taxed,
nor until 1282 that a new aid was granted. In the meantime,
a revenue was raised by accepting fines ' pro respectu- militiae'
for respite of knighthood. This measure may be compared with
the scutage of Henry II, and with the Assize of Arms, but it
is socially interesting as showing the increase in number and
wealth of the tenants in socage, the most thoroughly English
part of the population. In the following Act knighthood is
made incumbent on the possessors of land worth £20 per
annum: in 1282 all persons possessing an estate of £30 per

vn.] Statute of Mortmain. 457
annum are ordered to provide themselves with a horse and
armour: in 1285, all freeholders holding estates of less than
£100 a-year are excused knighthood : in 1292, all holding £40
a-year in fee are to be distrained: in 1297, all holding over
£20 a-year are summoned to military service. And so on.
The principle was at once elastic and easy of application. Its
importance however is prospective.
Matthew of Westminster ascribes to Henry III in 1253 a
measure compelling all freeholders possessing fifteen pounds
a-year in land to become knights ; but this is perhaps an error
caused by a confusion between the Assize of Arms, which directs
such persons to provide a horse and armour (above, p. 371), and
the later practice.
Rex vicecomiti doucest. salutem. Praecipimus tibi firmiter
injungentes quod omnes illos de balliva tua qui habent viginti
libratas terrae, vel feodum unius militis integrum valens viginti
libras per annum, et de nobis tenent in capite et milites esse
debent et non sunt, sine dilatione distringas ad arma militaria
citra festum Natalis Domini proximo futurum, vel in eodem
festo, a nobis suscipiendum : distringas etiam sine dilatione
omnes illos de balliva tua qui habent viginti libratas terrae, vel
feodum unius militis integrum valens viginti libras per annum,
de quocunque teneant, et milites esse debent et non sunt, ad
hujusmodi arma in eodem festo vel interim suscipiendum : ita
quod bonam et sufficientem securitatem inde ab eisdem recipias
et nomina omnium illorum per visum duorum legalium militum
comitates praedicti in quodam rotulo conscribi, et nobis sub
sigillo tuo et sigillis duorum militum sine mora transmitti
facias. Et scire te volumus quod de gesto tuo in executione
hujus mandati nostri diligentem faciemus executionem et extunc
remedium super hoc fieri faciemus opportunum. Teste Rege
apud Westmonasterium, XXVI. die Junii. — (Parliamentary
Writs, i. 214.)

A.D. 1279. Statute of Moetmain.
The parliament in which the Statute de Religiosis was enacted
appears to have been the same assembly in which the king
demanded of the clergy an aid which should represent, on their
part, the fifteenth granted by the baronage in 1275. This de-

458 Edward I. [part
mand is placed by the annals of Osney on the 1st of November,
1280; but it is shown by the letters of the two archbishops
(above, p. 432) to belong to 1279. It was responded to, after
some hesitation, by a grant of a tenth of ecclesiastical revenue
for two years in the province of York, and by one of a fifteenth
for three years in the province of Canterbury : and these were
made early in 1280.
The repressive character of the Mortmain Act, as- well as the
urgency of the demand for an aid, was probably owing at the
moment to the alarm taken by the king and his advisers at the
energetic action of Archbishop Peckham, who had, in legislating
for the Church at the Council at Reading, gone, as the king
thought, beyond the limits of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, especially
in directing that a new copy of Magna Carta should be annually
posted up in all cathedral and collegiate churches. Although,
however, this statute may have been timed by a wish to repress
ecclesiastical assumptions, it was unquestionably called for by
the prevalence of an abuse which had existed from the first
day of the Church Establishment in England ; the fraudulent
bestowal of estates on religious foundations, on the understand
ing that the donor should hold them as fiefs of the Church, and
as so exonerated from public burdens. There is no period of
our history at which complaints of this practice may not be
found. But it had been wholesomely treated by Henry II, in
enforcing scutages from the knights' fees held by the clergy, a
principle of which the following statute may be regarded as an
expansion. The Statute of Mortmain bears a close relation to
the statute Quia Emptores, enacted eleven years later, in which
the feudal dues of the superior lords, the king the chief of them,
are secured by the abolition of subinfeudation ; as in this act
they are secured by the limitation of ecclesiastical endowments.
In both these points Edward's policy was a carrying out of the
principles of his great-grandfather.Statutum De Viris Religiosis.
Bex Justitiariis suis de Banco, salutem. Cum dudum pro
visum fuisset quod viri religiosi feoda aliquorum non ingrede- .

vn.] Statutum De Viris Religionis. 459
rentur sine licentia et voluntate capitalium dominorum de qui
bus feoda ilia immediate tenentur ; et viri religiosi postmodum
nihilominus tam feoda sua propria quam aliorum hactenus in
gressi sint, ea sibi appropriando et emendo et aliquando ex dono
aliorum recipiendo, per quod servitia quae ex hujusmodi feodis
debentur et quae ad defensionem regni ab initio provisa fuerunt
indebite subtrahuntur, et domini capitales escaetas suas inde
amittunt ; nos super hoc pro utilitate regni congruum remedium
provideri volentes, de consilio praelatorum, comitum et aliorum
fidelium regni nostri de consilio nostro existentium, providimus,
statuimus et ordinavimus, quod nullus religiosus aut alius qui
cunque terras aut tenementa aliqua emere vel vendere, aut sub
colore donationis aut termini vel alterius tituli cujuscunque,
ab aliquo recipere, aut alio quovis modo, arte vel ingenio, sibi
appropriare praesumat, sub forisfactura eorundem, per quod
ad manum mortuam terrae et tenementa hujusmodi deveniant
quoquo modo. Providimus etiam quod si quis religiosus aut
alius, contra praesens statutum, aliquo modo, arte vel ingenio,
venire praesumpserit, liceat nobis, et aliis immediatis capitalibus
dominis feodi taliter alienati, illud infra annum a tempore
alienationis hujusmodi ingredi et tenere in feodo et haereditate.
Et si capitalis dominus immediatus negligens fuerit, et feodum
hujusmodi ingredi noluerit infra annum, tunc liceat proximo
capitali domino mediato feodi illius, infra dimidium annum
sequentem, feodum illud ingredi et tenere, sicut praedictum
est ; et sic quilibet dominus mediatus faciat si propinquior
dominus in ingrediendo hujusmodi feodum negligens fuerit,
ut praedictum est. Et si omnes hujusmodi capitales domini
hujusmodi feodi, qui plenae fuerint aetatis et infra quatuor maria
et extra prisonam, per unum annum negligentes vel remissi fue
rint in hae parte, nos statim post annum completum a tempore
quo hujusmodi emptiones, donationes aut alias appropriationes
fieri contigerit, terras et tenementa hujusmodi capiemus in ma
num nostram, et alios inde feoffabimus per certa servitia nobis
inde ad defensionem regni nostri facienda ; salvis capitalibus
dominis feodorum illorum, wardis, escaetis et aliis ad ipsos
pertinentibus, ac servitiis inde debitis et consuetis. Et ideo
vobis mandamus quod statutum praedictum coram vobis legi
et de cetero firmiter teneri et observari faciatis. T. R. apud
Westmonasterium XV0 die Novembris anno etc. septimo. —
(Statutes of the Realm, i. 51.)

460 Edward I. [part
A.D. 1282-1283. Weits for Parliament and other
National Councils.
The financial and parliamentary proceedings of the years
1282 and 1283 are very interesting. They may be regarded as
marking the point of final transition from the system of local to
that of central assent to taxation. The earlier method by which
the king treated with the several local communities through his
officers or through their own magistrates had been generally
adopted until the reign of John : although the barons and
prelates made their grants in the ' Commune Concilium,' the
lower freeholders, lay and clerical, were treated with separately,
the towns and counties through negotiations of the officers of the
exchequer or the sheriffs with the magistrates or with the county
court, the lower clergy through negotiations of the same royal
officers with the archdeacons. At several periods the method of
centralisation had been used in reference to both classes ; but
the borough representation was not yet permanently adopted,
and therefore the vote of money by the magnates was necessarily
followed up by a separate negotiation with the towns ; and with
regard to the clergy, although the representative system was
further advanced, it does not seem to have been yet applied to
the making of money grants : in other words, although for
ecclesiastical business the proctors of the diocesan clergy had
been called into councils, there is no proof that they had yet
granted money. To this extent, then, the method of local nego
tiation supplemented the grants of money made by the central
assemblies. It is at this date that the former method vanishes
and the latter conies into full play.
In 1282 Edward, being in need of money for the war in
Wales, despatched John Kirkby, afterwards Treasurer of the
Exchequer and bishop of Ely, to negotiate separately with the
counties and boroughs for a subsidy. The envoy carried letters
of credence from the king dated at Chester in the month of
June. (No. I.)
The negotiation was favourable to the crown : John Kirkby
reported the willingness of the taxpayers to make a grant, and

vn.] Parliamentary Proceedings. 461
collected considerable sums, for which the king issued letters of
thanks, dated at Denbigh in October. (No. H.) Between these
dates the whole military force of the kingdom had been called
together at Bhuddlan for the 2nd of August.
It was now, however, clear that the sums raised by this nego
tiation would not be sufficient to satisfy the royal necessities,
and that a general grant must be asked for. But it would be
extremely inconvenient either for the king and baronage to
move from Wales to hold a parliament, or for the representatives
of the counties and boroughs or the clergy to be summoned
to Rhuddlan. Accordingly writs were issued on the 24th of
November to the sheriffs and to the two archbishops, directing
them to collect in two provincial assemblies at Northampton
and York the representatives of the two estates. These assem
blies were to be held on the 20th of January, 1283 ; the sheriffs
were to summon four knights of each shire, and two representa
tives of each city, borough, and market town; and with them
all freeholders capable of bearing arms and holding more than a
knight's fee. (No. III.)
The archbishops were to summon, through the bishops, the
heads of the religious houses and the proctors of the ca
thedral clergy, no notice being taken of the parochial clergy.
(No. IV.)
The magnates, it is to he remembered, were with the king in
Wales. The assemblies met at the appointed places and on the same
day, in two bodies, a lay and clerical one, at each centre.
I. The commons assembled at Northampton determined to
grant the king an aid in the same proportion as that which
should be granted by the ' magnates ; ' who, it must be supposed,
sio-nified to the king their willingness to grant a thirtieth : the
king's letters to the counties, thanking them for this, are dated
at Rhuddlan, Feb. 28th, 1283. (No. VII.)
II. The corresponding assembly at York seems to have acted
somewhat differently, perhaps to have made a larger or a smaller
offer. The king, however, in answer (dated Marcii 18th) to
the communication of his officers, expresses his gratitude to

462 Edward I. [part
the northern counties and his intention of taking of them the
thirtieth as in the case of the southern province. In the form
drawn out for the collection of this thirtieth, it is expressly pro
vided that all sums paid by the several communities in con
sequence of the negotiations canied on by John Kirkby in 1282
shall be deducted from the amount now payable by virtue of the
general grant.
It was different with the ecclesiastical assemblies.
III. The clergy of the province of Canterbury met at North
ampton under the archbishop, and were asked for a tenth of their
revenue for three years ; they excused themselves from replying
at once, the chief cause alleged being the absence of the larger
portion of their body — that is, the non-representation of the pa
rochial clergy. In consequence of this the archbishop (on the
2 1st of January) issued a mandate to the Bishop of London,
directing him to summon two proctors for the parochial clergy
of each diocese, and one proctor to represent each of the chapters
of the province. (No. V.) These were to meet the bishops at
the New Temple at London three weeks after Easter. This plan
of organising the representation of the clergy is said in the man
date to have been arranged in the council of Northampton, and
it was either then or shortly after embodied in a formula, which
may be regarded as settling historically the representation of the
clergy in the convocation of the province of Canterbury : —
'Item praecipimus, ut in proxima congregatione nostra tempore parlia
ment! proxirai post festum Sancti Michaelis ad tres hebdomadas per Dei
gratiam futura, praeter personas episcoporum et procuratores abstentium,
veniant duo aut unus [al. ad minus] a clero episcopatuum singulorum, qui
auctoritatem habeant una nobiscum tractare de his quae ecclesiae et com
muni utilitati expediunt Anglicanae, etiamsi de contributione aliqua vel
expensis oportet fieri mentionem.' — ( Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 49.)
This formula is sometimes treated as a canon, and appended,
erroneously, to the decrees of the council of Reading in 1279.
The convocation thus constituted met at London three weeks
after Easter, and was unable to come to a determination. The
clergy were in fact hampered by the grant made in 1280 to the
king, of a fifteenth of ecclesiastical revenue for three years, a

vn.] Parliamentary Proceedings. 463
year and a term of which were not yet due. (See abeve, p. 458.)
The archbishop was compelled to issue a new mandate, directing
the assembly of convocation three weeks after Michaelmas ; in
preparation for this meeting all the bishops of the province were
(Aug. 6th) directed to call together their clergy in diocesan
synods, so that the proctors, when they met, should be able to
give a distinct answer. The objections of the clergy seem to
have been overcome, but the records of the determination of the
dispute are not found.
IV. Of the assembly of the clergy at York we only know that
their meeting was either delayed or prorogued to the 16th of
February : probably they followed the lead of the southern
province. Before the convocation of Canterbury had determined on its
answer to the king's commissioners, Edward had found it neces
sary to call another council of the kingdom. David, the brother
and successor of Llewelyn, had surrendered as prisoner, and the
king was preparing to try him as a traitor. For this purpose he
summoned the baronage (by writs dated at Bhuddlan, June 28)
to meet at Shrewsbury on the 30th of September. Not content,
however, with calling together an assembly of the peers of the
accused, he summoned also the representatives of the counties ;
and in addition to these he directed letters to the magistrates of
London and twenty other towns, ordering them to return two
representatives for each. (No. VI.) This assembly differs from
an ordinary parliament in two important particulars : (1) it did
not contain the clergy or even the bishops; and (2) the repre
sentatives of the towns were summoned by separate writs, and
not through the sheriffs. It is, however, called the Parliament of
Shrewsbury or of Acton Burnell ; and was the assembly in which
the statute 'De Mercatoribus' was passed. Notwithstanding
the language of the writs, it would seem from the words of the
historians that David was tried by the baronage only ; and the
statute of Acton Burnell, although called by that name, was
really only an ordinance of the king and his council. It is
therefore only in the loosest meaning of the word that the name
of parliament is given to the assembly. The condemnation of

464 Edward I. [part
David and (the issuing of the ordinance completed the business
for which it was called together.
No. I. A.D. 1282. Letter of Credence for a Royal
Commissioner to raise an Aid.
Rex vicecomiti Warrewicsirae et Leycestresirae, civibus,
burgensibus, mercatoribus, majoribus, ballivis et communita-
tibus civitatum, burgorum, villarum mercatoriarum, et om
nibus aliis de comitatibus praedictis, salutem. Cum mittamus
dilectum et fidelem nostrum Johannem de Kirkeby pro quibus
dam negotiis nostris arduis et specialibus quae sibi injunximus
ex parte nostra et nomine nostra vobis ore tenus exponendis et
per vos expediendis, vobis mandamus in fide et dilectione qui
bus nobis tenemini, firmiter injungentes quod eidem Johanni in
praemissis firmam fidem adhibeatis et ea modis omnibus expleatis.
Injunximus autem eidem Johanni quod responsum et volunta
tem vestram nobis rescribat sine mora. In cujus, etc. T. R.
apud Cestriam, XIX. die Junii. — (Parliamentary Writs, i. 384.)
No. II. A.D. 1282. Letter of thanks for the Aid negotiated
by a Royal Commissioner.
Rex dilectis et fidelibus suis majori et civibus suis Here-
fordiae, salutem. De curiali subsidio quod nobis promisistis
ratione praesentis expeditionis nostrae Walliae, secundum quod
Johannes de Kirkeby clericus noster, quem ad vos propter
hoc cum litteris nostris de credentia transmisimus, nos inde
certioravit viva voce, vobis plurimum regratiamur et per Dei
gratiam vos inde conservabimus indemnes tempore opportune
Ceterum quia ad praesens pecunia plurimum indigemus, vobis
mandamus, in fide et homagio quibus nobis tenemini firmiter
injungentes, quod pecuniam dicti subsidii secundum extractas
sub sigillo praefati clerici nostri inde factas, ac vicecomiti nostro
Herefordscirae et vobis liberates, sub omni festinatione levari et
eidem vicecomiti liberari faciatis ad nos ducendam, prout ei man-
davimus per alias litteras nostras : et ita quod eam habeamus in
crastino Omnium Sanctorum ad ultimum. Et hoc, sicut cor
pora vestra et omnia quae habetis in regno diligitis, nullatenus
omittatis. Et advertatis inter alia quod non expediret aliquo
modo quod nos et exereitus noster recederemus a partibus
Walliae ad praesens pro defectu solutionis pecuniae illius de
qua coufidimus ad plenum. T. R. apud Dynbey, XXVIII. die
Octobris. — (Parliamentary Writs, i. 387.)

vii.] Writs of Summons. 46^

No. III. A.D. 1282. Writ of Summons of Knights
of the Shire.
Rex vicecomiti Norfolciae et Suffolciae, salutem. Quia
Lewelinus filius Griffini et alii Walenses complices sui, in-
imici et rebelles nostri, toties temporibus nostris et progeni-
torum nostrorum regum Angliae pacem regni nostri turbarunt
et rebellionem suam et malitiam jam resumptam continuare non
desistunt animo indurato, propter quod negotium quod ad
ipsorum versutiam reprimendam jam incepimns de consilio
procerum et magnatum regni nostri necnon et totius commu
nitatis ejusdem, ad praesens proponimus ad nostram et totius
regni pacem et tranquillitatem perpetuam Deo concedente fina
liter terminare, commodius etiam et decentius esse perpendimus
quod nos et incolae terrae nostrae ad ipsorum malitiam totaliter
destruendam, pro communi utilitate, laboribus et expensis fati-
gemur hae vice, licet onus difficile videatur, quam hujusmodi
turbatione per Walenses ipsos nunc habita pro voluntate sua
futuris temporibus cruciari, prout tempore nostro et progenito-
rum nostrorum contigit manifeste, tibi praecipimus, firmiter
injungentes :—
1. Quod venire facias coram nobis in octavis Sancti Hillarii
apud Norhamptoniam aut coram fidelibus nostris quos ad hoc
duxerimus deputandos, omnes illos de balliva tua ad arma
potentes et aptos qui habent ultra viginti libratas terrae et qui
nobiscum in expeditione nostra Wallensi non existunt ;
2. Et quatuor milites de utroque comitatuum praedictorum
pro communitatibus eorundem comitatuum habentes plenariam
potestatem ;
3. Et de qualibet civitate, burgo, villa mercatoria, duos
homines similiter potestatem habentes pro communitatibus
eorundem, ad audiendum et faciendum ea quae sibi ex parte
nostra faciemus ostendi. Et nulli de balliva tua ultra viginti
libratas terrae habenti et ad arma potenti et apto, amore, favore,
munere seu timore vel alia quacunque ratione, parcere vel de-
ferre praesumas. Nee etiam aliquem ultra viginti libratas
terrae non habentem, licet ad arma aptus seu potens fuerit,
coram nobis vel fidelibus nostris praedictis aliquatenus venire
facias ex causa praedicta. Et de nominibus omnium illorum 1
quos sic venire feceris nos vel praedictos fideles nostros ad
praedictos diem et locum per praefatos quatuor milites reddas
certiores. Et habeas ibi nomina illorum quatuor militum et |
hoc breve. Et haec omnia sicut te et tua diligis facere non
omittas. T. R. apud Rothelan XXIV. die Novembris.
Hh

&66 Edward I. [part
Eodem modo mandatum est vicecomitibus Nottingham et
Derb., Sallop., Staff., Cant.,' Hunt., Essex., Hertford., Buk., Bed.,
Somers., Dor., Surr., Suss., War., Lege, Oxon., Berk., Kane.,
Midd., Northampt., Rotel., Line., Cornub., Devon., Wilt., Heref,
Wygorn., Glouc, et Suthampt., quod venire faciant, etc. apud
Norhamptoniam. Et vicecomitibus Ebor., Cumb., Westmor.,
Northumbr., et Lane, quod venire faciant, etc. apud Eboracum.
— (Barliamentary Writs, i. 10.)
No. IV. AD. 1282. Writ of Summons to tlie Archbishop
of Canterbury and Clergy.
Rex venerabili in Christo patri Johanni eadem gratia
Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, totius Angliae primati, salu
tem. Quia Lewelinus, etc., as in the writ to the Sheriffs to
contigit manifeste ; vobis mandamus rogantes quatenus suffra-
ganeos vestros et abbates, priores et alios singulos domibus
religiosis praefectos, necnon et procuratores decanorum et capi-
tulorum ecclesiarum coUegiatarum vestrae et suffraganeorum
vestrorum diocesium, venire faciatis coram nobis apud Nor
hamptoniam in octavis Sancti Hillarii, vel coram fidelibus nostris
quos ad hoc duxerimus deputandos, et vos eisdem die et loco
intersitis ad audiendum et faciendum ea quae pro re publica
vobis et sibi ostendi super hiis faciemus, et ad praestandum
nobis consilium et juvamen, praesertim cum vestra sicut aliorum
intersit per quod negotium jam inceptum ad laudem et
honorem Dei et magnificentiam nostrae famae ac totius regni
nostri et populi pacem et tranquillitatem perpetuam valeamus
hae vice, ut intendimus, feliciter consummare. Teste ut supra.
Consimilis littera et de eadem data dirigitur archiepiscopo
Eboracensi quod suffraganeos, etc. venire faciat coram Rege
apud Eboracum in octavis praedictis vel coram fidehbus B.
quos, etc. — (Barliamentary Writs, i. 10.)
No. V. A.D. 1283. Writ of the Archbishop summoning the
Clergy to Convocation.
Feater J. etc. episcopo Londoniensi etc. Quoniam in congre
gatione ad instantiam domini regis habita Northamptoniae in
octavis Sancti Hilarii, nunciis ejusdem domini regis super qui
busdam nobis et suffraganeis nostris ac clero praesenti ibidem
ex parte ipsius expositis, tum propter absentiam maximae partis
cleri tunc temporis modo debito non vocati, tum propter alia
diversa, ad plenum non potuit responderi, de communi tunc prae
sentium consilio exstitit ordinatum, ut nostis, quod clerus totus

vn.] Writs of Summons. 467
Cantuariensis provinciae ad certos diem et locum pro danda
responsione hujusmodi congregetur. Quocirca fraternitati ves
trae tenore praesentium praecipiendo mandamus, quatenus con-
fratres nostros episcopos Cantuariensis ecclesiae suffraganeos
omnes et singulos, necnon abbates, priores ac alios quoscunquc
domibus religiosis praefectos, exemptos et non exemptos, decanos
ecclesiarum cathedralium et coUegiatarum, ac archidiaconos uni-
versos per Cantuariensem provinciam constitutos, citetis vel
citari faciatis peremptorie, quod compareant coram nobis per se
vel per procuratores sufficienter instructos, seu conveniant apud
Novum Templum Londoniis a die Pascha in tres septimanas,
super his, quae ex parte domini regis in congregatione praedicta
exposita fuerant, tractaturi ac ulterius facturi quod Dominus
inspirabit. Singuli insuper episcopi, sicut in dicta congrega
tione provisum fuerat, circa diem praedictum clerum suae diocesis
in aliquo loco certo congregari faciant, et eadem quae ex parte
regis nobis proposita fuerant, diligenter exponi procurent; ita
quod ad dictos diem et locum Londoniis, de qualibet diocesi duo
procuratores nomine cleri, et de singulis capitulis ecclesiarum
cathedralium et coUegiatarum singuli procuratores, sufficienter
instructi mittantur, qui plenam et expressam potestatem habeant
una nobiscum et confratribus super praemissis tractandi, et con-
sentiendi hiis quae ibidem ad honorem ecclesiae, consolationem
domini regis, et pacem regni, cleri communitas providebit. De
nominibus vero abbatum, priorum et aliorum religiosorum, deca-
norum, archidiaconorum, procuratorum tam cleri cujuslibet
diocesis, quam capitulorum, singuli episcopi pro suis diocesibus
ad dictos diem et locum per suas litteras distincte nos certificent
et aperte. Vos autem quos tunc praesentes adesse volumus,
nobis rescribatis, per vestras litteras patentes, harum seriem
continentes, qualiter praesens mandatum nostrum fueritis exe
cute Datum Northamptoniae XII. kalendas Februarii. A.D.
M°CCoLXXX°IU°.- (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 93.)
No. VI. a. A.D. 1283. Summons of Borough Members
to a National Council.
Rex majori, civibus, et vicecomitibus Londoniarum. Quot
fraudum et machinationum generibus lingua Walensium, ad
mstar vulpium, progenitores nostros, nos, et regnum nostrum
invaserit a tempore quo potest hominis memoria recordari, quot
strages magnatum, nobilium, et aliorum tam Anglicorum quam
aliorum, juvenum atque senum, mulierum et etiam parvulorum,
fecerit, quot castrorum et maneriorum incendia tam nostrorum
quam aliorum incolarum regni hujus posuerit, quoties turbaverit
H h 2

468 Edward I. [part
et infecerit regnum nostrum, Deum vel hominem non verendo,
vix posset lingua hominis per singula enarrare ; verum qualiter
hiis diebus, ut praeterita taceamus, Lewelinus filius Griffini
Walliae quondam princeps, et David germanus ejus, spreto
fidelitatis quam nobis fecerant debito, assueta relinquere non
valentes, proditionalius solito villas nostras subito combusserunt,
et proh dolor ! quibusdam fidelibus nostris occisis, quibusdam
combustis, et aliis diris carceribus mancipatis, castra nostra
invadere ausu temerario praesumpserunt, fundendo immaniter
sanguinem innocentem, jam est regni nostri singulorum auribus
inculcatum. Sed Ille, Qui post peccatoris conversionem diutius
exspectavit, ipsum induratum praecipitari permittit, hujus frau-
dibus, machinationibus, incendiis et caedibus inhumanis, ut ap
paret verisimiliter, imponere finem volens, dicto principe prius
interfecto, tandem dictum David, qui quasi ultimus superstes de
dictorum proditorum genere habebatur, captivatum per homines
linguae suae nostro carceri destinavit ; super quo Eidem gratias
sicut Ipsum factorem credimus hujus rei. Et quia cum fidelibus
nostris volumus habere colloquium quid de David fieri debeat
memorato, quem relegatum susceperamus, nutriveiamus orpha-
num, ditaveramus de propriis terris nostris, ipsum inter majores
nostri palatii collocantes ; vobis mandamus quod duos de sapi-
entioribus et aptioribus civibus praedictae civitatis eligi faciatis,
et eos ad nos mittatis, ita quod sint ad nos apud Sallopiam in
crastino Sancti Michaelis proximo futuro, nobiscum super hoc
et aliis locuturi. Et hoc nullatenus omittatis. T. Rege apud
Rothelan., XXVIID0 die Junii.
A similar letter was addressed to the mayors and citizens of
Winchester, York, Exeter, Lincoln, Canterbury, and Carlisle :
to the mayors and bailiffs of Newcastle - on -Tyne, Bristol,
Grimsby, and Lynn : to the mayors and good men of North
ampton, Hereford, Chester, and Worcester : to the bailiffs of
Norwich, Nottingham, Scarborough, and Colchester : and to the
bailiffs and good men of Yarmouth and Shrewsbury,
Sub forma praedicta mandatum est universis et singulis
vicecomitibus per Angliam, quod in quolibet comitatu eligi
faciant duos milites de discretioribus et aptioribus comitatus
illius ad regem pro eommunitate ejusdem comitatus venturos,
ita quod sint ad regem in crastino Sancti Michaelis praedicto
apud Sallopiam cum rege super hiis et aliis locuturi. — (Parlia
mentary Writs, i. 16.)

VII.] Statute of Winchester. 469
No. VI. b. A.D. 1283, Oct. 12. Statute of Merchants.
. . . Le rei par luy e par sun conseil ad ordine e establi . . . e par
cest establissement ne seit bref de dette abatu . . . Donee a
Actone Burnel le duzim jor de Octobre en Ian de nostre regne
unzim. (Statutes, i. 53, 54.)
No. VII. A.D. 1283. Writ for the Collection of a Thirtieth.
Rex militibus, liberis hominibus et toti communitati comi
tatus Suthamtoniae, salutem. De eo quod nuper per quatuor
milites ex parte communitatis comitatus praedicti usque Nor
hamtoniam missos, curialiter concessistis nobis facere subsidium
ratione praesentis expeditionis nostrae Walliae, secundum quod
magnates nostri providerent et in hujusmodi subsidio concor-
darent, vobis plurimum regratiamur. Et quia iidem magnates
perpendentes milites aliorum comitatuum regni nostri, ex parte
communitatis eorundem ad locum praedictum missos, subsidium
tricesimae de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus nobis ratione expe
ditionis praedictae concessisse, concordarunt ad hujusmodi sub
sidium tricesimae nobis in forma qua milites aliorum comi
tatuum praedictorum concesserunt faciendum, assignavimus
dilectos et fideles nostros Willelmum de Brayboef et Johannem
de Arundel ad dictam tricesimam assidendam, taxaudam, et per
ipsos et per vicecomites comitatus praedicti colligendam. Et
ideo vobis mandamus quod eisdem Willelmo et Johanni in prae
missis sitis intendentes, respondentes, consulentes et auxiliantes,
prout ipsi vobis scire facient ex parte nostra. In cujus etc.
T. E. apud Rothelan., XXVIII. die Febr. — (Parliamentary
Writs, i. 13.)

A.D. 1285. Statute of Winchestee.
This important statute may be regarded as representing the
sum of the series of documents, touching the Assize of Arms
and Watch and Ward, given already ; and thus as illustrating
rather the permanent and definite development in England of
primitive custom than any particular constitutional detail. In
the former stages of this process we have seen several points
in which constitutional influences were at work, or in which
the same influences were traceable as were at work on the
other portions of the national polity to which the name of

47° Edward I. [part
constitutional is more frequently given ; such as the alodial
basis of these institutions, and the use of jury-inquest in the
administration of them. Such matters become now of archaeo
logical interest only. But the Statute of Winchester is a monu
ment of the persistence of primitive institutions working their
way through the superstratum of feudalism and gaining strength
in the process : and as such it is an illustration of the same
permanence of principle in the higher regions of government.
Pur ceo qe de jour en jour roberies, homicides, arsuns, plus
sovenerement sunt fetes qe avaunt ne soleyent, e felonies ne
poount estre atteinz par serment des jururs, qe plus volunters
sufferent felonies fetes as estraunges genz passer saunz peynes
qe enditer meffessours, dunt graunt partie sunt gent de meimes
le pays, ou a meins, si les fesours sont de autre pays, lour
recetturs sunt del visne ; e ceo funt il pur taunt qe serment
nest mie hore dute as jururs ne au pays ou les felonies furent
fetes qaunt a restitucion des damages, peyne avant ne fu purveue
pur lur concelement e lur lachesce ; nostre seignur le rey, pur
abatre le poer de feluns, si establit peyne en teu eas, issi qe par
pour de la peyne plus qe par pour de serment, a nuli desoremes
ne esparnient, ne nule felonie ne concelent ; e comand qe so-
lempnement seit la crie fete, en tuz cuntez, hundrez, marches,
feyres e tuz autres lous ou solempne assemble des gentz sera,
issi qe nul par ignoraunce se pusse escuser, qe checun pays issi
desoremes seit garde, qe meintenant apres roberies e felonies
fetes seit fete si fresche sute de vile en vile, de pays en pays.
II. Enquestes ensement seient fetes si mester est en viles par
celui qi soverein est de la vile, e pus en hundrez e en fraunchises
e en cuntez, et ascun foiz en deux, trois, ou qatre countees,
en eas quaunt felonies serunt fetes en marche de cuntez, issi qe
meffesours pusent estre ateinz. E si le pais de tels manere de
mefesours ne respoigne, la pein sera tiel qe cheseun pais, cest
assaver genz en pais demoraunz, respoigneut de roberies fetes e
de damages ; issi qe tut le hundred ou la roberie serra fete, ove
les fraunchises qe sunt dedenz la purceint de meime le hundred,
respoignent de roberie fete. E si la roberie seit fete en devises
dedenz hundrez, respoigne ambedeus les hundrez ensemblement
of les fraunchises ; e plus long terme ne avera le pais, apres la
roberie e felonie fete, qe xl. joursz, dedenz les quels il covendra
qil facent gre de la roberie e du mefet ou qil respoignent de cors
de mefesurs.
III. E pur ceo qe le rey ne vueut pas qe gent sodeynement

vii.J Statute of Winchester. 471
seient espoveri de ceste peyne qe semblereit dure a aucune gent,
graunte qele ne seit mie maintenaunt encorue, mes preigne la
peyne respit deqes a la Paske procheine venaunt, e dedenz eel
terme verra le rey coment le pais se portera, e seserunt teles
roberies e felonies. Apres quel terme tuz seient certeinz qe
lavaundite paine curra generaument, ceo est asaver qe cheseun
pais, ceo est asaver genz el pais demoraunz, respoignent des
roberies e felonies fetes en lur pais.
IV. E a plus seurer le pais, ad le rey comaunde qe en les
graunz viles qe sunt closes, les portes seient fermes del solail
rescuse deqes au solail levaunt ; e qe nul home ne herberge en
suburbe ne en forein chief de la vile, si de jour noun, ne uncore
de jour si le hoste ne voille pur lui respundre ; e les baillifs de
viles chescune semeine, ou ameins quinzeine, facent enquestes
de genz herbergez en suburbes e en foreins chefs de viles ; e sil
trovent nul herbergour qi resceive ou herberge en autre manere
gent dunt suspeciun seit qil soient gent countre la pes, si enfa-
cent les baillifs dreiture. E desoremes est comaunde, qe veylles
soient fetes, issi cum auncienement soleyent estre, ceo est asaver
del jour de la Ascenciun deqes le jour Seint Michel, en cheseun
cite par sis homes, en chescune porte ; en cheseun burgh par xii.
homes ; en chescune vile en terre par vi. homes ou iiii. solom
numbre des genz qi abitent ; e facent la veille continuelement
tute la nuit del solail rescusse jeqes al solail levaunt. E si nul
estraunge passe par eus, seit arestu jeqes au matin ; e si nule
suspeciun ne seit trove, auge quites ; e si em trove suspeciun,
seit livere al viscunte maintenaunt, e saunz daunger le receive,
e sauvement le garde, jeqes a taunt qe en due manere seit
delivre. E si eus ne se soefferent pas estre aresteuz, seit heu e
cri leve sur eus, e ceus qi funt la veille les siwent o tute la vilee
ove les visnees viles, o heu e cri de vile en vile, jesqes taunt
qil serra pris e livrez au viscunte cum est avaunt dit ; e pur le
resteiment de tels estraunges, nul ne seit enchesune.
V. Comaunde est ensement qe les hauz chemins des viles
marchaundes as autre viles marchaundes seient enlargiz, la ou
il iad bois, ou haies, ou fossez, issi qil nieit fosse, suthboys, ou
bussuns, ou lem peut tapir pur mal fere pres del chemin, de
deus centz pez de une part, e de deus centz pez de autre part,
issi qe cet estatut point ne estende as keynes, ne as gros fusz,
par qei ceo seit cler desuz. E si par defaute de seignur qi ne
vodra fosse, subois, ou bussuns, en la furme avauntdite abatre,
e roberies seient fetes, si respoygne le seygnur : e sil ieyt murdre,
si seit le seignur reint a la volunte le rey. E si le seignur ne
suffist a suzbois abatre, si lui aide le pais a ceo fere. E le rei

47* Edward I. [part
veut qe en ses demeines terres, e boys dedenz foreste e dehors,
seient les chemins enlargiz cum avaunt est dit. E si par eas
park seit pres del haut chemin, si covendra qe le seignur del
park amenuse sun park, jeques ataunt qil ieyt la leyse de deus
centz pez pres del haut chemin, cum avaunt est dit, ou qe il face
tel mur, fosse ou haye qe meffesurs ne pussent passer ne returner
pur mal fere.
VI. Comaunde est ensement qe cheseun home eit en sa mesun
armure pur la pees garder, solum la aunciene assise ; ceo est
assaver qe cheseun home entre quinze annz e sei>aunte soit asis e
jure as armes, solum la quantite de lur terres e de lur chateus ;
ceo est assaver, a quinze liveree des terres e chateus de quaraunte
mars, halibergeun, chapel de feer, espe, cutel e cheval ; a disz
liveree de terre e chateus de vint mars, haubergeun, chapel, espe,
e cutel ; a cent souldeesz de terre, parpoint, chapel de feer, espe
e cutel; a quaraunte souldeez de terre, e de plus jeqes a cent
souz, espe, ark, setes e cutel ; e qe meins ad ke quaraunte souze
de terre seit jure a faus gisarmes, cuteus e autres menues armes ;
qi meins ad de chateus ke vint mars, espees, cuteus e autres
menues armes. E tuz les autres qi aver pount, eient arcs e setes
hors des forestes, e dedenz forestes arcs e piles. E qe veue des
armes soit fete deus foiz par an. E en cheseun hundred e
fraunchise seyent eleus deus conestables a fere la veue des armes ;
e les conestables avaunt diz presentent devaunt les justices
assignez, quant il vendrunt en pays, les defautes qil averount
trovez de armeure, e de suites de veilles, e de cheminz ; e presen
tent ausi de genz, qi herbergent genz estraunges en viles de uppe-
launde, pur queus il ne volent respundre. E les justices assignez
en cheseun parlement representent au rey, e le rey sur ceo en fra
remedie. E bien se gardent desoremes Viscuntes, Baillifs de
fraunchises e dehors, greignurs ou maindres, qi baillie ou fores-
terie unt, en fee ou en autre manere, qil siwent le cri ove le pays;
e solum ceo qil sunt, eient chevaus e armeure a ceo fere ; e si
nul seit qi nel face, seient les defauz presentez par les conestables
as justicez assignez, e puis apres par eus au rey cum avaunt est
dit. E comaunde le rey e defend qe feire ne marche desoremes
ne soient tenuz en cimeter pur honur de Seinte Eglise. Done a
Wyncestre, le utisme jour de October, le an du regne le rey
trezime. Translation.
I. Forasmuch as from day to day, robberies, murders, burnings and
thefts be more often used than they have been heretofore, and felons
cannot be attainted by the oath of jurors which had rather suffer felonies
done to strangers to pass without pain, than to indite the offenders of whom

vn.] Statute of Winchester. 473
great part be people of the same country, or at least if the offenders be of
another country the receivers be of places near; and they do the same
because an oath is not put unto jurors, nor upon the country where such
felonies were done as to the restitution of damages, hitherto no pain hath
been limited for their concealment and laches ; our lord the king, for to
abate the power of felons, hath estabHshed a pain in this oase, so that from
henceforth, for fear of the pain more than from fear of any oath, they shall
not spare any nor conceal any felonies ; and dnth command th.-it cries shall
be solemnly made in aU counties, hundreds, markets, fairs, and all other
places where great resort of people is, so that none shall excuse himself by
ignorance, that from henceforth every country be so well kept that imme
diately upon such robberies and felonies committed fresh suits shall be
made from town to town and from country to country.
II. Likewise when need requires, inquests shall be made in towns by
him that is lord of the town, and after in the hundred and in the franchise
and in the county, and sometimes in two, three, or four counties, in case
when felonies shall be committed in the marches of shires, so that the
offenders may be attainted. And if the country will not answer for the
bodies of such manner of offenders, the pain shall be such, that every
country, that is to wit, the people dwelling in the country, shall be answer
able for the robberies done and also the damages ; so that the whole hun
dred where the robbery shall be done, with the franchises being within the
precinct of the same hundred, shall be answerable for the robberies done.
And if the robbery be done in the division of two hundreds, both the
hundreds and the franchises within them shall be answerable ; and after
that the felony or robbery is done, the country shall have no longer space
than forty days, within which forty days it shall behove them to agree for
the robbery or offence, or else that they will answer for the bodies of the
offenders. III. And forasmuch as the king will not that his people should be
suddenly impoverished by reason of this penalty, that seemeth very hard to
many, the king granteth that it shall not be incurred immediately, but it shall
be respited until Easter next following, within which time the king may
Bee how the country will order themselves, and whether such felonies and
robberies do cease. After which term let them all be assured that the
foresaid penalty shall run geneially : that is to say, every country, that
is to wit, the people in the country, shall be answerable for felonies and
robberies done among them.
IV. And for the more surety of the country, the king bath commanded
that in great towns being walled, the gates shall be closed from the sun-
setting until the sun-rising ; and that no man do lodge in suburbs, nor in
any place out of the town, from nine of the clock until day, without his
host will answer for him ; and the bailiffs of towns every week, or at the
least every fifteenth day, shall make inquiry of all persons being lodged in
the suburbs or in foreign places of the towns ; and if they do find any that
have lodged or received any strangers or suspicious person against the
peace, the bailiffs shall do right therein. And the king commandeth, that
from 'henceforth, all watches be made as it hath been used in times past,
that is to wit, from the day of the Ascension until the day of S. Michael,
in every city by six men at every gate ; in every borough, twelve men ;
every town, six or four, according to the number of the inhabitants of the
town, and they shall watch the town continually all night from the sun-
setting unto the sun-rising. And if any stranger do pass by them he shall
be arrested until morning ; and if no suspicion be found he shall go quit ;
and if they find cause of suspicion, they shall forthwith deliver him to the

474 Edward I. [part
sheriff, and the sheriff may receive him without damage, and shall keep
him safely, until he be acquitted in due manner. And if they will not
obey the arrest, they shall levy hue and cry upon them, and such as keep
the watch shall follow with hue and cry with all the town and the towns
near, and so hue and cry shall be made from town to town, until that they
be taken and delivered to the sheriff as before is said ; and for the arrest
ments of such strangers none shall be punished.
V. And further, it is commanded that highways leading from one market
town to another shall be enlarged, whereas bushes, woods, or dykes be, so
that there be neither dyke, tree, nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do
hurt within two hundred foot of the one side and two hundred foot on the
other side of the way ; so. that this statute shall not extend unto oaks,
nor unto great trees, so as it shall be clear underneath. And if by default
of the lord that will not abate the dyke, underwood, or bushes, in the
manner aforesaid, any robberies be done therein, the lord shall be answer
able for the felony ; and if murder be done the lord shall make a fine at
the king's pleasure. And if the lord be not able to fell the underwoods,
the country shall aid him therein. And the king willeth that in his de
mesne lands and woods, within his forest and without, the ways shall be
enlarged, as before is said. And if per case a park be near to the high
way, it is requisite that the lord shall minish his park the space of two
hundred foot from the highways, a? before is said, or that he make such
a wall, dyke, or hedge that offenders may not pass, ne return to do evil.
VI. And further it is commanded that every man have in his house
harness for to keep the peace after the ancient assize ; that is to
say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years, shall be
assessed and sworn to armour according to the quantity of their lands and
goods ; that is to wit, from fifteen pounds lands, and goods forty marks, an
hauberke, an helme of iron, a sword, a knife, and a horse ; and from ten
pounds of lands, and twenty marks goods, an hauberke, an helme of
iron, a sword, and a knife ; and from five pound lands, a doublet, an helme
of iron, a sword, and a knife ; and from forty shillings of land, a sword, a
bow and arrows, and a knife ; and he that hath less than forty shillings
yearly shall be sworn to keep gisarmes, knives, and other less weapons ;
and he that hath less than twenty marks in goods, shall have swords,
knives, and other less weapons ; and all other that may shall have bows
and arrows out of the forest, and in the forest bows and boults. And that
view of armour be made every year two times. And in every hundred and
franchise two constables shall be chosen to make the view of armour ; and
the constables aforesaid shall present before j ustices assigned such defaults
as they do see in the country about armour, and of the suits, and of watches,
and of highways ; and also shall present all such as do lodge strangers in
uplandish towns, for whom they will not answer. And the justices assigned
shaU present at every parliament unto the king such defaults as they shall
find, and the king shall provide remedy therein. And from henceforth let
sheriffs take good heed, and bailiffs within their franchises and without, be
they higher or lower, that have any bailiwick or forestry in fee or other
wise, that they shall follow the cry with the country, and after, as they are
bounden, to keep horses and armour, so to do; and if there be any that
do not, the defaults shall be presented by the constables to the justices
assigned, and after by them to the king ; and the king will provide remedy
as afore is said. And the king commandeth and forbiddeth that from
henceforth neither fairs nor markets he kept in churchyards, for the honour
of the church. Given at Winchester, the eighth of October, in the thir
teenth year of the reign of the king. — (Statutes of the Realm, i. 96-98.)

vn.] Parliament of 1290. 475

A.D. 1290. Transactions in Paeliament.
The acts and character of the parliament of 1290, like those
of the national councils of 1283, bear the marks of a transi-
tionary period. It would seem that during the year there
were three distinct parliaments, one on S. Hilary's Day, at
which the king appointed new judges in succession to those whom
he had displaced on his return from France in 1289 ; a second
after Trinity, in which the business was transacted to which the
following documents refer ; and a third in October, during which
the king and magnates sat at Clipston, and the clergy at Ely.
(See above, p. 435.) The summer session is the only one to
which the Commons are known to have been summoned.
The first of the following documents is the grant of an aid to
the king for the marriage of his eldest daughter. It is made on
the 29th of May, by the barons and bishops only, but in full
parliament, and not only for themselves but for the commonalty,
at the rate of forty shillings on the knight's fee. (No. I.) A
fortnight after this, June 1 4th, the king issued a summons to
the sheriffs to return two knights of each shire, to meet at
Westminster on the 15th of July, to counsel and consent to
what should be then and there ordained by the earls, barons,
and proceres. (No. II.) It is probable that it was intended to
urge on the representatives of the shires the duty of agreeing
to a similar grant of money. Without, however, waiting for
the arrival of the Commons, the king, at the instance of the
magnates, enacted the statute Quia Emptores on the 8th of
July. (No. III.) What was done further in the July session
cannot be certainly determined ; but it is probable that some
difficulties arose, and that the settlement of the aid did not
take place before September. On the 22nd of that month,
the king, at Clipston, issued letters appointing collectors of
a fifteenth, which, he says, the archbishops, bishops, abbots,
priors, earls, barons, and others of the realm had granted him.
The aid ' pur fille marier' was not exacted at this time, nor for
several years after: it was paid in 1302. It would seem then

476 Edward I. [part
that this fifteenth was accepted by the king instead of it, pro
bably in consequence of some action taken by the Commons in
July. He himself was at Clipston throughout the month of
October, and the Bolls of Parliament record a session of par
liament there a month after Michaelmas, but there is no evidence
to show that he was attended by the Commons. The clergy,
assembled in provincial council at Ely on the 2nd of October,
supplemented the lay grant by a vote of a tenth of spirituals.
The king's writ for the collection of the fifteenth has no
reference to the grant of the tenth, which was indeed later in
point of time, although it may have been asked for in July. The
importance of these events consists in the facts, that, at this
date, the presence of the representatives of the shires was not
regarded as necessary for legislation ; that the magnates still
regarded themselves as competent to make a grant on the
knight's fee for the whole community, without the presence of
the Commons ; and that notwithstanding, the subsequent con
sent of the shires was demanded of their representatives, and
in consequence, we may infer, of their action, a change in the
character of the aid was effected. The historians appear to
have thought that the aid was granted in gratitude for the
expulsion of the Jews, a measure determined on in the May
session. The enactment of the statute Quia Emptores without the
presence of the Commons, is consistent with the proceedings
in the case of the aid. It, as well as the aid, affected the land
owners only. There would be no occasion to consult the cities
or boroughs on such a point ; hut that it should be enacted
without the assent of the knights of the shire shows distinctly
that the king, either alone or with the counsel and consent
of the barons, was at this moment held competent to legislate
without the consent of the representatives, so far at least as to
publish a statute before that consent could be obtained.

vn.] Parliament of 1290. 477
No. I. Grant of Aid ' pur fille marier'
Memorandum quod in crastino Sanctae Trinitatis, anno
regni regis decimo octavo, in pleno parliamento ipsius domini
regis, Bobertus Bathoniensis et Wellensis, Antonius Dunel-
mensis, Johannes Wyntoniensis, Thomas Menevensis, Radulfus
Karleolensis, episcopi ; et Willelmus electus Eliensis, Edmundus
frater domini regis, Willelmus de Valencia comes Penebrok,
Gilbertus de Clare comes Gloucestriae et Hertfordiae, Johannes
de Warennia comes Surreiae, Henricus de Lacy comes Lin
colniae, Humfridus de Bohun comes Herefordiae et Essexiae,
Bobertus de Tipetot, Beginaldus de Grey, Johannes de Hast
inges, Johannes de Sancto Johanne, Ricardus Filius Johannis,
Willelmus le Latymer, Rogerus de Monte alto, "Willelmus de
Brewose, Theobaldus de Verdun, Walterus de Huntercumba,
Nicolaus de Segrave, et ceteri magnates et proceres tunc in
parliamento existentes, pro se et eommunitate totius regni quan
tum in ipsis est, concesserunt domino regi, ad filiam suam pri-
mogenitam maritandam, quod ipse dominus rex percipiat et
habeat tale auxilium et tantum quale et quantum dominus
Henricus rex pater suus pereepit et habuit de regno ad filiam
suam, videlicet sororem domiui regis nunc, regi Scotiae mari
tandam. Et licet idem dominus Henricus rex tempore illo ad
praedictum auxilium plenarie non pereepit de quolibet feodo
militis nisi tantummodo duas marcas vel parum plus, praedicti
tamen praelati, comites, barones et proceres concesserunt quod
dominus rex percipiat et habeat de quolibet feodo militari
quadraginta solidos hae vice plenarie et integre ; ita tamen quod
alias non cedat eis in praejudicium vel consuetudinem ; et ita
quod istud auxilium nunc concessum levetur eodem modo quo
praedictum auxilium domino Henrico regi concessum, nt prae
dictum est, levabatur. — (Rolls of Parliament, i. 25.)
No. II. Summons of Knights of the Sliire.
Bex vicecomiti Northumbriae, salutem. Cum per comites,
barones, et quosdam alios de proceribus regni nostri, nuper
fuissemus super quibusdam specialiter requisiti, super quibus
tam cum ipsis quam cum aliis de comitatibus regni illius col
loquium habere volumus et tractatum, tibi praecipimus quod
duos vel tres de discretioribus, et ad laborandum potentioribus,
militibus de comitatu praedicto sine dilatione eligi, et eos ad
nos usque Westmonasterium venire facias ; ita quod sint ibidem
a die Sancti Johannis Baptistae proximo futuro in tres septima
nas ad ultimum, cum plena potestate pro se et tota eommunitate

478 Edward I. [part
comitatus praedicti, ad consulendum et consentiendum pro se
et eommunitate ilia hiis quae comites, barones et proceres prae
dicti tunc duxerint concordanda. T. Rege, apud Westmonas
terium XIIII. die Junii. — (Report on the Dignity of a Peer,
App. i. 54-) No. III. Statute Quia Emptores.
The importance of this act is chiefly prospective : consisting
in the greater facilities afforded for the division of estates ;
the multiplication of tenants in capite of the Crown ; and at
the same time of socage tenants also ; the stereotyping of local
divisions ; the stopping the creation of manors, and of new
grades of middle-men between the chief lord and the cultivator;
and the fusion of the rural population without distinction of
tenure. But viewed in itself, its relation is rather to the Sta
tute of Mortmain, which it resembles in principle, and in the
securing of the legal rights of the Crown and feudal baronage.
It is one of the few acts of legislation which, being passed with
a distinct view to the interests of a class, have been found to
work to the advantage of the nation generally.
Quia emptores terrarum et tenementorum de feodis mag
natum et aliorum in praejudicium eorundem temporibus re-
troactis multoties in feodis suis sunt ingressi, quibus libere
tenentes eorundem magnatum et aliorum terras et tenementa
sua vendiderunt, tenenda in feodo sibi et haeredibus suis de
feoffatoribus suis et non de capitalibus dominis feodorum, per
quod iidem capitales domini eschaetas, maritagia, et custodias
terrarum et tenementorum de feodis suis existentium saepius
amiserunt ; quod quidem eisdem magnatibus et aliis dominis
quam plurimum durum et difficile videbatur, et similiter in hoc
casu exhaeredatio manifesta : dominus rex in parliamento suo
apud Westmonasterium post Pascha anno regni sui XVIII0,
videlicet in quindena Sancti Johannis Baptistae, ad instantiam
magnatum regni sui, concessit, providit et statuit, quod de
cetero liceat unicuique libero homini terram suam seu tene
mentum sive partem inde pro voluntate sua vendere ; ita tamen
quod feoffatus teneat terram illam seu tenementum de eodem
capitali domino et per eadem servitia et consuetudines per quae
feoffator suus ilia prius tenuit. Et si partem aliquam earundem
tenarum seu tenementorum suorum alicui vendiderit, feoffatus

vn.] Parliament of 1294. 479
illam teneat immediate de capitali domino, et oneretur statim
de servitio quantum pertinet sive pertinere debet eidem domino
pro particula ilia, secundum quantitatem terrae seu tenementi
venditi ; et sic in hoc casu decidat capitali domino ipsa pars
servitii capienda per manum feoffatoris, ex quo feoffatus debet
eidem capitali domino, juxta quantitatem terrae seu tenementi
venditi, de particula ilia servitii sic debiti esse intendens et
respondens. Et sciendum quod per praedictas venditiones sive
emptiones terrarum seu tenementorum, seu partis alicujus
eorundem, nullo modo possunt terrae seu tenementa ilia, in
parte vel in toto, ad manum mortuam devenire, arte vel ingenio
contra formam statu ti super hoc dudum editi, etc. Et sciendum
quod istud statutum locum tenet de terris venditis tenendis in
feodo simpliciter tantum, etc. ; et quod se extendit ad tempus
futurum ; et incipiet locum tenere ad festum Sancti Andreae
proximo futurum, etc. — (Statutes of the Realm, i. 106.)

A.D. 1294. Paeliamentaey Weits.
These writs make the third and penultimate step in the
process towards the settled constitution of parliament which
was completed in 1295. In 1290, the representatives of the
Commons had been summoned after the work of legislation,
and even the plan of taxation, had been determined : and the
bishops had joined in the grant after the writs for the collection
of the lay grant were issued. In 1294, however, the clergy are
regularly assembled in the persons of their representatives ;
they are treated with separately, but in an orderly way; and
that done, the knights of the shire are summoned to meet the
magnates at a later parliament, and the writs for the collection
of the grant are dated on the day of meeting. The further
steps of uniting the clergy by their representatives under the
praemunientes clause, and the Commons by the borough mem
bers as well as by the knights of the shire, with the assembled
magnates, are taken in 1295.
The war for the recovery of Gascony was determined on in
the Whitsuntide parliament or court at Westminster (June 6,
1204). On the 14th, the king summoned the military force of
the kingdom to muster at Portsmouth on the 1st of September;

480 Edward I. [part
a term afterwards postponed to the 30th. On the 19th of
August the king summoned the whole clergy of the realm, not
in provinces as heretofore, but to one assembly at Westminster
on the 21st of September (No. I) : the chapters being repre
sented by one, and the parochial clergy by two proctors from
each diocese. The assembly met, and the king demanded a
half of the goods of the clergy : after much discussion and
complaint, he seems to have obtained the concession, at least
from a portion of the body. He had already seized the treasures
of the churches, and the wool of the merchants, and was pro
ceeding in a most arbitrary manner. At this juncture a rebel
lion of the Welsh stopped the expedition to Gascony ; but the
king found himself obliged to summon the parliament for a
money grant. The writs were issued on the 8th of October
(No. II) ; the next day another writ, summoning two additional
knights from each shire, was sent to the sheriffs, but no repre
sentatives of the towns were summoned. The day of meeting
was the 12th of November. The parliament, without the clergy,
met on that day, and the business was speedily despatched,
for, on the same 12 th of November, the king appointed the
commissioners to collect the tenth granted by the earls, barons,
knights, and all others of the kingdom. The historian, Matthew
of Westminster, adds that a sixth was exacted from the towns.
About the same time a writ was issued exempting from the
payment of the tenth the goods of those of the clergy who had
granted the ' half in the assembly on S. Matthew's day.
No. I. Summons of t7ie Clergy.
Rex archiepiscopo Eboracensi, Angliae primati, salutem.
Qualiter rex Franciae nos de terra nostra Vasconiae malitiose
decepit, et inde fraudulenter ejecit, eam nequiter detinendo,
paternitatem vestram credimus non latere. Cum igitur ad
terram illam recuperandam a manibus dicti regis vestrum con
silium et auxilium, sicut et ceterorum praelatorum ac cleri de
regno nostro quos communiter negotium istud tangit, nobis
quam plurimum prospexerimus profutura, ob quod apud West
monasterium in festo Sancti Matthaei Apostoli et Evangelistae
proximo futuro personaliter esse disposuimus, Deo dante, ad

vn.] Writs of Summons. 481
tractandum una vobiscum et ceteris praelatis ac clero ejusdem
regni et ad ordinandum tunc ibidem super statu dictae terrae
nostrae Vasconiae et remedio in hoc contra hujusmodi malitiam
adhibendo ; vobis mandamus, in fide et dilectione in quibus
nobis tenemini firmiter injungentes, quod dictis die et loco
personaliter intersitis, vocantes prius decanum et capituluni
ecclesiae vestrae, archidiaconos totumque clerum vestrae dio
cesis, facientesque quod iidem decanus et archidiaconi in pro
priis personis suis, et dictum capituluni per unum, idemque
clerus per duos procuratores idoneos plenam et sufficientem
potestatem ab ipsis capitulo et clero habentes, una vobiscum
intersint modis omnibus tunc ibidem ad tractandum, ordi
nandum et faciendum, pro ipsis capitulo et clero ae eorundem
nomine, quod de vestro et aliorum praelatorum, decani, arcbi-
diaconorum, procuratorum, praedictorum communi consilio
providebitur in praemissis. T. B. apud Portesmuthe, XIX.
die Augusti.
A similar summons was directed to the rest of the bishops
severally, and to sixty-seven abbots. — (Report on the Dignity
of a Peer, App. i. p. 59.)
No. II. Summons of the Knights of the Shire.
Rex vicecomiti Norhumbriae salutem. Quia cum comitibus,
baronibus, et ceteris magnatibus de regno nostro, super quibus
dam negotiis arduis nos et idem regnum nostrum contingentibus
in crastino Sancti Martini proximo futuro apud Westmonaste
rium colloquium habere volumus et tractatum ; tibi praecipimus
quod eligi facias duos milites de discretioribus et ad laborandum
potentioribus de comitatu praedicto, et eos ad nos usque West
monasterium venire facias : ita quod sint ibi in crastino prae
dicto cum plena potestate pro se et tota eommunitate comitatus
praedicti, ad consulendum et consentiendum pro se et eom
munitate ilia hiis quae comites, barones, et proceres praedicti
concorditer ordinaverint in praemissis ; et ita quod pro defectu
potestatis hujusmodi idem negotium infectum non remaneat.
Et habeas ibi hoc breve. T. Rege apud Westmonasterium VIII.
die Octobris.
Rex vicecomiti Norhumbriae, salutem. Cum nuper tibi prae-
ceperimus quod duos milites de discretioribus et ad laborandum
potentioribus ejusdem comitatus de consensu ejusdem eligi, et
eos ad nos usque Westmonasterium in crastino Sancti Martini
proximo futuro cum plena potestate pro se et tota eommunitate
1 i

482 Edward I. [part
ejusdem comitatus venire faceres, ad consulendum et consenti
endum pro se et eommunitate ilia hiis quae comites, barones
et proceres de regno nostro in dicto crastino ordinabunt, tibi
praecipimus firmiter injungentes quod, praeter illos duos milites,
eligi facias alios duos milites legales et ad laborandum potentes,
et eos una cum dictis duobus militibus usque Westmonasterium
venire facias ; ita quod in dicto crastino sint ibidem ad audi-
endum et faciendum quod eis tunc ibidem plenius injungemus.
Et hoc nullo modo omittas. Et habeas ibi hoc breve. T. Bege
apud Westmonasterium, IX0 die Octobris. — (Report on the
Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 60.)

A.D. 1295. Great Council and Paeliament.
The king found himself early in 1295 in very difficult circum
stances — at war with France, waging an unsuccessful struggle
with the Welsh, and anticipating the breach with Scotland
which occurred in the course of the year. It was not until
June that he was able to take measures for holding a parlia
ment. On the 24th of that month he issued writs of summons
to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, chiefs of orders, earls,
barons, judges, deans sworn of the council, and other clerks
of the council. They were directed to meet at Westminster
on the 1st of August. The object of the gathering was to
discuss the proposals for mediation with France made by two
papal legates. The debate lasted two days, and the legates left
England with powers to treat for a truce. No representatives
of the Commons were summoned to this assembly, which,
although it is styled in the Rolls of Parliament a Parliament,
and seems to have transacted the usual legal business of the
terminal sessions of parliament, was more properly a Great
Council. No attempt was made in it to raise money, but it
was probably arranged that a grant should be asked for in the
Michaelmas session. With this view writs were issued on the
30th of September and on the 1st of October for an assembly
which should have the power of taxing the whole nation for the
war with France.
The first writ issued is, according to ancient precedent (above.

vn. J Parliament of 1295. 483
p. 130), addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is
directed to attend on the Sunday after Martinmas at Westmin
ster, and is ordered to premonish the prior of his cathedral and
the archdeacons of the diocese to present themselves in person,
and the chapter of the cathedral by one, the parochial clergy by
two, sufficient proctors. The machinery of representation of the
clergy, which had the year before been used to create a distinct
assembly, is now consolidated with that of the parliament.
The Archbishop of York has a similar summons, to assemble
his clergy, not at York but at Westminster ; and the several
bishops receive their writs direct from the Crown, as in the
former summons to parliament, not through the archbishop
as in the case of the provincial convocations ; the same day
the abbots and priors are summoned. On the 1st of October
the writs are issued to the baronage. On the 3rd of October
the writs to the sheriffs are dated ; and by these each sheriff
is directed to return two knights elected by the counties, and
two citizens or burghers for each city or borough within his
shire. By these writs of summons a perfect representation of the
three estates was secured, and a parliament constituted on the
model of which every succeeding assembly bearing that name
was formed.
At the session in November the aid demanded was discussed
by the three bodies separately. The baronage and knights of
the shire gave an eleventh, the cities and boroughs a seventh.
With the clergy there were difficulties. The Archbishop of
Canterbury offered a tenth, the king demanded a third, or at
least a fourth. The archbishop however held out, and the
king, after debating the matter for nearly a month, accepted a
tenth on the 8th of December. This is perhaps the first case in
which we find the three several interests taxing themselves in
different proportions ; for the statement of Matthew of West
minster, that in 1294 the towns were taxed a sixth penny, is
not borne out by the records of the kingdom, which mention
only the tenth. This is not conclusive of course against his
assertion ; but it is difficult to see how the tax of the sixth penny

484 Edward I. [tart
could have been imposed by an assembly in which the payers
were not represented, unless it were by way of talliage. The
knights of the shire in 1294 might be understood to represent
the towns and cities in their shires, but if so, they would naturally
subject all their constituents to the same rate of taxation. No
laws were made, and the Rolls of Parliament contain no details
of judicial business done at this meeting.
The same year, on the 1 5th of July, the Archbishop of Can
terbury held a council of the bishops of the province at the
New Temple, to which the lower clergy were not invited.
No. I. Summons of the Archbishop to a Great Council.
Edwaedus etc. venerabili in Christo patri Roberto eadem
gratia Cantuariensi archiepiscopo, totius Angliae primati, salu
tem. Quia suppr quibusdam arduis negotiis nos et regnum
nostrum ac vos ceterosque praelatos de eodem regno tangentibus,
quae sine vestra et eorum praesentia nolumus expediri, parlea-
mentum nostrum tenere et vobiscum super hiis colloquium
habere volumus et tractatum : vobis mandamus, in fide et dilec-
tione quibus nobis tenemini firmiter injungentes quatenus sitis
ad nos apud Westmonasterium primo die mensis Augusti
proximo futuro, vel saltern infra tertium diem subsequentem ad
ultimum, nobiscum super dietis negotiis tractaturi et vestrum
consilium impensuri. Et hoc nullo modo omittatis. Teste me
ipso apud Album Monasterium XXIIII. die Junii.
Similar letters are directed to the Archbishop of York and
the bishops, to the Masters of Sempringham and of the Temple,
to the prior of the Hospital, forty-two abbots and eleven priors :
also, mutatis mutandis, to eleven earls and fifty-three barons :
to the Chief Justice and thirty-eight judges and others, in
cluding the justices itinerant, justices of assize, and members
and clerks of the council. — (Report on the Dignity of a Peer,
App. i. pp. 64-66.)
No. II. Summons of the Archbishop and Clergy to
Parliament.
Rex venerabili in Christo patri Roberto eadem gratia Can
tuariensi archiepiscopo totius Angliae primati, salutem. Sicut

vii.] Writs of Summons. 485
lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum
stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus
approbetur, sic et nimis evidenter ut communibus periculis per
remedia provisa communiter obvietur. Sane satis noscis et
jam est, ut credimus, per universa mundi climate divulgatum,
qualiter rex Franciae de terra nostra Vasconiae nos fraudulenter
et cautelose deeepit, eam nobis nequiter detinendo. Nunc vero
praedictis fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem
regni nostri classe maxima et bellatorum copiosa multitudine
congregatis, cum quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem
incolas hostiliter jam invasit, linguam Anglicani, si conceptae
iniquitatis proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod
Deus avertat, omnino de terra delere proponit. Quia igitur
praevisa jacula minus laedunt, et res vestra maxime, sicut cete-
rorum regni ejusdem con civium, agitur in hae parte, vobis
mandamus, in fide et dilectione quibus nobis tenemini firmiter
injungentes, quod die Dominica proxima post festum Sancti
Martini in hyeme proxime futurum, apud Westmonasterium
personaliter intersitis : Pkaemunientes priorem et capitulum
ecclesiae vestrae, archidiaconos, totumque clerum vestrae diocesis,
facientes quod iidem prior et archidiaconi in propriis per
sonis suis, et dictum capitulum per unum, idemque clerus per
duos procuratores idoneos, plenam et sufficientem potestatem ab
ipsis capitulo et clero habentes, una vobiscum intersint, modis
omnibus tunc ibidem ad tractandum, ordinandum et faciendum,
nobiscum et cum ceteris praelatis et proceribus et aliis incolis
regni nostri, qualiter sit hujusmodi periculis et excogitatis
malitiis obviandum. Teste Rege apud Wengeham XXX. die
Septembris. Similar letters are directed, mutatis mutandis, to the Arch
bishop of York and the bishops : also, omitting the clause Prae-
munientes, to sixty-seven abbots, the Masters of the Temple and
of Sempringham, and the prior of the Hospital. — (Report on the
Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 67.)
No. III. Summons of an Earl to Parliament.
Bex dilecto consanguineo et fideli suo Edmundo comiti Cor-
nubiae, salutem. Quia super remediis contra pericula quae toti
regno nostro hiis diebus imminent providendum, vobiscum et
cum ceteris regni nostri proceribus habere volumus colloquium
et tractatum; vobis mandamus, in fide et dilectione quibus nobis

486 Edward I. [part
tenemini firmiter injungentes, quod die Dominica proxima post
festum Sancti Martini in hyeme proxime futurum, apud West
monasterium personaliter intersitis ad tractandum, ordinandum
et faciendum nobiscum et cum praelatis et ceteris proceribus et
aliis incolis regni nostri, qualiter sit hujusmodi periculis obvi-
andum. T. Rege apud Cantuariam primo die Octobris.
Similar letters ore directed to seven earls, and forty-one
barons. — (Report on the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 67.)
No. TV. Summons of Representatives of Shires and Towns
to Parliament.
Rex vicecomiti Norhamtesirae. Quia cum comitibus, baro
nibus et ceteris proceribus regni nostri, super remediis contra
pericula quae eidem regno hiis diebus imminent providendum,
colloquium habere volumus et tractatum, per quod eis manda-
vimus quod sint ad nos die Dominica proxima post festum
Sancti Martini in hyeme proxime futurum apud Westmona
sterium, ad tractandum, ordinandum, et faciendum qualiter sit
hujusmodi periculis obviandum; tibi praecipimus firmiter injun
gentes quod de comitatu praedicto duos milites et de qualibet
civitate ejusdem comitatus duos cives, et de quolibet burgo duos
burgenses, de discretioribus et ad laborandum potentioribus,
sine dilatione eligi, et eos ad nos ad praedictos diem et locum
venire facias : ita quod dicti milites plenam et sufficientem
potestatem pro se et eommunitate comitatus praedicti, et dicti
cives et burgenses pro se et eommunitate civitatum et burgorum
praedictorum divisim ab ipsis tunc ibidem habeant, ad faciendum
quod tunc de communi consilio ordinabitur in praemissis ; ita
quod pro defectu hujusmodi potestatis negotium praedictum
infectum non remaneat quoquo modo. Et habeas ibi nomina
militum, civium et burgensium et hoc breve. T. Rege apud
Cantuariam III. die Octobris. — (Report on the Dignity of a Peer,
App. i. p. 66.) No. V. Writ for Collection of an Aid.
Bex militibus et libere tenentibus et toti communitati comi
tatus Rotelandae, salutem. Cum comites, barones, milites et alii
de regno nostro, in subsidium guerrae nostrae nunc, sicut alias
nobis et progenitoribus nostris regibus Angliae, liberaliter fece
runt undecimam de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus ; et cives, bur
genses, et alii probi homines de dominiis nostris, civitatibus, et
burgis ejusdem regni, septimam de omnibus bonis suis mobilibus,

vii.] Confirmation of Charters. 487
exceptis hiis quae in decima ultimo nobis concessa excipiebantur,
nobis curialiter concesserint et gratanter ; Nos, ut undeeima et
septima praedictae ad minus damnum et gravamen populi dicti
regni nostri leventur et colligantur, providere volentes, assig
navimus dilectos et fideles nostros Robertum de Flixthorpe
et Johannem de Wakerle personam ecclesiae de Westona, vel
alteram ipsorum, quoties ambo, altero eorum gravi infirmitate
praepedito, interesse non possunt, ad dictas undecimam et
septimam in comitatu praedicto assidendas, taxandas, levandas
et colligendas, et ad scaccarium nostram deferendas et ibidem
solvendas ad terminos subscriptos ; videlicet unam medietatem
citra festum Purificationis Beatae Mariae proximo futurum, et
aliam medietatem citra festum Pentecostes proximo sequentis.
Et ideo vobis mandamus quod praedictis Roberto et Johanni in
praemissis sitis intendentes, respondentes, consulentes et auxili-
antes, in forma praedicta, prout ipsi vobis scire facient ex parte
nostra. In cujus etc. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium IIII.
die Decembris. — (Foedera, i. 833.)

A.D. I297. CONFIEMATION OF THE CHARTERS.
More than half of the year 1296 was spent by Edward in the
conquest and settlement of Scotland. The war with France was
conducted in the meantime by Edmund of Lancaster, who died
in July ; but the constant negotiations for a truce gave the king
time to draw closer his chain of alliances with the Germans and
Flemings, and to prepare for inflicting a deadly blow on Philip
the Fair. On the 26th of August, at Berwick-upon-Tweed,
the writs of summons were issued, calling a parliament at Bury
S. Edmunds for the 3rd of November. These writs were ad
dressed as in 1295: to the archbishops and bishops, with the
praemunientes clause ; to the abbots, priors, and heads of
orders • to the earls and barons ; and to the sheriffs, .command
ing the election and return of knights, citizens, and burgesses.
On the 24th of September a supplementary writ was directed
to the citizens and probi homines of twenty-two principal towns,
ordering the election of two of their number to meet the king
at S. Edmunds on the day fixed for the parliament, to give him,
in conjunction with four elected citizens of London, their advice

488 Edward I. [part
on a new constitution for the town of Berwick. This writ
perhaps indicates the way in which on former occasions the
merchants of the great towns had been consulted, and is
analogous to the summons of the boroughs to the council at
Shrewsbury in 1283.
In the parliament which assembled on the 3rd of November,
the line of proceedings which had been taken in 1295 was
followed. The barons and knights who had then granted an
eleventh, now granted a twelfth ; and the citizens and burgesses
who had granted a seventh, now granted an eighth. But the
clergy were unable to follow the example. Boniface VIII had
on the 24th of February, 1296, in the bull ' Clericis laicos,'
absolutely forbidden the payment by the clergy to laymen
of any tax whatever on the revenues of their churches. The
archbishop alleged to the king the impossibility of evading this
command, and the writs for the collection of the lay grant being
issued, the discussion of the clerical one was postponed to the
feast of S. Hilary, 1297. In preparation for this meeting,
Archbishop Winchelsey, not content with the assembling of the
clergy under the royal writ, summoned a very large council at
S. Paul's. His mandate was addressed, on the usual plan for
convocation, to the Bishop of London, but ordered the summons
of the bishops, the deans, precentors, chancellors and treasurers
of the cathedrals, the archdeacons, abbots, priors and heads of
collegiate churches, a single proctor to represent each chapter,
and two the clergy of each diocese. The assembly was an
anomalous one, but must have contained every well endowed
priest in the province of Canterbury. The mandate was dated
Nov. 27th. The difficulty raised by the pope's inhibition did
not diminish on further consideration. The clergy persisted in
their refusal of a grant, and the king put them out of his pro
tection, practically outlawing the whole body, and confiscating
the estates of the see of Canterbury. This alarming proceeding
gave some of the clergy an opportunity of yielding : it was one
thing to pay a tax, another to ransom themselves from outlawry;
the money that was refused as an aid was forthcoming in
the shape of a fine. But the assembled convocation and the

vii.] Confirmation of Charters. 489
archbishop could not so temporise. On the seventh day of
the council, two bishops were sent to treat with the king,
and matters remained as they were until the next meeting of
parliament. This was to be on S. Matthias's Day, the 24th of
February, for which day the summonses were issued, but to the
baronage only ; the session was to be at Salisbury : the clergy,
even the prelates in their baronial capacity, were studiously
ignored. This meeting of the baronage is entitled a parliament,
both in the endorsement of the writ and by the historians.
The resistance of the clergy to the royal demands had proved
infectious. The king laid his plans for the war before the
baronage ; he proposed to go to Flanders in person, and
requested some of the earls to undertake the expedition to
Gascony. He was met by a flat refusal from the constable
and marshall ; they would undertake no service abroad but
in attendance on the sovereign. An undignified personal alter
cation between the king and the earl marshall followed ; and
the assembly broke up in confusion. The earls retired to their
estates, and prepared to resist the king in arms. Edward,
yielding again to the temptation to arbitrary exaction, seized
the wool of the merchants, paying for it by tallies, and levied
a large amount of provisions on the counties in the same way.
This reckless proceeding united all classes against him — the
clergy outlawed, the baronage in arms, and the merchants
beggared. The condition of the clergy was already felt to be intolerable.
Before the result of the Salisbury parliament was known, the
archbishop summoned a new convocation for the 26th of March.
His mandate to the Bishop of London orders the assembling of
the bishops, abbots, priors, and deans, the chapters of the several
cathedrals by a single proctor for each, and the parochial clergy
also by one representative of each diocese. In this council the
archbishop seems to have receded somewhat from his former
position, and he wound up the discussion by recommending the
clergy to act each man on his own responsibility ; ' salvet suam
animam unusquisque.'
Edward proceeded in his preparations for the war, not without

490 Edward I. [part
watching the progress of events, but only recognising it in his
public acts so far as was absolutely necessary. His obligations
to his allies forbade his drawing back : and his own sense of
prudence warned him that it was of no use to postpone the
crisis. On the 15th of May he issued writs for a military levy
of the whole kingdom to meet at London on the 7 th of July :
these are addressed to the barons, bishops, and sheriffs, the
latter of whom' were to enjoin the attendance in arms of all per
sons holding lands to the value of £20 per annum.
On the 7th of July the crisis came : the military force met :
the earl marshall and constable refused to perform their official
duties, and being superseded thereupon by two other officers,
left the court. The Archbishop of Canterbury reconciled him
self with the king, and had his estates restored : and Edward
prevailed upon the barons and commons who continued with
him to make a money grant. This proceeding was unconstitu
tional in the extreme : the leading men, who had not been sent
to London for any such purpose, assembled in the royal cham
ber ; and although in no respect a parliament, or qualified to
act as one, granted an eighth of the moveables of the barons
and knights, and a fifth of those of the cities and boroughs.
The reward of this concession was to be the confirmation of the
Great Charter and of the Charter of the Forest. The king then
asked the archbishop for a grant, and he immediately summoned
a convocation to meet at the New Temple on the 10th of
August. The mandate states the condition of affairs to be
alarming, and the purpose of the meeting to be to obtain the
confirmation of the charters. It is dated on the 16th of July,
and contains the first intimation that the confirmation of the
charters had been brought in question. The archbishop, now
restored to the king's confidence, next undertook, in conjunction
with several other bishops, to negotiate with the barons. On
the 19th he proposed to meet them at Waltham, Barking, or
Stratford, on any day they might name. They consented to a
parley at Waltham, and on the 23rd the archbishop fixed for
the day of the interview the 27th. On that day, instead of the
two earls, Bobert Fitz Roger and John Segrave met the arch-

vii. J Confirmation of Charters. 491
bishop, aud accompanied him to S. Albans, to visit the king on
the 28th and to receive safe conducts for the earls. The earls
however neither presented themselves in person nor sent ex
cuses ; and on the 30th the king ordered the collection of the
fifth and eighth: proceeding shortly after to Winchelsea, where
he proposed to embark. The writ directing the collection speci
fically declares the confirmation of the charters to be the ground
of the grant.
The convocation met on the 10th of August, and replied to
the king's request, that they entertained good hope of procuring
the assent of the pope to their granting an aid. On the strength
of this promise Edward, on the 20th, issued an order for the
collection of a third of the temporal goods of the clergy ;
their lay fees are to be taxed with those of the laity : their
spiritual revenues, tithes, and offerings are not to he taxed,
but whoever will compound by a fifth of all revenue, tem
poral and spiritual, will be allowed to do so. In the mean
time, on the 12th of August the king had published a
statement of his case by letters patent, as against the earls,
appealing to the people to maintain the peace during his
absence. After this appeal, it would seem, he received from the earls
the statement of their claims, framed as a gravamen of the
whole community, demanding relief from the heavy taxation
imposed unconstitutionally by the king, redress from the hard
ships inflicted contrary to the charters, and the relaxation of the
new custom imposed on wool in the preceding Lent. (See
pp. 442-444.) The king replied that he could not now return a
specific answer : he was at a distance from his council, and
trusted that they would maintain the peace until his return.
On the 19th he wrote to forbid the archbishop and bishops
to excommunicate the officers who were seizing the corn and
other goods for his use : a fact which seems to indicate some
approximation between the bishops and the malcontent earls.
On the 22 nd he sailed, leaving his son Edward regent, with
Reginald de Grey as his chief counsellor.
The departure of the king gave the earls the opportunity

492 Edward I. [part
they had waited for. On the 23rd they appeared in the
Exchequer, and formally forbade the barons to proceed in the
collection of the aid before the promised confirmation of the
charters had taken place. To this demonstration the young
regent replied on the 28th by a proclamation, that the col
lection of the eighth should not be drawn into a precedent.
No more is heard of the fifth which, according to the king, had
been granted by the boroughs.
Two days before he embarked, the king had summoned to his
son's assistance a large number of knights and barons, who were
to meet at Rochester for a Colloquium on the 8th of September;
before that day, however, it had been determined to call a more
complete council for the 30th, to which the archbishop and the
earls were invited by a writ dated on the 9th. It would appear
probable that the turning-point in the regent's councils should
be fixed to this date. On the fifth of the month a summons is
addressed to the bishop of London, and several others of the
royalist side ; it is not until the 9th that the archbishop, the
marshall, and constable are summoned. If this were so, the
necessity for further concession must have become quickly ap
parent : for on the 15th, a fortnight before the date of the
proposed •council, writs of election of representatives of the
Commons were addressed to the sheriffs. The writs declare that
the king is determined to confirm the charters in consideration
of the aid of an eighth, and the representatives are summoned
to receive their copies of the famous privileges on the 6th of
October. This assembly was certainly called in an informal
manner, the writs of the bishops containing no mention of the
clergy, and those of the whole baronage, clerical and lay, fixing
a day of meeting a week earlier than that fixed for the Com
mons. In other respects it was a sufficient parliament. It met
as appointed, and received the confirmation promised in the
summons. The whole of the proceedings were, however, tumul
tuary. The two earls appeared with a large military force, and
prescribed the terms, supplementary to the charter, which they
had already presented to the king. The prince, under the
advice of his council, accepted them ; confirmed the charters

VI1-] Confirmation of Charters. 493
with these additions, and despatched them to his father for
further corroboration. On the 10th of October, not content
with the granting of their demand, the earls insisted further
that the illegal proceedings taken in the granting of the aid
should be treated as null. Not even the grant of the eighth
was allowed to be legal ; a new grant was made, of a ninth,
by the whole of the laity in parliament, and then the strife
ceased. The two charters were further confirmed by inspeximus
on the 12th of October; and the clergy of the southern pro
vince granted a tenth, those of the northern a fifth, in aid of
the war with Scotland.
The above is a bare chronological statement of the two
trains of events which led to this great and most important
act ; the one starting from the Bull Clericis laicos, the other
from the refusal of the earls to go to Gascony without the
king. Here, as in the events which led to the Great Charter,
we trace two distinct but concurrent forces, supplementing each
other ; each of them the summation of a series of accumulating
influences, but timed by an extraordinary coincidence, through
the king's necessities. Neither the heavy imposts laid on the
clergy, nor the demand of foreign service from the earls, nor the
seizure of the wool by the king, has any direct technical bear
ing on the question of the confirmation of the charters of King
John. Yet these charters are the rallying-point of the oppressed
and offended ; the essence, as it was thought, of the constitution.
If the actual effects of the two distinct forces are carefully ex
amined, it will be seen that whilst the confirmation of the
charters is due mainly to the action of Archbishop Winchelsey,
the addition of the new articles seems to be the result of the
measures of the earls.* It would be too much to suppose that
Winchelsey was to them what Langton had been to the barons
at Runnymede, nor is there clear evidence that he was acting in
concert with them after his reconciliation with Edward. The
additional articles may, however, have been drawn up with his
concurrence before the reconciliation, and they certainly appear
as the gravamina of the whole estates of the realm. (See
P- 443-)

494 Edward I. [part
The confirmation of his son's act by the king at Ghent in
November did not entirely satisfy the barons. In the summer
of 1298 the two earls demanded a second assurance as a con
dition of service in Scotland ; and a further formal confirma
tion was made by the king in consequence on the 8th of
March, 1299, with a provision saving the rights of the Crown.
This form did not content the people ; and the process was
repeated without the salvo. A delay in carrying out the pro
cess of disforesting under the Carta de Foresta produced a
new suspicion, and the charters were again confirmed, March
6th, 1300, in a statute called 'Articuli super Cartas,' an im
portant act, containing many alleviations of popular complaints,
but not repeating the points conceded on the 10th of October,
1297. A final confirmation was bestowed in 1301, when, after
the completion of the perambulation of the forests, the king,
at the parliament of Lincoln, issued letters patent confirming
the charters, it is said, for the thirty-second time. It is memor
able that in all these confirmations the constitutional articles
of the Charter of John, omitted in the re-issue of 12 16, were
never replaced.
I. Edward par la grace de Dieu, roy Dengleterre, seignur
Dirland et dues Daquitaine, a toutz ceus qui cestes presentes
lettres verront ou orront, saluz. Sachiez nous al honeur de
Dieu et de seinte Eglise et au profit de tut notre roiaume,
aver grante pur nous et pur nos heirs, qe la grande chartre
des franchises et la chartre de la forest les queles furent faites
par commun assent de tut le roiaume en tens le rey Henry
notre pere, seient tenuz en toutz leur pointz, sanz nul blemishment.
E voloms qe meismes celes chartres de suth notre seal seient
envoiez a nos justices, ausi bien de la forest, come as autres, e a
toutz les viscontes des contez, et a toutz 'nos autres ministres, a
totes nos citees par mi la terre, ensemblement ove nos briefs, en
les queux sera contenu qil facent les avantdites chartres pupplier,
e qil facent dire au poeple qe nous les avoms grauntees de tenir
les en toutz leur pointz ; e a nos justices, viscontes, maires e
autres ministres, qi la ley de la terre de south nous et par nous
ount a guier, meismes les chartres en toutz leur pointz, en
plez devaunt eus e en jugementz, les facent alower, cest a savoir
la grande chartre des franchises come lay commune, e la chartre

vn.] Confirmation of Charters. 495
de la forest solom lassise de la forest, al amendement de notre
poeple. II. E voloms qe si nuls jugementz soient donez desoremes
encontre les pointz des chartres avantdites, par justices et par
autres nos ministres qui contre les pointz des chartres tenent
plez devant eus, seient defaitz e pur nient tenuz.
III. E voloms qe mesmes celes chartres de suth notre seal
seient envoiez as eglises cathedrales parmi notre roiaume et la
demorgent ; e seient deufoitz par an lues devant le poeple.
IV. E qe ercevesques et evesques doignent sentences du grant
escomenger contre toutz ceus qui contre les avantdites chartres
vendront, en fait, ou en ayde, ou en conseil, ou nul point
enfreindront, ou encontre vendront. E qe celes sentences seient
denuncies e pupplies deufoitz par an par les avantditz prelatz.
E si mesmes les prelatz evesques ou nul de eus seient negli-
gentz en la denunciacion susdite faire, par les ercevesques de
Canterbire e de Everwyk, qui pur tens serront, sicome covient,
soient repris et destreins a mesme cele denunciacion faire en la
fourme avauntdite.
V. E pur ceo qe aucunes gentz de notre roiaume se doutent
qe les aides e les mises, les queles il nous ount fait avant ces
oures pur nos guerres et autre bosoignes, de leur grant e leur
bone volunte, en quele manere qe faitz seient, pussent turner en
servage a eus, e a leur heirs, par ce qil serroient autrefoitz trovez
en roule, e ausi prises qe ont este faites par mi le roiaume par
nos ministres, en notre noun, avoms grante pur nous et pur nos
heirs, qe mes tieles aides, mises, ne prises, ne treroms a custume,
pur nule chose qe soit fait ou qe par roule ou en autre maniere
peust estre trove.
VI. E ausi avoms grante pur nous e pur nos heirs as
ercevesques, evesques, abbes, e priuis, e as autres gentz de
seinte eglise, et as contes et barons et a tote la communaute de la
tene, qe mes pur nule busoigne tieu manere des aides, mises,
ne prises, de notre roiaume ne prendroms, fors qe par commun
assent de tut le roiaume, et a commun profit de meisme le
roiaume, sauve les auncienes aides et prises dues et custumees.
VII. E pur ceo qe tat le plus de la communaute del roiaume
se sentent durement grevez de la male toute des leines, cest
asavoir de cheseun sak de leine quarante soudz, e nous ont
prie que nous les vousissoms relesser, nous a leur jiriere les
avoms pleinement relesse ; e avoms grante qe cele ne autre
mes ne prendroms, sanz lour commun assent e leur bone vo
lunte ; sauve a nous e a nos heirs la custume des leines, peaus
e quirs avant grantez par la communaute du roiaume avantdit.

496 Edward I. [part
En temoignance de queux choses nous avoms fait faire cestes nos
lettres overtes. Tesmoigne Edward notre fitz a Londres le disme
jour de October, Ian de notre regne vintisme quynt.
E fet a remembrer qe meisme ceste chartre suth meimes les
paroles, de mot en mot, fust sole en Flaundres, de suth le grant
seal le rey, cest asaver a Gaunt, le quint jour de November,
Ian del regne lavantdit notre seignur le rey vintisme quint, e
envee en Engleterre. Translation.
I. Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and
Duke of Guyan, to all those that these present letters shall hear or see,
greeting. Know ye that we to the honour of God and of holy Church, and
to the profit of our realm, have granted for us and our heirs, that the
Charter of Liberties and the Charter of the Eorest, which were made by
common assent of all the realm, in the time of King Henry our father,
shall be kept in every point without breach. And we will that the Bame
charters shall be sent under our seal as well to our justices of the forest as
to others, and to all sheiiffs of shires, and to all our other officers, and to all
our cities throughout the realm, together with our writs in the which it
shall be contained, that they cause the aforesaid charters to be published,
and to declare to the people that we have confirmed them in all points,
and that our justices, sheriffs, mayors, and other ministers which under us
have the laws of our land to guide, shall allosv the said charters in pleas
before them and in judgments in all their points ; that is to wit, the Great
Charter as the common law and the Charter of the Eorest according to the
Assize of the Forest, for the wealth of our realm.
II. And we will that if any judgment be given from henceforth, contrary
to the points of the charters aforesaid, by the justices or by any othtr our
ministers that hold plea before them against the points of the charters, it
shall be undone and holden for nought.
III. And we will that the same charters shall be sent under our seal to
cathedral churches throughout our realm, there to remain, and shall be
read before the people two times by the year.
IV. And that all archbishops and bishops shall pronounce the sentence
of great excommunication against all those that by word, deed, or counsel
do contrary to the foresaid charters, or that in any point break or undo
them. And that the said curses be twice a year denounced and published
by the prelates aforesaid. And if the same prelates or any of them be
remiss in the denunciation of the said sentences, the Archbishops of Canter
bury and York for the time being, as is fitting, shall compel and distrein
them to make that denunciation in form aforesaid.
V. And for so much as divers people of our realm are in fear that the
aids and tasks which they have given to us beforetime towards our wars
and other business, of their own grant and goodwill, howsoever they were
made, might tum to a bondage to them and their heirs, because they
might be at another time found in the rolls, and so likewise the prises
taken throughout the realm by our ministers : we have granted for us and
our heirs, that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises into a custom
for anything that hath been done heretofore or that may be found by roll
or in any other manner.
VI. Moreover we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to arch
bishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy Church, as also to

vii.] Confirmation of Charters. 497
earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business
from henceforth will we take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by
the common assent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving
the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.
VII. And for so much as the more part of the commonalty of the realm
find themselves sore grieved with the maletote of wools, that is to wit, a
toll of forty shillings for every sack of wool, and have made petition to us
to release the same ; we, at their requests, have clearly released it, and have
granted for us and our heirs that we shall not take such thing nor any
other without their common assent and goodwill ; saving to us and our
heirs the custom of wools, skins, and leather granted before by the com
monalty aforesaid. In witness of which things we have caused these our
letters to be made patents. Witness Edward our son at London, the 10th
day of October, the five and twentieth year of our reign.
And be it remembered that this same chatter in the same terms, word
for word, was sealed in Flanders under the king's great seal, that is to say
at Ghent, the 5th day of November in the 25th year of the reign of our
aforesaid lord the king, and sent into England. — (Statutes of the Realm,
i. 124, 125.)

A.D. 1297. De Tallagio non Concedbsdo.
The following articles are given by Walter of Hemingburgh
under the title 'Articuli inserti in Magna Carta,' as the Latin
equivalent to the act of confirmation in French : they were
referred to as a statute in the preamble to the Petition of Right,
and were decided by the judges in 1637 to he a statute. But
they are not found in any authoritative record, and are now
held to be an abstract, imperfect and unauthoritative, of the
regent's act of confirmation and of the pardon of the two earls.
It will be seen that the omission of any qualifying word before
' tallagium vel auxilium' in the first clause (the tieu of the Con
firmation, clause vi.), and of the saving words in clauses vi. and
vii. of the Confirmation, gives to this document a much greater
restrictive force than is possessed by the undoubtedly authentic
one. It is certain that Edward did not regard himself as pre
cluded by the act of October 10 from exacting the ancient
custom on wool, or from talliaging the towns and demesne,
which he did in 1304. The obligations under which the
king placed himself must be construed literally from the act
just given above.
I. Nullum talliagium vel auxilium per nos vel haeredes
nostros de cetero in regno nostro imponatur seu levetur, sine
Kk

498 Edward I. [part
voluntate et assensu communi archiepiscoporum, episcoporum
et aliorum praelatorum, comitum, baronum, militum, burgen
sium et aliorum liberorum hominum in regno nostro.
II. Nullus minister noster vel haeredum nostrorum capiat
blada, lanas, coria, aut aliqua alia bona cujuscunque, sine volun
tate et assensu illius cujus fuerint hujusmodi bona.
III. Nihil capiatur de cetero nomine vel occasione malae
toltae de sacco lanae.
IV. Volumus etiam et concedimus pro nobis et haeredibus
nostris, quod omnes clerici et laici de regno nostro habeant
omnes leges, libertates et liberas consuetudines suas ita libere et
integre sicut eas aliquo tempore plenius et melius habere con
sueverunt. Et si contra illas vel quemcunque articulum in
praesenti carta contentum statuta fuerint edita per nos vel per
antecessores nostros, vel consuetudines introductae, volumus et
concedimus quod hujusmodi consuetudines et statute vacua et
nulla sint in perpetuum.
V. Remisimus etiam Humfrido de Boun comiti Herefordensi
et Essexiensi constabulario Angliae, Bogero Bygot comiti North-
folciae marescallo Angliae, et aliis comitibus, baronibus, mili
tibus, armigeris, Johanni de Ferrariis ac omnibus aliis de eorum
societate, confoederatione, et concordia, existentibus, necnon om
nibus viginti libratas terrae tenentibus in regno nostro sive
de nobis in capite sive de alio quocunque, qui ad transfre
tandum nobiscum in Flandriam certo die notato vocati fuerunt
et non venerunt, rancorem nostrum et malam voluntatem quam
ex causis praedictis erga eos habuimus ; et etiam transgressiones
si quas nobis vel nostris fecerint usque ad praesentis cartae
confectionem. VI. Et ad majorem hujus rei securitatem volumus et con
cedimus j>ro nobis et haeredibus nostris, quod omnes archi
episcopi et episcopi Angliae, in perpetuum in suis cathedra-
libus ecclesiis habita praesenti carta et lecta, excommunicent
publice et in singulis parochialibus ecclesiis suarum diocesium
excommunicare seu excommunicates denunciare faciant, bis in
anno, omnes qui contra tenorem praesentis cartae, vim et effec-
tum, in quocunque articulo scienter fecerint, aut fieri procu-
raverint, quoquomodo. In cujus rei testimonium praesenti
cartae sigillum nostrum est appensum, una cum sigillis archi
episcoporum, episcoporum, comitum, baronum et aliorum qui
sponte juraverunt quod tenorem praesentis cartae, quatenus
in eis est, in omnibus et singulis articulis observabunt, et ad
ejus observationem consilium suum et auxilium fidele prae-
stabunt in perpetuum. — (W. de Hemingburgh, ii. 153, 154.)

vii.] Parliament of Lincoln.

499

A.D. 1301. Summons to the Barliament of Lincoln.
This writ, issued in September 1300, is especially curious as
directing the return to the new parliament, to be held the next
January, of the representatives of the counties and boroughs
who had served in the preceding one. The reason of this pro
bably was, that the session was held to receive the report of the
perambulations, the anangements for which had been made in
the last parliament.
It was in this parliament that the charters received their last
confirmation, Feb. 14, 1301. An aid of a fifteenth was voted
in consequence. Here also was drawn up the reply of the
nation to the letter of Boniface VIII claiming the superiority
over Scotland.
Bex vicecomiti Cumbriae, salutem. Cum nuper pro communi
utilitate populi nostri etc. etc. tibi praecipimus firmiter injun-
gendo quod venire facias coram nobis ad parliamentum nostrum
apud Lincolniam in octavis Sancti Hilarii proximo futuri duos
milites de balliva tua, illos videlicet qui pro eommunitate comi
tatus praedicti ad parliamentum nostrum ultimo praeteritum
per praeceptum nostrum venerunt, et etiam de qualibet civitate
infra baillivam tuam eosdem cives, et de quolibet burgo eosdem
burgenses qui ad praedictum parliamentum nostrum alias sic
venerunt. Et si forte aliquis militum, civium, aut burgensium
praedictorum, mortuus fuerit aut infirmus, per quod ad dictos
diem et locum venire nequiverint, tunc loco illius mortui aut
infirmi unum alium idoneum ad hoc eligi et ad dictum parlia
mentum nostrum venire facias : ita quod milites, cives, et
burgenses praedicti, dictis die et loco modis omnibus intersint
cum plena potestate audiendi et faciendi ea quae ibidem in
praemissis ordinari continget pro communi commodo dicti regni.
Et eisdem militibus de eommunitate comitatus praedicti, civibus
de civitatibus, et burgensibus de burgis praedictis, rationabiles
expensas suas habere facias, in veniendo ad dictum parlia
mentum nostrum, ibidem morando, et etiam redeundo. Tibi
insuper praecipimus sicut prius quod per totam ballivam tuam
sine dilatione publice facias proclamari, quod omnes illi qui
terras aut tenementa habent infra metes forestae nostrae in
balliva tua, et qui perambulationem in aliquo calumniari volue
rint, quod sint coram nobis in parliamento nostro praedicto,
£ k 2

500 Edward I. [part
ostensuri in hae parte rationes suas et calumnias si quas habent.
Et habeas ibi nomina praedictorum militum, civium et bur
gensium, et hoc breve. T. B. apud la Rose, XXVI. die
Septembris. — (Parliamentary Writs, i. 90.)

A.D. 1303. Weit of Summons to a 'Colloquium'
of Merchants.
The heavy expenses of the French and Scottish wars compelled
the king to look about him for new sources of revenue. In
1302 he had fallen back on the aid 'pur fille marier,' which had
been voted in 1290, but never paid. He now attempted to get
the consent of the merchants to raise the custom on wine, wool,
and merchandise. The assembly called is anomalous, but would,
if it had been submissive, have given him authority sufficient
to enable him to approach the parliament with a plausible case.
The opposition, however, was very strong, and the project
dropped. Edwardus Dei gratia etc., majori et vicecomitibus Lon
doniarum, salutem. Quia intelleximus quod diversi mercatores
regni nostri, ut ipsi de prisis nostris quieti esse et diversis liber
tatibus per nos mercatoribus extraneis et alienigenis concessis uti
valeant et gaudere, nobis de bonis et mercandisis suis solvere
volunt quasdam novas praestationes et custumas quas dicti
mercatores extranei et alienigenae nobis de bonis et mercandisis
suis solvunt infra regnum et potestatem nostram ; nos volentes
super praemissis cum mercatoribus dicti regni nostri habere
colloquium et tractatum ; vobis praecipimus quod de civitate
nostra praedicta duos vel tres cives venire faciatis ad scaccarium
nostrum Eboraci, ita quod sint ibidem in crastino Sancti Johannis
Baptistae proximo futuro, cum plena potestate pro eommunitate
civitatis nostrae praedictae, ad faciendum et recipiendum quod
tunc de nostro et eorum ac mereatorum dicti regni nostri consilio
et assensu ordinabitur in praemissis ; et habeatis ibi tunc hoc
breve. T. me ipso apud Novum castrum super Tynam, VIII.
die Maii, anno regni nostri XXX9!6.
Forty-two towns sent representatives :
Qui omnes venerunt XXV. die Junii coram consilio domini
regis apud Eboracum per summonitionem brevis supradieti, et
dixerunt unanimi consensu et voluntate, tam pro se ipsis quam

¦vii. J Collection of Talliage. 501
pro communitatibus civitatem et burgorum supradictorum, quod
ad incrementum maltolliae nee ad custumas in praedicto brevi
contentas, per alienigenas et extraneos mercatores domino regi
concessas, nullo modo consentient nisi ad custumas antiquitus
debitas et consuetas. — (Parliamentary Writs, i. 134, 135.)

A.D. 1304. Writ for the Collection of Talliage.
This is another monument of Edward's financial difficulties and
ingenuity. The right of talliaging demesne was not formally taken
from the king by the act of October 10, 1297, although it was
contrary to the iuterpretation of that act in the 'De Tallagio
non Concedendo.' This exaction, however, in conjunction with
the attempt to raise the custom on wool in 1303, and the abso
lution obtained in 1 305 from Clement V from the observance
of the Confirmation of Charters, are made a ground of accusation
of bad faith against Edward. The second of these counts is of
no importance. The exaction of the talliage was the act of a
man of very precise and legal mind, in great financial difficulty,
avoiding a breach of the letter of the law : supposing a simple
talliage not to be contrary to his obligations. The Bull of
Clement V rehearses no more than is true of the compulsion
by which the Confirmation of Charters was wrested from the
young Edward : but the real answer to the charge inferred
from it is that Edward did not act upon the absolution.
Rex dilectis et fidelibus suis, Bogero de Hegham, Waltero de
Gloucestria, et Johanni de Sandale, salutem. Sciatis quod con
stituimus vos vel duos vestrum ad assidendum tallagium nostrum
in civitatibus, burgis et dominicis nostris infra comitatus Kanciae,
Middlesexiae, Londoniae, Surreiae et Sussexiae, separatim per
capita vel in communi, prout ad commodum nostrum magis
videritis expedire : et ideo vobis mandamus quod sine dilatione
accedatis ad civitates, burgos et dominica praedicta, ad dictum
tallao-ium secundum facultatem tenentium eorundem oivitatum,
burgorum et dominicorum, assidendum in forma praedicta ; ita
quod tallagium illud ad citius quod poteritis assideatur; et
quod divitibus non deferatur nee pauperes nimis in hae parte
graventur. Et extractus totius tallagii praedicti liberetis sub

502 Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [part
sigillis vestris certis personis per vos eligendis ad tallagium illud
sine dilatione levandum et nobis ad scaccarium nostrum inde
respondendum. Et talem circa praemissa expedienda diligen
tiam apponatis quod vos inde merito commendare debeamus,
nullatenus omittentes quin sitis ad scaccarium praedictum quam
cito commode poteritis, ad certificandum thesaurario et baroni
bus nostris de eodem scaccario de eo quod feceritis in prae
missis. Mandavimus enim vicecomitibus nostris comitatuum
praedictorum, quod, cum a vobis vel duobus vestrum fuerint
praemuniti, venire faciant coram vobis vel duobus vestrum
omnes illos de civitatibus, burgis et dominicis, quos ad dictum
tallagium assidendum videritis necessarios, et vobis ad hoc sint
auxiliantes et intendentes, prout eis injungetis ex parte nostra.
In cujus, etc. Teste Bege apud Dunfermelyn, VI0 die Feb
ruarii, anno etc. XXXII0. — (Rolls of Parliament, i. 266.)

Modus tenendi Parliamenti.
The following short treatise is a somewhat ideal description of
the constitution of parliament in the middle of the 14th century,
and is a fitting appendix to the series of documents given in this
volume. Its authenticity has been bitterly assailed, and it is of
course absurd to regard it as a relic of the times of the Conque
ror. But it is not therefore a modern forgery. It is found in
manuscripts of the 14th century, and although, on reference to
contemporary writs and documents, it is found to be frequently
misleading, it may be accepted as a theoretical view for which the
writer was anxious to find a warrant in immemorial antiquity.
The following recension is taken from the edition published in
1846 by the present Deputy Keeper of the Records, Sir Thomas
Duffus Hardy, and with his permission.
Hie describitur modus, quomodo parliamentum regis Angliae
et Anglicorum suorum tenebatur tempore regis Edwardi filii
regis Etheldredi ; qui quidem modus recitatus fuit per discre-
tiores regni coram Willelmo duce Normanniae et Conquestore
et rege Angliae, ipso Conquestore hoc praecipiente, et per ipsum
approbatus, et suis temporibus ac etiam temporibus successorum
suorum regum Angliae usitatus.

TO.] Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 503
Summonitio Parliamenti.
Summonitio parliamenti praecedere debet primum diem par
liamenti per quadraginta dies.
Ad parliamentum summoneri et venire debent, ratione tenurae
suae, omnes et singuli archiepiscopi, episcopi, abbates, priores, et
alii majores cleri, qui tenent per comitatum vel baroniam, ratione
hujusmodi tenurae, et nulli minores nisi eorum praesentia et
eventus aliunde quam pro tenuris suis requiratur, ut si sint de
consilio regis, vel eorum praesentia necessaria vel utilis reputetur
ad parliamentum ; et illis tenetur rex ministrare sumptus et
expensas suas de veniendo et morando ad parliamentum; nee
debent hujusmodi clerici minores summoneri ad parliamentum,
sed rex solebat talibus pariter mittere brevia sua rogando quod
ad parliamentum suum interessent.
Item, rex solebat facere summonitiones suas archiepiscopis,
episcopis, et aliis exemptis personis, ut abbatibus, prioribus,
decanis, et aliis ecclesiasticis personis, qui habent jurisdictiones
per hujusmodi exemptiones et privilegia separatim, quod ipsi
pro quolibet decanatu et archidiaconatu Angliae per ipsos deca-
natus et archidiaconatus eligi facerent duos peritos et idoneos
procuratores de proprio archidiaconatu ad veniendum et inter-
essendum ad parliamentum, ad illud subeundum, allegandum
et faciendum idem quod facerent omnes et singulae personae
ipsorum decanatuum et archidiaconatuum, si ibidem personaliter
interessent. Et quod hujusmodi procuratores veniant cum warantis suis
duplicatis, sigillis superiorum suorum signatis, quod ipsi ad
hujusmodi procurationem clerici missi sunt, quarum litterarum
una liberabitur clericis de parliamento ad irrotulandum et alia
residebit penes ipsos procuratores ; et sic sub istis duobus gene-
ribus summoneri debet totus clerus ad parliamentum.
De Laicis.
Item, summoneri et venire debent omnes et singuli comites et
barones, et eorum pares, scilicet illi qui habent terras et redditus
ad valentiam comitatus vel baroniae integrae, videlicet viginti
feoda unius militis, quolibet feodo computato ad viginti libratas,
quae faciunt quadringentas libratas in toto, vel ad valentiam
unius baroniae integrae, scilicet tresdecim feoda et tertiam
partem unius feodi militis, quolibet feodo computato ad viginti
libratas, quae faciunt in toto quadringentas marcas ; et nulli
minores laici summoneri nee venire debent ad parliamentum,

504 Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [pakt
ratione tenurae suae, nisi eorum praesentia aliis de causis fuerit
utilis vel necessaria ad parliamentum, et tunc de illis fieri debet
sicut dictum est de minoribus clericis, qui ratione tenurae suae
ad parliamentum venire minime tenentur.
De Baronibus Portuum.
Item, rex tenetur mittere brevia sua custodi Quinque Portuum
quod ipse eligi faciat de quolibet portu per ipsum portum duos
idoneos et peritos barones ad veniendum et interessendum ad
parliamentum suum, ad respondendum, subeundum, allegandum,
et faciendum idem quod baroniae suae, ac si ipsi de baroniis
illis omnes et singuli personaliter interessent ibidem ; et quod
barones hujusmodi veniant cum warantis suis duplicatis, sigillis
communibus portuum suorum signatis, quod ipsi rite ad hoc
electi, et attornati sunt, et missi pro baroniis illis, quarum una
liberabitur clericis de parliamento, et alia residebit penes ipsos
barones. Et cum hujusmodi barones portuum, licentia optenta,
de parliamento recessum fecerant, tunc solebant habere breve de
magno sigillo custodi Quinque Portuum, quod ipse rationabiles
sumptus et expensas suas hujusmodi baronibus habere faceret de
eommunitate portus illius, a primo die quo versus parliamentum
venerint usque ad diem quo ad propria redierint, facta etiam
expressa mentione in brevi illo de mora quam fecerint ad parlia
mentum, de die quo venerint, et quo licentiati fuerint redeundi;
et solebat mentio fieri aliquando in brevi quantum hujusmodi
barones capere debent de communitatibus illis per diem, scilicet
aliqui plus, aliqui minus, secundum personarum habilitates,
honestates, et respectus, nee solebat poni per duos barones per
diem ultra viginti solidos, habito respectu ad illorum moras,
labores et expensas, nee solent hujusmodi expensae in certo
reponi per curiam pro quibuscumque personis sic electis et
missis pro communitatibus, nisi personae ipsae fuerint honeste
et bene se habentes in parliamento. De Militibus.
Item, rex solebat mittere brevia sua omnibus vicecomitibus
Angliae, quod eligi facerent quilibet de suo comitatu per ipsum
comitatum duos milites idoneos, et honestos, et peritos, ad veni
endum ad parliamentum suum, eodem modo quo dictum est de
baronibus portuum, et de warantis suis eodem modo, sed pro
expensis duorum militum de uno comitatu non solet poni ultra
unam marcam per diem.

vn.] Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 505
De Civibus.
Eodem modo solebat mandari majori et vicecomitibus Lon
doniarum, et majori et ballivis vel majori et civibus Eboraci
et aliarum civitatum, quod ipsi pro eommunitate civitatis suae
eligerent duos idoneos, honestos, et peritos cives ad veniendum
et interessendum ad parliamentum eodem modo quo dictum
est de baronibus Quinque Portuum et militibus comitatuum ; et
solebant cives esse pares et aequales cum militibus comitatuum
in expensis veniendo, morando et redeundo.
De Burgensibus.
Item, eodem modo solebat et debet mandari ballivis et probis
hominibus burgorum, quod ipsi ex se et pro se eligant duos
idoneos, honestos, et peritos burgenses ad veniendum et inter
essendum ad parliamentum eodem modo quo dictum est de
civibus ; sed duo burgenses non solebant percipere pro expensis
suis per unum diem ultra decern solidos, et aliquando ultra
dimidiam marcam, et hoc solebat taxari per curiam, secundum
magnitudinem et potestatem burgi et secundum honestatem
personarum missarum.
De Principalibus Clericis Parliamenti.
Item, duo clerici principales parliamenti sedebunt in medio
justiciariorum, qui irrotulabunt omnia placita et negotia par
liamenti. Et sciendum quod illi duo clerici non sunt subjecti quibus-
cumque justiciariis, nee est aliquis justiciarius Angliae in par
liamento, nee habent per se recorda in parliamento, nisi qua
tenus assignata vel data fuit eis nova potestas in parliamento
per regem et pares parliamenti, ut quando assignati sunt cum
aliis sectatoribus parliamenti ad audienduni et terminandum
diversas petitiones et querelas in parliamento porrectas ; et sunt
illi duo clerici immediate subjecti regi et parliamento suo in
communi, nisi forte unus justiciarius vel duo assignentur eis ad
examinanda et emendanda eorum irrotulamenta, et cum pares
parliamenti assignati sunt ad audiendas et examinandas aliquas
petitiones specialiter per se, tunc cum ipsi fuerint unanimes et
Concordes in judiciis suis reddendis super ejusmodi petitionibus,
recitabunt et processum super eisdem habitum et reddent judicia
in pleno parliamento, ita quod illi duo clerici principaliter
irrotulent omnia placita et omnia judicia in principali rotulo

506 Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [part
parliamenti, et eosdem rotulos liberent ad thesaurarium regis
antequam parliamentum licentietur, ita quod omni modo sint
illi rotuli in thesauraria ante recessum parliamenti, salvo tamen
eisdem clericis inde transcripto, sive contrarotulo, si id habere
velint. Isti duo clerici, nisi sint in alio officio cum rege, et
feoda capiant de eo, ita quod inde honeste vivere poterint, de
rege capiant per diem unam marcam pro expensis suis per
aequales portiones ; nisi sint ad mensam domini regis, tunc
capient praeter mensam suam per diem dimidiam marcam per
aequales portiones, per totum parliamentum.
De quinque Clericis.
Item, rex assignabit quinque clericos peritos et approbates,
quorum primus ministrabit et serviet episcopis, secundus procu-
ratoribus cleri, tertius comitibus et baronibus, quartus militibus
comitatuum, quintus civibus et burgensibus, et quilibet eorum,
nisi sit cum rege et capiat de eo tale feodum seu talia vadia
quod inde honeste possit vivere, capiet de rege per diem duos
solidos ; nisi sint ad mensam domini regis, tunc capiant per
diem duodecim denarios; qui clerici scribent eorum dubitationes
et responsiones quas faciunt regi et parliamento, et intererunt
ad sua consilia ubicumque eos habere voluerint ; et, cum ipsi
vacaverint, juvabunt clericos principales ad irrotulandum.
De Casibus et Judiciis difficilibus.
Cum briga, dubitatio, vel casus difficilis, sit pacis vel guerrae,
emergat in regno vel extra, referatur et recitetur casus ille in
scriptis in pleno parliamento, et tractetur et disputetur ibidem
inter pares parliamenti, et, si necesse sit, injungatur per regem
seu ex parte regis, si rex non intersit, cuilibet graduum parium
quod quilibet gradus adeat per se, et liberetur casus ille clerico
suo in seripto, et in certo loco recitare faciant coram eis casum
ilium ; ita quod ipsi ordinent et considerent inter se qualiter
melius et justius procedi poterit in casu illo, sicut ipsi pro per
sona regis et eorum propriis personis, ac etiam pro personis
eorum quorum personas ipsi representant, velint coram Deo
respondere, et suas responsiones et avisamenta reportent in
scriptis, ut omnibus eorum responsionibus, consiliis et avisa-
mentis hinc inde auditis, secundum melius et sanius consilium
procedatur, et ubi saltern major pars parliamenti concordet. Et
si per discordiam inter eos et regem et aliquos magnates, vel
forte inter ipsos magnates, pax regni infirmetur, vel populus
vel patria tribuletur, ita quod videtur regi et ejus consilio

vn.] Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 507
quod expediens sit quod negotium illud tractetur et emen-
detur per considerationem omnium parium regni sui, vel si
per guerram rex et regnum tribulentur, vel si casus difficilis
coram cancellario Angliae emergat, seu judicium difficile
coram justiciariis fuerit reddendum, et hujusmodi, et si forte
in hujusmodi deliberationibus omnes vel saltern major pars con-
cordare non valeant, tunc comes senescallus, comes constabu
larius, comes marescallus, vel duo eorum eligent viginti quinque
personas de omnibus paribus regni, scilicet duos episcopos, et
tres procuratores, pro toto clero, — duos comites et tres barones,
quinque milites comitatuum, quinque cives et burgenses, — qui
faciunt viginti quinque ; et illi viginti quinque possunt eligere
ex seipsis duodecim et condescendere in eis, et ipsi duodecim
sex et condescendere in eis, et ipsi sex adhuc tres et conde
scendere in eis, et illi tres in paucioribus condescendere non
possunt, nisi optenta licentia a domino rege, et si rex con-
sentiat, illi tres possunt in duos, et de illis duobus alter potest
in alium descendere ; et ita demum stabit sua ordinatio supra
totum parliamentum ; et ita condescendendo a viginti quinque per
sonis usque ad unam personam solam, nisi numerus major con-
cordare valeat et ordinare, tandem sola persona, ut est dictum,
pro omnibus ordinabit, quae cum se ipsa discordare non potest ;
salvo domino regi et ejus consilio quod ipsi hujusmodi ordina
tiones postquam scriptae fuerint examinare et emendare valeant,
si hoc facere sciant et velint, ita quod hoc ibidem tunc fiat
in pleno parliamento, et de consensu parliamenti, et non retro
parliamentum. De Negotiis Parliamenti.
Negotia pro quibus parliamentum summonitum est debent
deliberari secundum kalendarium parliamenti, et secundum
ordinem petitionum liberatarum, et afifilatarum, nullo habito
respectu ad quorumcumque personas, sed qui prius proposuit
prius agat. In kalendario parliamenti rememorari debent
omnia negotia parliamenti sub isto ordine ; primo de guerra
si guerra sit, et de aliis negotiis personas regis, reginae, et
suorum liberorum tangentibus ; secundo de negotiis commu
nibus regni, ut de legibus statuendis contra defectus legum
originalium, judicialium, et executoriarum, post judicia reddita
quae sunt maxime communia negotia ; tertio debent rememorari
negotia singularia, et hoc secundum ordinem filatarum peti
tionum, ut praedictum est.

508 Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [part
De Diebus et Horis ad Parliamentum.
Parliamentum non debet teneri diebus Dominicis, sed cunctis
aliis diebus, illo die semper excepto, aliisque tribus, scilicet Om
nium Sanctorum, et Animarum, et Nativitatis Sancti Johannis
Baptistae, potest teneri ; et debet singulis diebus inchoari hora
media prima, qua hora rex tenetur parliamentum interesse, et
omnes pares regni ; et parliamentum debet teneri in loco pub
lico, et non in privato, nee in occulto loco : in diebus festivis
parliamentum debet inchoari hora prima propter Divinum
servitium. De Gradibus Parium.
Bex est caput, principium, et finis parliamenti, et ita non
habet parem in suo gradu, et ita ex rege solo est primus gradus;
secundus gradus est ex archiepiscopis, episcopis, abbatibus, prio-
ribus, per baroniam tenentibus ; tertius gradus est de procurato-
ribus cleri ; quartus de comitibus, baronibus et aliis magnatibus
et proceribus, tenentibus ad valentiam comitatus et baroniae,
sicut praedictum est in titulo de laicis ; quintus est de militibus
comitatuum ; sextos de civibus et burgensibus : et ita est par
liamentum ex sex gradibus. Sed sciendum est quod licet aliquis
dictorum graduum post regem absentet, dum tamen omnes
praemuniti fuerint per rationabiles summonitiones parliamenti,
nihilominus censetur esse plenum.
De Modo Parliamenti.
Ostensa primo forma qualiter cuilibet et a quanto tempore
summonitio parliamenti fieri debet, et qui venire debent per
summonitionem, et qui non ; secundo dicendum est qui sunt qui
ratione officiorum suorum venire debent, et interesse tenentur
per totum parliamentum, sine summonitione ; unde adverten-
dum est quod duo clerici prineipales parliamenti eleeti per regem
et ejus concilium, et alii clerici secundarii de quibus et quorum
officiis dicetur specialius post, et principalis clamator Angliae
cum subclamatoribus suis, et principalis hostiarius Angliae ; — ¦
quae duo officia, scilicet offieium clamatoriae et hostiariae, sole
bant ad unum et idem pertinere, — isti officiarii tenentur inter
esse primo die : cancellarius Angliae, thesaurarius, camerarius,
et barones de scaccario, justioiarii, omnes clerici et milites regis,
una cum servientibus regis ad placita, qui sunt de concilio regis,
tenentur interesse secundo die, nisi rationabiles excusationes
habeant ita quod interesse non possent, et tunc mittere debent
bonas excusationes.

VI1-] Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 509

De Tnchoatione Parliamenti.
Dominus rex sedebit in medio majoris banci, et tenetur inter
esse, primo, sexto die parliamenti : et solebant cancellarius,
thesaurarius, barones de scaccario, et justiciarii recordare defalta
facta in parliamento sub ordine qui sequitur. Primo die voca-
buntur burgenses et cives totius Angliae, quo die si non veniant,
amerciabitur burgus ad centum marcas et civitas ad centum
libras : secundo die vocabuntur milites comitatuum totius
Angliae, quo die si non veniant, amerciabitur comitatus unde
sunt ad centum libras : tertio die parliamenti vocabuntur
barones Quinque Portuum, et postea barones, et postea comites ;
unde si barones Quinque Portuum non veniant, amerciabitur
baronia ilia unde sunt ad centum marcas ; eodem modo amer
ciabitur baro per se ad centum marcas, et comes ad centum
libras ; et eodem modo fiet de illis qui sunt pares comitibus et
baronibus, scilicet qui habent terras et redditus ad valorem
unius comitatus vel unius baroniae, ut praedictum est in titulo
de summonitione : quarto die vocabuntur procuratores cleri,
quo die si non veniant, amerciabuntur episcopi sui pro quolibet
archidiaconatu qui defaltam fecerit ad centum marcas : quinto
die vocabuntur decani, priores, abbates, episcopi, demum archi
episcopi, qui si non veniant, amerciabitur quilibet archiepiscopus
ad centum libras, episcopus tenens integram baroniam ad centum
marcas, et eodem modo de abbatibus, prioribus, et aliis. Primo
die debet fieri proclamatio, primo in aula, sive monasterio, seu
aliquo loco publico ubi parliamentum tenetur, et postmodum
publice in civitate vel villa, quod omnes illi, qui petitiones et
querelas liberare velint ad parliamentum, illas liberent a primo
die parliamenti in quinque dies proximo sequentes.
De Praedicatione ad Parliamentum.
Unus archiepiscopus, vel episcopus vel magnus clericus dis
cretus et facundus, electus per archiepiscopum in cujus provincia
parliamentum tenetur, praedicare debet uno istorum primorum
quinque dierum parliamenti in pleno parliamento et in prae
sentia regis, et hoc quando parliamentum pro majori parte fuerit
adjunctum et congregatum, et in sermone suo consequenter sub-
jungere toti parliamento quod ipsi cum eo humiliter Deo sup-
plicent, et Ipsum adorent, pro pace et tranquillitate regis et
regni, prout specialius dicetur in sequenti titulo de pronuntia-
tione ad parliamentum.

ijio Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [paut

De Pronuntiatione in Parliamento.
Post praedicationem debet cancellarius Angliae vel capitalis
justiciarius Angliae, ille scilicet qui tenet placita coram rege,
vel alius idoneus, honestos, et facundus, justiciarius vel clericus,
per ipsos cancellarium et capitalem justiciarium electus, pronun-
tiare causas parliamenti, primo in genere, et postea in specie,
stando ; et inde sciendum est quod omnes de parliamento, qui-
cumque fuerint, dum loquitur, stabunt, rege excepto, ita quod
omnes de parliamento audire valeant eum qui loquitur, et si
obscure dicat vel ita basse loquatur, dicat iterate, et loquatur
altius, vel loquatur alius pro eo.
Be Loquela Regis post Pronuntiationem.
Rex post pronuntiationem pro parliamento rogare debet cle
ricos et laicos, nominando omnes eorum gradus, scilicet archi
episcopos, episcopos, abbates, priores, archidiaconos, procuratores,
et alios de clero, comites, barones, milites, cives, burgenses, et
alios laicos, quod ipsi diligenter, studiose et corditer laborent
ad pertractandum et deliberandum negotia parliamenti, prout
majus et principalius hoc ad Dei voluntatem primo, et postea
ad ejus et eorum honores, et commoda fore intellexerint et
sentierini De Absentia Regis in Parliamento.
Rex tenetur omni modo personaliter interesse parliamento,
nisi per corporalem aegritudinem detineatur, et tunc potest
tenere cameram suam, ita quod non jaoeat extra manerium, vel
saltern villam, ubi parliamentum tenetur, et tunc debet mittere
pro duodecim personis de majoribus et melioribus qui summo-
niti sunt ad parliamentum, scilicet duobus episcopis, duobus
comitibus, duobus baronibus, duobus militibus comitatuum,
duobus civibus, et duobus burgensibus, ad videndam personam
suam et testificandum statum suum, et in eorum praesentia
committere debet archiepiscopo loci, senescallo, et capitali justici-
ario suo, quod ipsi conjunctim et divisim inchoent et continuent
parliamentum nomine suo, facta in commissione ilia expressa
mentione adtunc de causa absentiae suae, quae sufficere debet,
et monere ceteros nobiles et magnates de parliamento, una cum
notorio testimonio dictorum duodecim parium suorum ; causa
est quod solebat clamor et murmur esse in parliamento pro ab
sentia regis, quia res dampnosa et periculosa est toti com
munitati parliamenti et etiam regni, cum rex a parliamento

TO- J Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 511
absens fueiit, nee se absentare debet nee potest, dumtaxat nisi
in casu supradicto. De Loco et Sessionibus in Parliamento.
Primo, ut praedictum est, rex sedebit in medio loco majoris
banci, et ex parte ejus dextra sedebit archiepiscopus Cantua
riensis, et ex parte ejus sinistra archiepiscopus Eboraci, et post
illos statim episcopi, abbates et priores linealiter, semper tali
modo inter praedictos gradus, et eorum loca, quod nullus sedeat
nisi inter suos pares ; et ad hoc tenetur senescallus Angliae
prospicere, nisi rex alium assignaverit : ad pedem regis dextrum
sedebunt cancellarius Angliae et capitalis justiciarius Angliae,
et socii sui, et eorum clerici qui sunt de parliamento ; et ad
pedem ejus sinistrum sedebunt thesaurarius, camerarius, et
barones de scaccario, justiciarii de banco, et eorum clerici qui
sunt de parliamento. De Hostiario Parliamenti.
Hostiarius principalis parliamenti stabit infra magnum hos
tium monasterii, aulae, vel alterius loci ubi parliamentum
tenetur, et custodiet hostium, ita quod nullus intret parlia
mentum, nisi qui sectam et eventum debeat ad parliamentum,
vel vocatus fuerit propter negotium quod prosequitur in par
liamento, et oportet quod hostiarius ille habeat cognitionem
personarum quae ingredi debent, ita quod nulli omnino negetur
ingressus qui parliamentum interesse tenetur ; et hostiarius ille
potest et debet, si necesse sit, habere plures hostiarios sub se.
De Clamatore Parliamenti.
Clamator parliamenti stabit extra hostium parliamenti, et
hostiarius denunciabit sibi clamationes suas ; rex solebat mittere
servientes suos ad arma ad standum per magnum spatium extra
hostium parliamenti, ad custodiendum hostium, ita quod nulli
impressiones nee tumultus facerent circa hostia, per quod parlia
mentum impediatur, sub poena eaptionis corporum suorum, quia
de jure hostium parliamenti non debet claudi, sed per hostiarium
et servientes regis ad arma custodiri.
De Stationibus Loquentium.
Omnes pares parliamenti sedebunt, et nullus stabit sed quando
loquitur, et loquetur ita quod quilibet de parliamento eum audire

^12 Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. [paut
valeat ; nullus intrabit in parliamentum, nee exiet de parlia
mento, nisi per unum hostium, et quicumque loquitur rem
aliquam quae deliberari debet per parliamentum, stabunt omnes
loquentes ; causa est ut audiatur a paribus, quia omnes pares
sunt judices et justiciarii. De Auxilio Regis.
Rex non solebat petere auxilium de regno suo njsi pro guerra
instanti, vel filios suos milites faciendo, vel filias suas maritando,
et tunc debent hujusmodi auxilia peti in pleno parliamento, et in
scriptis cuilibet gradui parium parliamenti liberari, et in scriptis
responderi ; et sciendum est quod si hujusmodi auxilia conce-
denda sunt oportet quod omnes pares parliamenti consentiant, et
intelligendum est quod duo milites, qui veniunt ad parliamen
tum pro comitatu, majorem vocem habent in parliamento in
concedendo et contradicendo, quam major comes Angliae, et
eodem modo procuratores cleri unius episcopates majorem vocem
habent in parliamento, si omnes sint Concordes, quam episcopus
ipse, et hoc in omnibus quae per parliamentum concedi, negari
vel fieri debent : et hoc patet quod rex potest tenere parliamen
tum cum eommunitate regni sui, absque episcopis, comitibus et
baronibus, dumtamen summoniti sunt ad parliamentum, licet
nullus episcopus, comes vel baro ad summonitiones suas veniant;
quia olim nee fuerat episcopus, nee comes, nee baro, adhuc tunc
reges tenuerunt parliamento sua ; sed aliter est econtra, licet
communitates — cleri et laici — summonitae essent ad parliamen
tum, sicut de jure debent, et propter aliquas causas venire nol-
lent, ut si praetenderent quod dominus rex non regeret eos
sicuti deberet, et assignarent specialiter in quibus eos non rex-
erat, tune parliamentum nullum esset omnino, licet archiepi
scopi, episcopi, comites et barones, et omnes eorum pares, cum
rege interessent : et ideo oportet quod omnia quae affirmari vel
infirmari, concedi vel negari, vel fieri debent per parliamentum,
per communitatem parliamenti concedi debent, quae est ex tri
bus gradibus sive generibus parliamenti, scilicet ex procura-
toribus cleri, militibus comitatuum, civibus et burgensibus, qui
repraesentant totam communitatem Angliae, et non de mag
natibus, quia quilibet eorum est pro sua propria persona ad
parliamentum et pro nulla alia.
De Partitione Parliamenti.
Parliamentum departiri non debet dummodo aliqua petitio
pendeat indiscussa, vel, ad minus, ad quam non sit determinata

vn.] Modus Tenendi Parliamentum. 513
responsio, et si rex contrarium permittat, perjurus est ; nullus
solus de paribus parliamenti recedere potest nee debet de parlia
mento, nisi optenta inde licentia de rege et omnibus suis paribus,
et hoc iu pleno parliamento, et quod de hujusmodi licentia fiat
rememoratio in rotulo parliamenti, et si aliquis de paribus,
durante parliamento, infirmaverit, ita quod ad parliamentum
venire non valeat, tunc per triduum mittat excusatores ad par
liamentum, quo die si non venerit, mittantur ei duo de paribus
suis ad -videndum et testificandum hujusmodi infirmitatem, et si
sit suspicio, jurentor illi duo pares quod veritatem inde dicent,
et si comperiatur quod finxerat se, amercietur tanquam pro
defalta, et si non finxerat se, tunc attornet aliquem sufficientem
coram eis ad interessendum ad parliamentum pro se, nee sanus
excusari potest si sit sanae memoriae.
Departitio parliamenti ita usitari debet : — Primitus peti debet
et publice proclamari in parliamento, et infra palacium parlia
menti, si sit aliquis, qui petitionem liberaverit ad parliamentum,
cui nondum sit responsum ; quod si nullus reclamet, suppo-
nendum est quod cuilibet medetur, vel saltern quatenus potest
de jure respondetur, et tunc primo, videlicet, cum nullus qui
petitionem suam ea vice exhibuerit reclamet, Parliamentum
nostrum licentiabimus.
De Transcriptis Recordorum in Parliamento.
Clerici parliamenti non negabunt cuiquam transcriptum pro
cessus sui, sed liberabunt illud cuilibet qui hoc petierit, et
capient semper pro decem lineis unum denarium, nisi forte facta
fide de impotentia, in quo casu nihil capient. Rotuli de parlia
mento continebunt in latitudine decem pollices. Parliamentum
tenebitur in quo loco regni regi placuerit.
Explicit Modus tenendi Parliamentum.

Ll

APPENDIX.

A.D. 1628. Petition of Right.
3 Cab. I. u. 1.
The Petition exhibited to his Majesty by the Lords Spiritual and Tem
poral, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, concerning
divers Eights and Liberties of the Subjects, with the King's Majesty's
royal answer thereunto in full Parliament.
To the King's Most Excellent Majesty,
Humbly show unto our Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, that whereas it is
declared and enacted by a statute made in the time of the reign of King
Edward I, commonly called Statutum de Tallagio non Concedendo, that no
tallage or aid shall be laid or levied by the king or his heirs in this realm,
without the good will and assent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons,
knights, burgesses, and other the freemen of the commonalty of this realm;
and by authority of parhament holden in the five-and-twentieth year of
the reign of King Edward III, it is declared and enacted, that from
thenceforth no person should be compelled to make any loans to the king
against his will, because such loans were against reason and the franchise
of the land ; and by other laws of this realm it is provided, that none
should be charged by any charge or imposition called a benevolence, nor
by such like charge ,- by which statutes before mentioned, and other the
good laws and statutes of this realm, your subjects have inherited this
freedom, that they should not be compelled to contribute to any tax,
tallage, aid, or other like charge not set by common consent, in
parliament. II. Yet nevertheless of late divers commissions directed to sundry com
missioners in several counties, with instructions, have issued; by means
whereof your people have been in divers places assembled, and required to
lend certain sums of money unto your Majesty, and many of them, upon
their refusal so to do, have had an oath administered unto them not
warrantable by the laws or statutes of this realm, and have been con
strained to become bound and make appearance arid give utterance before
your Privy Council and in other places, and others of them have been
therefore imprisoned, confined, and sundry other ways molested and dis
quieted ; and divers other charges have been laid and levied upon your
people in several counties by lord lieutenants, deputy lieutenants, commis-
Ll 2

516 Appendix.
sioners for musters, justices of peace and others, by command or direction
from your Majesty, or your Privy Council, against the laws and free
customs of the realm.
III. And whereas also by the statute called ' The Great Charter of the
liberties of England,' it is declared and enacted, that no freeman may be
taken or imprisoned or be disseised of his freehold or liberties, or his free
customs, or be outlawed or exiled, or in any manner destroyed, but by the
lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.
IV. And in the eight-and-twentieth year of the reign of King Edward
III, it was declared and enacted by authority of parliament, that no man,
of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land or
tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disherited, nor put to death
without being brought to answer by due process of law.
V. Nevertheless, against the tenor of the said statutes, and other the
good laws and statutes of your realm to that end provided, divers of your
subjects have of late been imprisoned without any cause showed ; and
when for their deliverance they were brought before your justices by
your Majesty's writs of habeas corpus, there to undergo and receive as
the court should order, and their keepers commanded to certify the
causes of their detainer, no cause was certified, but that they were
detained by your Majesty's special command, signified by the lords of
your Privy Council, and yet were returned back to several prisons, without .
being charged with anything to which they might make answer according
to the law.
"VI. And whereas of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have
been dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants
against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their houses,
and there to suffer them to sojourn against the laws and customs of this
realm, and to the great grievance and vexation of the people.
V II. And whereas also by authority of parliament, in the five-and-
twentieth year of the reign of King Edward III, it is declared and enacted,
that no man shall be forejudged of life or limb against the form of the Great
Charter and the law of the land ; and by the said Great Charter and other
the laws and statutes of this your realm, no man ought to be adjudged to
death but by the laws established in this your realm, either by the customs
of the same realm, or by acts of parliament : and whereas no offender of
what kind soever is exempted from the proceedings to be used, and
punishments to be inflicted by the laws and statutes of this your realm ;
nevertheless of late time divers commissions under your Majesty's great
seal have issued forth, by which certain persons have been assigned and
appointed commissioners with power and authority to proceed within the
land, according to the justice of martial law, against such soldiers or
mariners, or other dissolute persons joining with them-, as should commit any
murder, robbery, felony, mutiny, or other outrage or misdemeanour what
soever, and by such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial
law, and as is used in nrmies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and
condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and put
to death according to the law martial.
VIII. By pretext whereof some of your Majesty's subjects have been by
some of the said commissioners put to death, when and where, if by the
laws and statutes of the land they had deserved death, by the same laws
and statutes also they might, and by no other ought to have been judged
and executed.
IX. And also sundry grievous offenders, by colour thereof claiming an
exemption, have escaped the punishments due to them by the laws and

The Habeas Corpus Act. 517
statutes of this your realm, by reason that divers of your officers and
ministers of justice have unjustly refused or forborne to proceed against
such offenders according to the same laws and statutes, upon pretence that
the said offenders were punishable only by martial law, and by authority of
such commissions as aforesaid ; which commissions, and all other of like
nature, are wholly and directly contrary to the said laws and statutes of
this your realm.
X. They do therefore humbly pray your most excellent Majesty, that no
man hereafter be compelled to make or yield any gift, loan, benevolence,
tax, or such like charge, without common consent by act of parliament ; and
that none be called to make answer, or take such oath, or to give attend
ance, or be confined, or otherwise molested or disquieted concerning the
same or for refusal thereof; and that no freeman, .in any such manner as is
before mentioned, be imprisoned or detained; and that your Majesty
would be pleased to remove the said soldiers and mariners, and that your
people may not be so burdened in time to come ; and that the aforesaid
commissions, for proceeding by martial law, may be revoked and annulled ;
and that hereafter no commissions of like nature may issue forth to any
person or persons whatsoever to be executed as aforesaid, lest by colour of
them any of your Majesty's subjects be destroyed or put to death contrary
to the laws and franchise of the land.
XI. All which they most humbly pray of your most excellent Majesty
as their rights and liberties, according to the laws and statutes of this
realm ; and that your Majesty would also vouchsafe to declare, that the
awards, doings, and proceedings, to the prejudice of your people in any of
the premises, shall not be drawn hereafter into consequence or example;
and that your Majesty would be also graciously pleased, for the further
comfort and safety of your people, to declare your royal will and pleasure,
that in the things aforesaid all your officers and ministers shall serve you
according to the laws and statutes of this realm, as they tender the honour
of your Majesty, and the prosperity of this kingdom.
Qua quidem petitions lecta et plenius intellecta per dictum dominum regem
taliter est responsum in pleno parliamento, riz. Soit droit fait come est
desirf. — (Statutes of the Realm, v. 24, 25.)

A.D. 1679. The Habeas Corpus Act.
31 Cak. II. c. 2.
An Act for the better securing the Liberty of the Subject, and for
Prevention of Imprisonments beyond the Seas.
Whereas great delays have been used by sheriffs, gaolers, and other
officers, to whose custody any of the king's subjects have been committed
for criminal or supposed criminal matters, in making returns of writs of
Habeas Corpus to them directed, by standing out an Alias and Pluries
Habeas Corpus, and sometimes more, and by other shifts to avoid their
yielding obedience to such writs, contrary to their duty and the known
¦ laws of the land, whereby many of the king's subjects have been and here
after may be long detained in prison, in such cases where by law they are
bailable, to their great charges and vexation :
II. Eor the prevention whereof, and the more speedy relief of all
persons imprisoned for any such criminal or supposed criminal matters ;
be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the

5 1 8 Appendix.
advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in
this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority thereof, that
whensoever any person or persons shall bring any Habeas Corpus directed
unto any sheriff or sheriffs, gaoler, minister, or other person whatsoever, for
any person in his or their custody, and the said writ shall be served upon
the said officer, or left at the gaol or prison with any of the under-officers,
under-keepers or deputy of the said officers or keepers, that the said officer
or officers, his or their under-officers, under-keepers or deputies, shall
within three days after the service thereof as aforesaid (unless the connniit-
ment aforesaid were for treason or felony, plainly and specially expressed
in the warrant of commitment) upon payment or tender of the charges of
bringing the said prisoner, to be ascertained by the judge or court that
awarded the same, and endorsed upon the said writ, not exceeding twelve
pence per mile, and upon security given by his own bond to pay the charges
of carrying back the prisoner, if he shall be remanded by the court or judge
to which he shall be brought according to the true intent of this present
act, and that he will not make any escape by the way, make return of such
writ ; and bring or cause to be brought the body of the party so committed
or restrained, unto or before the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the
great seal of England for the time being, or the judges or barons of the said
court from whence the said writ shall issue, or unto and before such other
person or persons before whom the said writ is made returnable, according
to the command thereof; and shall then likewise certify the true causes of
his detainer or imprisonment, unless the commitment of the said party
be in any place beyond the distance of twenty miles from the place or
places where such court or person is or shall be residing ; and if beyond
the distance of twenty miles, and not above one hundred miles, then
within the space of ten days, and if beyond the distance of one hundred
miles, then within the space of twenty days, after such delivery aforesaid,
and not longer.
III. And to the intent that no sheriff, gaoler or other officer may pretend
ignorance of the import of any such writ ; be it enacted by the authority
aforesaid, that aU such writs shall be marked in this manner, per statutum
tricesimo primo Caroli secundi regis, and shall be signed by the person that
awards the same ; and if any person or persons shall be or stand committed
or detained as aforesaid, for any crime, unless for felony or treason plainly
expressed in the warrant of commitment, in the vacation-time, and out of
term, it shall and may be lawful to and for the person or persons so com
mitted or detained (other than persons convict or in execution by legal
process") or any one on his or their behalf, to appeal or complain to the
Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or any one of bis Majesty's justices,
either of the one bench or of the other, or the barons of the exchequer of
the degree of the coif ; and the said Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, justices
or barons or any of them, upon view of the copy or copies of the warrant
or warrants of commitment and detainer, or otherwise upon oath made that
such copy or copies were denied to be given by such person or persons in
whose custody the prisoner or prisoners is or are detained, are hereby
authorized, and required, upon request made in writing by such person or
persons or any on his, her or their behalf, attested and subscribed by two
witnesses who were present at the delivery of the same, to award and grant
an Habeas Corpus under the seal of such court whereof he shall then be
one of the judges, to be directed to the officer or officers in whose custody
the party so committed or detained shall be, returnable immediate before
the said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or such justice, baron or any
other justice or baron of the degree of the coif of any of the said courts;

The Habeas Corpus Act. 519
and upon service thereof as aforesaid, the officer or officers, his or their
under-officer or under-officers, under-keeper or under-keepers, or then-
deputy, in whose custody the party is so committed or detained, shall
within the times respectively before limited, bring such prisoner or
prisoners before the said Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or such justices,
barons or one of them, before whom the said writ is made returnable, and
in case of his absence before any of them, with the return of such writ, and
the true causes of the commitment and detainer; and thereupon within
two days after the party shall be brought before them, the said Lord
Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or such justice or baron before whom the
prisoner shall be brought as aforesaid, shall discharge the said prisoner
from his imprisonment, taking his or their recognizance, with one or more
surety or sureties, in any sum according to their discretions, having regard
to the quality of the prisoner and nature of the offence, for his or their
appearance in the court of king's bench the term following, or at the next
assizes, sessions, or general gaol-delivery of and for such county, city, or
place where the commitment was, or where the offence was committed, or
in such other court where the said offence is properly cognizable, as the
case shall require, and then shall certify the said writ with the return
thereof, and the said recognizance or recognizances into the said court
where such appearance is to be made ; unless it shall appear unto the said
Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or justice or justices, or baron or barons,
that the party so committed is detained upon a legal process, order or
warrant, out of some court that hath jurisdiction of criminal matters, or
by some warrant signed and sealed with the hand and seal of any of the
said justices or barons, or some justice or justices of the peace, for such
matters or offences for the which by the law the prisoner is not bailable.
IV. Provided always, and be it enacted, that if any person shall have
wilfully neglected by the space of two whole terms after his imprisonment,
to pray a Habeas Corpus for his enlargement, such person so wilfully
neglecting shall not have any Habeas Corpus to be granted in vacation-
time, in pursuance of this act.
V. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any
officer or officers, his or their under-officer or under-officers, under-keeper or
under-keepers, or deputy, shall neglect or refuse to make the returns
aforesaid, or to bring the body or bodies of the prisoner or prisoners
according to the command oi the said writ, within the respective times
aforesaid, or upon demand made by the prisoner or person in his behalf,
shall refuse to deliver, or within the space of six hours after demand shall
not deliver, to the person so demanding, a true copy of the warrant or
warrants of commitment and detainer of such prisoner, which he and they
are hereby required to deliver accordingly ; all and every the head gaolers
and keepers of such prisons, and such other person in whose custody the
prisoner shaU be detained, shall for the first offence forfeit to the prisoner
or party grieved the sum of one hundred pounds; and for the second
offence the sum of two hundred pounds, and shall and is hereby made
incapable to hold or execute his said office; the said penalties to be
recovered by the prisoner or party grieved, his executors or administrators,
against such offender, his executors or administrators, by any action of
debt, suit, bill, plaint, or information, in any of the king's courts at West
minster, wherein no essoin, protection, privilege, injunction, wager of law,
or stay of prosecution by non vult ulterius prosequi, or otherwise, shall be
admitted or allowed, or any more than one imparlance ; and any recovery
or judgment at the suit of any party grieved, shall be a sufficient
conviction for the first offence; and any after recovery or judgment

520 Appendix.
at the suit of a party grieved for any offence after the first judgment,
shall be a sufficient conviction to bring the officers or person within the
said penalty for the second offence.
VI. And for the- prevention of unjust vexation by reiterated commit
ments for the same offence ; be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that
no person or persons which shall be delivered or set at large upon any
Habeas Corpus, shall at any time hereafter be again imprisoned or com
mitted for the same offence by any person or persons whatsoever, other
than by the legal order and process of such court wherein he or they shall
be bound by recognizance to appear, or other court having jurisdiction of
the cause ; and if any other person or persons shall knowingly contrary to
this act recommit or imprison, or knowingly procure or cause to be recom
mitted or imprisoned, for the same offence or pretended offence, any person
or persons delivered or set at large as aforesaid, or be knowingly aiding or
assisting therein, then he or they shall forfeit to the prisoner or party
grieved the sum of five hundred pounds; any colourable pretence or
variation in the warrant or warrants of commitment notwithstanding, to
be recovered as aforesaid.
VII. Provided always, and be it further enacted, that if any person or
persons shall be committed for high treason or felony, plainly and specially
expressed in the warrant of commitment, upon his prayer or petition in
open court the first week of the term, or first day of the sessions of Oyer
and Terminer or general gaol-delivery, to be brought to his trial, shall not
be indicted some time in the next term, sessions of Oyer and Terminer or
general gaol-delivery, after such commitment ; it shall and may be lawful
to and for the judges of the court of king's bench and justices of Oyer and
Terminer or general gaol-delivery, and they are hereby required, upon
motion to them made in open court the last day of the term, sessions or
gaol-delivery, either by the prisoner or any one in his behalf, to set at
liberty the prisoner upon bail, unless it appear to the judges and justices upon
oath made, that the witnesses for the king could not be produced the same
term, sessions or general gaol-delivery ; and if any person or persons com
mitted as aforesaid, upon his prayer or petition in open court the first week
of the term or first day of the sessions of Oyer and Terminer and general
gaol-delivery, to be brought to his trial, shall not be indicted and tried the
second term, sessions of Oyer and Terminer or general gaol-delivery, after
his commitment, or upon his trial shall be acquitted, he shall be discharged
from his imprisonment.
VIII. Provided always, that nothing in this act shall extend to dis
charge out of prison any person charged in debt, or other action, or with
process in any civil cause, but that after he shall be discharged of his
imprisonment for such his criminal oifence, he shall be kept in custody
according to the law, for such other suit.
IX. Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that
if any person or persons, subjects of this realm, shall be committed to any
prison or in custody of any officer or officers whatsoever, for any criminal
or supposed criminal matter, that the said person shall not be removed
from the said prison and custody into the custody of any other officer or
officers ; unless it be by Habeas Corpus or some other legal writ; or where
the prisoner is delivered to the constable or other inferior officer to carry
such prisoner to some common gaol : or where any person is sent by order
of any judge of assize or justice of the peace to any common workhouse or
house of correction ; or where the prisoner is' removed from one prison or
place to another within the same county, in order to his or her trial
or discharge in due course of law ; or in case of sudden fire or infection, or

The Habeas Corpus Act. 521
other necessity ; and if any person or persons shall after such commitment
aforesaid make out and sign, or countersign any warrant or warrants for
such removal aforesaid, contrary to this act; as well he that makes or
signs, or countersigns such warrant or warrants as the officer or officers
that obey or execute the same, shall suffer and incur the pains and
forfeitures in this act before mentioned, both for the first and second
offence respectively, to be recovered in manner aforesaid by the party
grieved. X. Provided also, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid,
that it shall and may be lawful to and for any prisoner and prisoners as
aforesaid, to move and obtain his or their Habeas Corpus as well out of
the high court of chancery or court of exchequer, as out of the courts of
king's bench or common pleas, or either of them ; and if the said Lord
Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or any judge or judges, baron or barons for
the time being, of the degree of the coif, of any of the courts aforesaid, in
the vacation-time, upon view of the copy or copies of the warrant or
warrants of commitment or detainer, or upon oath made that such copy
or copies were denied as aforesaid, shall deny any writ of Habeas Corpus
by this act required to be granted, being moved for as aforesaid, they shall
severally forfeit to the prisoner or party grieved the sum of five hundred
pounds, to be recovered in manner aforesaid.
XI. And be it declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, that an
Habeas Corpus according to the true intent and meaning of this act, may
be directed and run into any county palatine, the cinque-ports, or other privi
leged places within the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, or town
of Berwick upon Tweed, and the islands of Jersey or Guernsey ; any law
or usage to the contrary notwithstanding.
XII. And for preventing illegal imprisonments in prisons beyond the
seas ; be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no subject of
this realm that now is, or hereafter shall be an inhabitant or resiant of tins
kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon Tweed,
shall or may be sent prisoner into Scotland, Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey,
Tangier, or into parts, gai-risons, islands or places beyond the seas, which
are or at any time hereafter shall be within or without the dominions of
his Majesty, his heirs or successors ; and that every such imprisonment is
hereby enacted and adjudged to be illegal; and that if any of the said
subjects now is or hereafter shall be so imprisoned, every such person and
persons so imprisoned, shall and may for every such imprisonment maintain
by virtue of this act an action or actions of false imprisonment, in any of
his Majesty's courts of record, against the person or persons by whom he
or she shall be so committed, detained, imprisoned, sent prisoner or trans
ported, contrary to the true meaning of this act, and against all or any
person or persons that shall frame, contrive, write, seal or counter.-dgn any
warrant or writing for such commitment, detainer, imprisonment, or trans
portation, or shall be advising, aiding or assisting in the same, or any of
them ; and the plaintiff in every such action shall have judgment to recover
his treble costs, besides damages, which damages so to be given, shall not
be less than five hundred pounds ; in which action no delay, stay or stop of
proceeding by rule, order or command, nor no injunction, protection or
privilege whatsoever, nor any more than one imparlance shall be allowed,
excepting such rule of the court wherein the action shaU depend, made in
open court, as shall be thought in justice necessary, for special cause to be
expressed in the said rule ; and the person or persons who shall knowingly
frame, contrive, write, seal or countersign any warrant for such commit
ment, detainer, or transportation, or shall so commit, detain, imprison or

522 Appendix.
transport any person or persons contrary to this act, or be any ways
advising, aiding or assisting therein, being lawfully convicted thereof, shall
be disabled from thenceforth to bear any office of trust or profit within the
said realm of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon
Tweed, or any of the islands, territories or dominions thereunto belonging;
and shall incur and sustain the pains, penalties, and forfeitures limited,
ordained and provided in and by the statute of Provision and Praemunire
made in the sixteenth year of King Richard the second ; and be incapable
of any pardon from the king, his heirs or successors, of the said forfeitures,
losses, or disabilities, or any of them.
XIII. Provided always, that nothing in this act shall extend to give
benefit to any person who shall by contract in writing agree with any
merchant or owner of any plantation, or other person whatsoever, to be
transported to any parts beyond the seas, and receive earnest upon such
agreement, although that afterwards such person shall renounce such
contract. XIV. Provided always, and be it enacted, that if any person or persons
lawfully convicted of any felony, shall in open court pray to be transported
beyond the seas, and the court shall think fit to leave him or them in prison
for that purpose, such person or persons may be transported into any parts
beyond the seas ; this act, or anything therein contained to the contrary
notwithstanding. XV. Provided also, and be it enacted, that nothing herein contained
shall be deemed, construed or taken, to extend to the imprisonment of any
person before the first day of June one thousand six hundred seventy and
nine or to anything advised, procured, or otherwise done, relating to such
imprisonment ; anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.
XVI. Provided also, that if any person or persons at any time resiant
in this realm, shall have committed any capital offence in Scotland or
Ireland, or any of the islands, or foreign plantations of the king, his heirs
or successors, where he or she ought to be tried for such offence, such
person or persons may be sent to such place, there to receive such trial, in
such manner as the same might have been used before the making of this
act ; anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.
XVII. Provided also, and be it enacted, that no person or persons
shall be sued, impleaded, molested or troubled for any offence against this
act, unless the party offending be sued or impleaded for the same within
two years at the most after such time wherein the offence shall be com
mitted, in case the party grieved shall not be then in prison; and if he
shall be in prison, then within the space of two years after the decease of
the person imprisoned, or his or her delivery out of prison, which shall
first happen.
XVIII. And to the intent no person may avoid his trial at the assizes
or general gaol-delivery, by procuring his removal before the assizes, at
such time as he cannot be brought back to receive his trial there ; be it
enacted, that after the assizes proclaimed for that county where the prisoner
is detained, no person shall be removed from the common gaol upon any
Habeas Corpus granted in pursuance of this act, but upon any such Habeas
Corpus shall be brought before the judge of assize in open court, who is
thereupon to do what to justice shall appertain.
XIX. Provided nevertheless, that after the assizes are ended, any person
or persons detained, may have his or her Habeas Corpus according to the
direction and intention of this act.
XX. And be it also enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any
information, suit or action shall be brought or exhibited against any person

Bill of Rights. 523
or persons for any offence committed or to be commi ted against the form
of this law, it shall be lawful for such defendants to plead the general
issue, that they are not guilty, or that they owe nothing, and to give such
special matter in evidence to the jury that shall try the same, which
matter being pleaded had been good and sufficient matter in law to have
discharged the said defendant or defendants against the said information,
suit or action, and the said matter shall be then as available to him or
them, to all intents and purposes, as if he or they had sufficiently pleaded,
set forth or alledged the same matter in bar or discharge of such infor
mation, suit or action.
XXI. And because many times persons charged with petty treason or
felony, or as accessaries thereunto, are committed upon suspicion only,
whereupon they are bailable, or not, according as the circumstances making
out that suspicion are more or less weighty, which are best known to the
justices of peace that committed the persons, and have the examinations
before them, or- to other justices of the peace in the county ; be it therefore
enacted, that where any persou shall appear to be committed by any judge
or justice of the peace, and charged as accessary before the fact, to any
petty treason or felony, or upon suspicion thereof, or with suspicion of petty
treason or felony, which petty treason or felony shall be plainly and
specially expressed in the warrant of commitment, that such person shall
not be removed or bailed by virtue of this act, or in any other manner
than they might have been before the making of this act. — (Statutes of the
Realm, v. 935-938 ) A.D. 16891. Bill op Rights.
1 Will. & Mar. Sess. 2. «. 2.
Whereas the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at
Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely representing all the estates of the
people of this realm, did, upon the thirteenth day of February, in the year
of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-eicrht, present unto their
Majesties, then called and known by the names and style of William and
Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, being present in their proper
persons, a certain declaration in writing, made by the said Lords and
Commons, in the words following ; viz. ; —
Whereas the late King James II, by the assistance of diverse evil
counsellors, judges, and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to
subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion, and the laws and liberties of
this kingdom : —
1. By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspend
ing of laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of Parliament.
2. By committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates, for humbly
petitioning to be excused from concurring to the same assumed power.
3. By issuing and causing to be executed a commission under the Great
Seal for erecting a court, called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiasti
cal Causes.
4. By levying money for and to the use of the Crown, by pretence of
prerogative, for other time, and in other manner than the same was
granted by Parliament. .... . .
t;. By raising and keeping a standing army within this kingdom in time
of peace, without consent of Parliament, and quartering soldiers contrary
6. By causing several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed,

5 24 Appendix.
at the same time when Papists were both armed and employed contrary
to law.
7. By violating the freedom of election of members to serve in Parlia
ment. 8. By prosecutions in the Court of King's Bench, for matters and causes
cognizable only in Parliament ; and by diverse other arbitrary and illegal
courses. 9. And whereas of late years, partial, corrupt, and unqualified persons
have been returned and served on juries in trials, and particularly diverse
jurors in trials for high treason, which were not freeholders.
10. And excessive bail hath been required of persons committed in
criminal cases, to elude the benefit of the laws made for the liberty of the
subjects. 1 1 . And excessive fines have been imposed ; and illegal and cruel
punishments inflicted.
12. And several grants and promises made of fines and forfeitures,
before any conviction or judgment against the persons upon whom the
same were to be levied.
All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known laws and
statutes, and freedom of this realm.
And whereas the said late King James II having abdicated the
government, and the throne being thereby vacant, his Highness the Prince
of Orange (whom it hath pleased Almighty God to make the glorious
instrument of delivering this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power)
did (by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and diverse princi
pal persons of the Commons) cause letters to be written to the Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, being Protestants, and other letters to the several
counties, cities, universities, boroughs, and cinque ports, for the choosing of
such persons as represent them, as were of right to be sent to Parliament,
to meet and sit at Westminster upon the two-and-twentieth day of
January, in this year one thousand six hundred eighty and eight, in order
to such an establishment, as that their religion, laws and liberties might
not again be in danger of being subverted ; upon which letters, elections
have been accordingly made.
And thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
pursuant to their respective letters and elections, being now assembled in
a full and free representation ot this nation, taking into their most serious
consideration the best means for attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first
place (as their ancestors in like case have usually done), for the vindicating
and asserting their ancient rights and liberties, declare : —
1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of
laws, by re^al authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal.
2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the execution
of laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late,
is illegal. 3. That the commission for erecting the late Court of Commiss'oners for
Ecclesiastical causes, and all other commissions and courts of like nature,
are illegal and pernicious.
4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crown, by pretence of pre
rogative, without grant of parliament, for longer time or in other manner
than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal.
=;. That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all com
mitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.
6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in
time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is agaiust law.

Bill of Rights. 525
7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their
defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.
8. That election of members of parliament ought to be free.
9. That the freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in parliament,
ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of
parliament. 10. That excessive bail ouEcht not to be required, nor excessive fines
imposed ; nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
11. That jurors ought to be duly impanelled and returned, and jurors
which pass upon men in trials for high treason ought to be freeholders.
12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular
persons before conviction, are illegal and void.
13. And that for redress of all grievances, and for the amending,
strengthening, and preserving of the laws, parliament ought to be held
frequently. And they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the
premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties ; and that no declara
tions, judgments, doings or proceedings, to the prejudice nf the people in
any of the said premises, ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into
consequence or example.
To which demand of their rights they are particularly encouraged by the
declaration of his Highness the Prince of Orange, as being the only means
for obtaining a full redress and remedy therein.
Having therefore an entire confidence that his said Highness the Prince
of Orange will perfect the deliverance so far advanced by him, and will
still preserve them from the violation of their rights, which they have' here
asserted, and from all other attempts upon their religion, rights, and
liberties :
II. The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at
Westminster, do resolve, that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of
Orange, be, and be declared, King and Queen of England, France, and
Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the Crown and
royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to them the said Prince
and Princess during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them ; and
that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and executed
by, the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess,
during their joint lives; and after their deceases, the said Crown and royal
dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to be to the heirs of the body
of the said Princess ; and for default of such issue to the Princess Anne of
Denmark, and the heirs of her body ; and for default of such issue to the
heirs of the body of the said Prince of Orange. And the Lords Spiritual
and Temporal, and Commons, do pray the said Prince and Princess to
accept the same accordingly.
III. And that the oaths hereafter mentioned be taken by all persons of
whom the oaths of allegiance and supremacy might be required by law,
instead of them ; and that the said oaths of allegiance and supremacy be
abrogated. I A B. do sincerely promise and swear. That I will be faithful and bear
true allegiance to their Majesties King William and Queen Mary :
So help me God.
I A. B., do swear, That I do from my heart, abhor, detest, and abjure
as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position, that Princes
excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any authority of the fc'ee of

526 Appendix.
Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any other what
soever. And I do declare, That no foreign prince, person, prelate, state,
or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority,
pre-eminence, or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm :
So help me God.
IV. Upon which their said Majesties did accept the Crown and royal
dignity of the kingdoms of England, France, and Ireland, and the
dominions thereunto belonging, according to the resolution and dedre of
the said Lords and Commons contained in the said declaration.
V. And thereupon their Majesties were pleased, that the said Lords
Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, being the two Houses of Parlia
ment, should continue to sit, and with their Majesties' royal concurrence
make effectual provision for the settlement of the religion, laws, and
liberties of this kingdom, so that the same for the future might not be in
danger a-?ain of being subverted ; to which the said Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, did agree and proceed to act accordingly.
VI. Now in pursuance of the premises, the said Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, in parliament assembled, for the ratifying, con
firming, and establishing the said declaration, and the articles, clauses,
matters, and things therein contained, by the f..rce of a law made in due
form by authority of parliament, do pray that it may be declared and
enacted, That all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and claimed
in the said declaration, are the true, ancient, and indubitable rights and
liberties of the people of this kingdom, and so shall be esteemed, allowed,
adjudged, deemed, and taken to be, and that all and every the particulars
aforesaid shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed, as they are
expressed in the said declaration ; and all officers and ministers whatsoever
shall serve their Majesties and their successors according to the same in all
times to come.
VII. And the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
seriously considering how it hath pleased Almighty God, in his marvellous
providence, and merciful goodness to this nation, to provide and preserve
their said Majesties' royal persons most happily to reign over us upon the
throne of their ancestors, for which they render unto Him from the bottom
of their hearts their humblest thanks and praises, do truly, firmly, assuredly,
and in the sincerity of their hearts, think, and do hereby recognize, acknow
ledge, and declare, that King James II having abdicated the government,
and their Majesties having accepted the Crown and royal dignity afore
said, their said Majesties did become, were, are, and of right ought to be,
by the laws of this realm, our sovereign liege Lord and Lady, King and
Queen of England, France, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto
belonging, in and to whose princely persons the royal State, Crnwn, and
dignity of the same realms, with all honours, styles, titles, regalities, pre
rogatives, powers, jurisdictions and authorities to the same belonging and
appertaining, are most fully, rightfully, and entirely invested and incor
porated, united, and annexed.
VIII. And for preventing all questions and divisions in this realm, by
reason of any pretended titles to the Crown, and for preserving a certainty
in the succession thereof, in and upon which the unity, peace, tranquillity,
and safety of this nation doth, under God, wholly consist and depend, the
said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do beseech then-
Majesties that it may be enacted, established, and declared, that the Crown
and regal government of the said kingdoms and dominions, with all and
singular the premises thereunto belonging and appertaining, shall be and

Bill of Rights. 527
continue to their said Majesties, and the survivor of them, during their
lives, and the life of the survivor of them. And that the entire, perfect,
and full exercise of the regal power and government be only in, and
executed by, his Majesty, in the names of both their Majesties during their
joint lives ; and after their deceases the said Crown and premises shall be
and remain to the heirs of the body of her Majesty : and for default of such
issue, to her Royal Highness the Princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs
of her body ; and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of bis
said Majesty ; and thereunto the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and
faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and posterities, for ever: and do
faithfully promise, That they will stand to, maintain, and defend their said
Majesties, and also the limitation and succession of the Crown herein speci
fied and contained, to the utmost of their powers, with their lives and
estates, against all persons whatsoever that shall attempt anything to the
contrary. IX. And whereas it hath been found by experience, that it is incon
sistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant kingdom, to be
governed by a Popish prince, or by any king or queen marrying a Papist,
the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do further pray that
it may be enacted, That all and every person and persons that is, are, or
shall be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with, the See or Church of
Rome, or shall profess the Popish religion, or shall marry a Papist, shall be
excluded, and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown
and government of this realm, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto
belonging, or any part of the same, or to have, use, or exercise any regal
power, authority, or jurisdiction within the same ; and in all and every
such case or cases the people of these realms shall be and are hereby
absolved of their allegiance ; and the said Crown and government shall
from time to time descend to, and be enjoyed by, such person or persons,
being Protestants, as should have inherited and enjoyed the same, in case
the said person or persons so reconciled, holding communion, or professing,
or marrying as aforesaid, were naturally dead.
X. And that every king and queen of this realm, who at any time here
after shall come to and succeed in the Imperial Crown of this kingdom,
shall, on the first day of the meeting of the first parliament, next after his
or her coming to the Crown, sitting in his or her throne in the House of
Peers, in the presence of the Lords and Commons therein assembled, or at
his or her coronation, before such person or persons who shall administer
the coronation oath to him or her, at the time of his or her taking the said
oath (which shall first happen), make, subscribe, and audibly repeat the
declaration mentioned in the statute made in the thirteenth year of the
reign of King Charles II, intituled * An Act for the more effectual pre
serving the King's person and government, by disabling Papists from
sitting in either House of Parliament.' But if it shall happen, that such
king or queen, upon his or her succession to the Crown of this realm, shall
be under the age of twelve years, then every such king or queen shall
make, subscribe, and audibly repeat the said declaration at his or her
coronation, or the first day of meeting of the first parliament as aforesaid,
which shall first happen after such king or queen shall have attained the
said age of twelve years.
XI. All which their Majesties are contented and pleased shall be
declared, enacted, and established by authority of this present parliament,
and shall stand, remain, and be the law of this realm for ever ; and the
same are by their said Majesties, by and with the advice and consent of

528 Appendix.
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, declared, enacted, or established
accordingly. XII. And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid,
That from and after this present session of parliament, no dispensation by
non obstante of or to any statute, or any part thereof, shall be allowed, but
that the same shall be held void and of no effect, except a dispensation be
allowed of in such statute, and except in such cases as shall be specially
provided for by one or more bill or bills to be passed during this present
session of parliament.
XIII. Provided that no charter, or grant, or pardon granted before the
three-and-twentieth day of October, in the year of our Lord One thousand
six hundred eighty-nine, shall be any ways impeached or invalidated
by this act, but that the same shall be and remain of the same force and
effect in law, and no other, than as if this act had never been made. —
(Statutes of the Realm, vi. 142-145.)

A.D. 1700. The Act of Settlement.
12 & 13 Will. III.
An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the
Rights and Liberties of the Subject.
Whereas in the first year of the reign of your Majesty, and of our late
most Gracious Sovereign Lady Queen Mary (of blessed memory) an Act
of Parliament was made, intituled, ' An Act for declaring the Rights and
Liberties of the Subject, and for settling the Succession of the Crown,'
wherein it was (amongst other things) enacted, established and declared,
That the Crown and Regal Government of the kingdoms of England,
France and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, should be and
continue to your Majesty and the said late Queen, during the joint-lives of
your Majesty and the said Queen, and to the survivor ; And that after the
decease of your Majesty and of the said Queen, the said Crown and Regal
Government should be and remain to the heirs of the body of the said late
Queen : And for default of such issue, to her Royal Highness the Princess
Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of her body : And for default of such
issue, to the heirs of the body of your Majesty. And it was thereby fur
ther enacted, That all and every person and persons that then were,
or afterwards should be reconciled to, or should hold communion with the
See or Church of Rome, or should profess the Popish religion, or marry a
Papist, should be excluded, and are by that act made for ever uncapable
to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and Government of this realm and
Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, or any part of the same,
or to have, use, or exercise any regal power, authority, or jurisdiction
within the same : And in all and every such case and cases the people of
these realms shall be and are thereby absolved of their allegiance : And
that the said Crown and Government shall from time to time descend to
and be enjoyed by such person or persons, being Protestants, as should
have inherited and enjoyed the same, in case the said person or persons,
so reconciled, holding communion, professing, or marrying as aforesaid,
were naturally dead. After the making of which statute, and the settle
ment therein contained, your Majesty's good subjects, who were restored

The Act of Settlement. 529
to the full and free possession and enjoyment of their religion, rights, and
liberties, by the providence of God giving success to your Majesty's just
undertakings and unwearied endeavours for that purpose, had no greater
temporal felicity to hope or wish for, than to see a royal progeny descend
ing from your Majesty, to whom (under God) they owe their tranquillity,
and whose ancestors have for many years been principal assertors of the
reformed religion and the liberties of Europe, and from our said most Gra
cious Sovereign Lady, whose memory will always be precious to the sub
jects of these realms ; And it having since pleased Almighty God to take
away our said Sovereign Lady, and also the most hopeful Prince William
Duke of Gloucester (the only surviving issue of her Royal Highness the
Princess Anne of Denmark) to the unspeakable grief and sorrow of your
Majesty and your said good subjects, who under such losses being sensibly
put in mind, that it standeth wholly in the pleasure of Almighty God to
prolong the lives of your Majesty and of her Royal Highness, and to grant
to your Majesty, or to her Royal Highness, such issue as may be inherit
able to the Crown and regal Government aforesaid, by the respective
limitations in the said recited Act contained, do constantly implore the
Divine Mercy for those blessings : and your Majesty's said subjects having
daily experience of your royal care and concern for the present and future
welfare of these kingdoms, and particularly recommending from your
Throne a further provision to be made for the succession of the Crown in
the Protestant line, for the happiness of the nation, and the security of our
religion ; and it being absolutely necessary for the safety, peace and quiet
of this realm, to obviate all doubts and contentions in the same, by reason
of any pretended title to the Crown, and to maintain a certainty in the
succession thereof, to which your subjects may safely have recourse for
their protection, in case the limitations in the said recited Act should de
termine : Therefore for a further provision of the succession of the Crown
in the Protestant line, we your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects,
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parlia
ment assembled, do beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted and
declared, and be it enacted and declared by the King's most excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, That the most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress
and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, daughter of the most Excellent Princess
Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late Sovereign Lord
King James I, of happy memory, be and is hereby declared to be the next
in succession, in the Protestant line, to the Imperial Crown and dignity of
the said realms of England, France and Ireland, with the dominions and
territories thereunto belonging, after his Majesty, and the Princess Anne
of Denmark, and in default of issue of the said Princess Anne, and of his
Majesty respectively : And that from and after the deceases of his said
Majesty, our now Sovereign Lord, and of her Royal Highness the Princess
Anne of Denmark, and for default of issue of the said Princess Anne, and
of his Majesty respectively, the Crown and regal Government of the said
kingdoms of England, France and Ireland, and of the dominions thereunto
belonging, with the royal state and dignity of the said realms, and all
honours, stiles, titles, regalities, prerogatives, powers, jurisdictions and
authorities, to the same belonging and appertaining, shall be, remain, and
continue to the said most Excellent Princess Sophia, and the heirs of her
body being Protestants: And thereunto the said Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, shall and will, in the name of all the people of
this realm, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs and

530 Appendix.
posterities ; and do faithfully promise that after the deceases of his Majesty,
and her Royal Highness, and the failure of the heirs of their respective
bodies, to stand to, maintain, and defend the said Princess Sophia, and the
heirs of her body, being Protestants, according to the limitation and suc
cession of the Gown in this Act specified and contained, to the utmost of
their powers, with their lives and estates, against all persons whatsoever
that shall attempt anything to the contrary.
II. Provided always, and it is hereby enacted, That all and every person
and persons, who shall or may take or inherit the said Crown, by virtue of
the limitation of this present Act, and is, are or shall be reconciled to, or
shall hold communion with, the See or Church of Rome, or shall profess
the Popish religion, or shall marry a Papist, shall be subject to such in
capacities, as in such case or cases are by the said recited Act provided,
enacted, and established ; and that every King and Queen of this realm,
who shall come to and succeed in the Imperial Crown of this kingdom, by
virtue of this Act, shall have the Coronation Oath administered to him,
her or them, at their respective Coronations, according to the Act of Par
liament made in the first year of the reign of his Majesty, and the said late
Queen Mary, intituled, ' An Act for establishing the Coronation Oath,' and
shall make, subscribe, and repeat the Declaration in the Act first above
recited mentioned or referred to, in the manner and form thereby pre
scribed. III. And whereas it is requisite and necessary that some further provi
sion be made for securing our religion, laws and liberties, from and after
the death of his Majesty and the Princess Anne of Denmark, and in de
fault of issue of the body of the said Princess, and of his Majesty respec
tively : Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with
the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons,
in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same,
That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown,
shall join in communion with the Church of England, as by law esta
blished. That in case the Crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter
come to any person, not being h. native of this kingdom of England, this
nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any domi
nions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England, without
the consent of Parliament.
That no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown,
shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without
consent of Parliament.
That from and after the time that the further limitation by this Act
shall take effect, all matters and things relating to the well governing of
this kingdom, which are properly cognizable in the Privy Council by the
laws and customs of this realm, shall be transacted there, and all resolu
tions taken thereupon shall be signed by such of the Privy Council as shall
advise and consent to the same.
That after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, no person
born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the domi
nions thereunto belonging (although he be' naturalised or made a denizen,
except such as are born of English parents), shall be capable to be of the
Privy Council, or a Member of either House of Parliament, or to enjoy any
office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of
lands, tenements or hereditaments from the Crown, to himself or to any
other or others in trust for him.
That no person who has an office or place of profit under the King, or

The Act of Settlement. 531
receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a Member
of the House of Commons.
That after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, Judges' Com
missions be made Quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained
and established ; but upon the Address of both Houses of Parliament it
may be lawful to remove them.
That no pardon under the Great Seal of England be pleadable to an
impeachment by the Commons in Parliament.
TV. And whereas the Laws of England are the birthright of the people
thereof, and all the Kings and Queens, who shall ascend the Throne of this
realm, ought to administer the Government of the same according to the
said laws, and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respec
tively according to the same : The said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
Commons, do therefore further humbly pray, That all the Laws and Sta
tutes of this realm for securing the established religion, and the rights and
liberties of the people thereof, and all other Laws and Statutes of the same
now in force, mayT be ratified and confirmed, and the same are by his
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, and by the authority of the same, ratified and
confirmed accordingly. — (Statutes of the Realm, vii. 636-638.) \

111 2

ADDENDA.

Extract from the Geeat Roll of the Pipe of the
8th year of Henry II.
OXENEPOKDSCIRA.
Manesser Arsic reddit Compotum de firma de Oxenefordscira.
In thesauro £76 13s. 6d. blanc. in II talliis.
In elemosina constituta Militibus de Templo I. marcam.
Et in liberatione constituta Infirmis tredecim £19 15s. $d. et eisdem
65s. ad pannos.
Et in donis Abbati de Oseneia 9s. ^d. ; et canonicis de Sancta Frideswida
25s. pro consuetudine feriae
Et eisdem 1 Js. 7\d. de novo dono.
Et in liberatione constituta Willelmo filio Baldewini 102s. 6d. per breve
Regis.
Et in terris datis Engelgero de Bohun .£20 blanc. in Bloohesham: et
eidem in villa Ricardi de Luci £20 numero.
Et Comiti Flandriae £76 blanc. in Betona, cum 100*. de Wicha. Et
Hugoni de Plugeno £42 10s. blanc. in Hedendona. Et abbatissae de
Godesto 100s. blanc. in eadem villa. Et in eadem villa Henrico de
Oxeneford 50s. blanc.
Et Gilleberto Angevino £10 numero in Besentona. Et in eadem villa
Abbatissae de Godesto 100*. numero.
Et in eadem villa Waltero Bustard 5s. numero. Et in eadem villa
abbati de Oseneia 6s. 4<2. numero.
Et Henrico de Oxeneford 23s. ^d. in eadem villa. Et Gaufrido de Ivoi
£40 13s. 4<i. numero in eadem villa.
Et in operatione domorum Infirmorum de Oxeneford 60s. Et ad prata
falcanda et fenum parandum et conducendum ad Wudestoc 60s.
Et pro Banco ad Scaccarium tenendum 2s. id. Et in liberatione pro-
batoris 4<Z.
Et in Soltis per breve Regis Hugoni de Plugenoi 45s. lod. Et militibus
de Templo 170!. Et fratribus de Hospitali 3s. 6d.
Et Abbatissae de Godesto 16*. Et Monachis de Ledahela 10s. pro Danegeldo.
Et in suo superplusagio per breve regis Radulfo Waspail 11 18. Jd. Et
in terris datis, in Bordesleia, monachis 100*. blanc. Et episcopo de
Sagio £10 blanc. in Brictelmestona. Et in suo superplusagio de Dane
geldo 38s. 4<2.

Addenda. 533
Et in calumpnia de Bensintona £25 : et de quatuor praeteritis annis quoquo
anno £25. Et quietus est.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de £10 de veteribus placitis. In perdona
per breve Regis Baronibus de Warengefordia £10. Et quietus eBt.
Ricardus de Canvilla debet £18 de sex annis de foresta de Stantona. Et
idem debet 60s. de septimo anno.
Alanus Rasur reddit compotum de £7 de censu Forestae de Comeburi.
In thesauro £6 68.
Et in decimis constitutes Canonicis de Lincoln 14*. Et quietus est.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de £15 de firma de Nortona. In the
sauro liberavit. Et quietus est.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de 408. pro murdro de Langetre-
hundreda. In perdona per breve Regis Henrico filio Geroldi 48. 2d. Et
debet 35s. lod.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de 40s. pro murdro de Luveclon-
hundreda. In thesauro liberavit. Et quietus est.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de 40*. pro murdro de Keneswarde hun
dreda.
In perdona per breve regis comiti Legecestriae 4s. 2d. Et monachis de
Bruaria 4*. 2d. Et Willelmo de Bellocampo 2*. id.
Et Willelmo de Caisneto 3s. 4& Et Henrico de Oilli 5s. id. Summa
198. 2d. Et debet 20s. lod.
Nova Placita et Novae Conventiones.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de Danegeldo. In thesauro £100. Et in
Soltis per breve Regis Radulfo Waspail £14 5*. lod. Et in perdona
per breve Regis comiti Legrecestriae 71s. Et Reginaldo de Sancto Valerico
£20 74. 6d.
Et Willelmo de Caisneto £8 60!. Et Comiti Giffard 40*. Et monachiB de
Tama et de Bruiria 43*. 6d.
Et monachis de Nedehala 108. Et Archiepiscopo Cantuariae 30*. et
eidem ioe. 6<7. in Safford. Et Willelmo fratri Regis 16s. 6d.
Et Militibus de Templo 70s. Et fratribus Hospitalis 6s. 3d. Et Johanni
Marescallo 23*. 6d. Et Monachis de Becco 17s.
Et Willelmo de Bello campo 10s. Et Abbati de Bello ioe. Et Abbatissae
de Godesto 208. Et Canonicis de Meretona 5s. 90*.
Et Baronibus de Warengefordia £29 5s. Et Henrico de Oilli £8 14*.
Et Henrico filio Geroldi 66s.
Et Ricardo filio Geroldi 38. Et Ricardo de Humet 368. 6d. Et Ricardo
de Canvilla 48*. Et eidem in Stantona.
Et monachis de Rading, et militibus de Templo, et Rogero de Sanford 52s.
Et vicecomiti 53s. et Willelmo filio Baldewini log. 6d.
Et in elemosina Regis in Wachefeud 48. 6d. Et Willelmo Viand 38. Et
episcopo de Sagio 14s. Et episcopo Lincolniae £28 4A, „ „ , ,,
Et Abbati de Westmonasterio 12s. Et episcopo de Eli 108. Jit Kadulto
de Hastingia 5*. Et Radulfo Purcel 5s.
Summa £129 13s. \d.
Et habet de superplusagio 38*. 4<*- q°i oomputantur ei in firma comitatus.
Idem vicecomes reddit compotum de £20 de burgo de Oxeneforde. In
Soltis per breve Regis Radulfo Waspad £18 a. Et in perdona per
breve Regis militibus de Templo 18s. 6d. Et debet 20s. 6d.

534 II.
Scheme for National Defence, a. d. 1205.

TimenB autem rex Angliae ne hoste3 sui cum terris transmarinis et
Angliam surriperent, ennvocari fecit apud Londoniam episcopos Angliae,
comites et barones; omnesque regi debitam juraverunt fidelitatem, quod
deinceps per totam Angliam factum est. Et statutum est, ex assensu
regis et omnium magnatum Angliae, ad communem regni defensionem et
pacis conservationem, ut per totum regnum fieret communa; et quod
universi, a majori usque ad minorem, qui xii annos haberet, eam firmiter
jurarent observandam ; episcopi vero in verbo veritatis promittant eam
fideliter observandam, salvo ordine suo et mandatis apostolicis et libertati
bus ecclesiarum suarum.
Forma vero constitutionis haec erat : —
Quod in quolibet comitatu constituantur capitales constabularii quibus
communa totius comitatus intendat; et in quolibet hundredo unus con
stabularius, et in qualibet civitate unus constabularius, et, ubi minores villae
fuerint, constituatur unus constabularius in visneto, secundum provi-
dentiam oapitalium constabulariorum comitatus per quos illi constitnuntur.
In civitatibus vero et burgis, ubi major communa fuerit, constituantur
constabularii, plureB vel pauciores, per praedictos capitales constabularies,
et per majorem, secundum quantitatem civitatis vel burgi, una cum majore
et constabulario castri quod ibi fuerit : eodem modo in burgis, ubi prius
communa non fuerat, constituantur constabularii cum constabulario castri,
si castrum ibi fuerit ; qui omnes constabularii particulares [constabulariis]
capitalibus comitatus intendant, et ad summonitionem ipsorum capitalium
constabulariorum, vel aliquorum ex illis si omnes non affuerint, omnes alii
constabularii statim veniant cum communis suis armatis, et omnia [observent]
quae praeceperint ad defensionem regni et pacis conservationem, contra
alienigenas vel contra quoscunque alios pacis perturbatores ; et quod capitales
constabularii comitatus habeant nomina particularium constabulariorum
totius comitatus scripta, et numerum armatorum cujuslibet constabulariae ;
et quod communae, audita comitatuum necessitate, per mandatum constabu
lariorum vel per aliquam aliam necessitudinem, in auxilium partium
illarum concurrent, ubi necessitatem esse audierint.
Haec omnia ad honorem Dei et fidelitatem domini regis, et salvum
statum regni, jurent fideliter observanda, ut praedictum est, a majori
usque ad minorem qui xii annos habent, exceptis illis qui coram domino
rege juraverunt. Qui vero ad summonitionem non venerit, habeatur pro
capitali inimico domini regis et regni ; et de eo et de heredibus suis Hat
tanquam de manifesto inimico ipsius domini regis et regni, nisi justam
et sufficientem habeat excusationem absentiae suae. Cont. Gervas. Cant.
(G. Cant. opp. ii. 96, 97).

GLOSSARY.

This Glossary does not contain the French or Anglo-Saxon words con
tained in the Translations given in the body of the work ; nor medieval
forms of classical words differing in spelling only from the accepted
usage ; nor has it been thought necessary to specify the ordinary
meanings of words the peculiar senses of which only are worth
Doting, such as invenire.

Abbatia, an abbey.
Aeatum, a purchase. Cf. Fr. achat; from the Low Lat. accaptare.
Aeeersire, to summon. Medieval form of arcesso.
Aceipitrarius, the keeper of the hawks.
Acqnietare, to acquit, quietum reddere.
Acra, an acre. A. S. cecer.
Admerciare, to punish by a pecuniary mulct, or amercement.
Adreseiare, or Adreciare, to give redress. Fr. adresser.
Adulterinus, unlawful ; applied to the castles erected without royal
licence.
Advocare, to avouch, to vouch to warranty, to recognise as superior lord,
and hence to hold an estate as a fief from such a lord.
Advooatio, an advowson, the right of nominating a clerk to a benefice.
Aerea, an eyrie.
Affllare, to file, to thread on a string, bills, papers, &c.
Affirmare, (p- 26 1) to fix the rent of a fenn.
Afforestare, to make into a forest.
Affortiare, to fortify.
Agistamentum, the right of turning cattle into the woods at particular
times of the year.
Agistare, to turn cattle into the woods to feed.
Agrarius, relating to the country. Agrarius miles is a country knight,
or the owner of a knight's fee, as opposed to a courtier or a warrior.
Alanius, an exactor, (p. 205) ; an obscure and perhaps corrupt word, pos
sibly from alanus, a hound, from the power of scenting taxable property.
Aldermannus, (p. 105) an ealdorman of a hundred ; (p. 377) an alderman
of a borough.

536 Glossary.
Allegiare, (p. 107) to purge oneself by oath or ordeal, lex. Thokpe.
Allooare, to allow.
Amereiamentum, a pecuniary mulct.
Amerciare, to punish by a pecuniary mulct.
Amodo, from henceforth.
Andegavensis, Angevin. Andegave/i^is moneta, the money of the county
of Anjou, was worth a fourth of the English money of the same name.
Angaria, hardship.
Angylde, legal value. At p. 63 probably equivalent to wer.
An-scote, see Soot.
Apostolicus, the pope. In med Fr. Vapostoile.
Appellare, to appeal, the term used of a private person bringing a crimi
nal charge. But the word is very frequently used in the regular sense
of recourse to a higher tribunal.
Appellum, the act of appealing, or the bringing of a criminal charge by a
private person.
Appretiare, to appraise, to value.
Aqua, (p. 151) ordeal by water.
Arentare, to let at a rental.
Arestare, to arrest. Also arrestare. Fr. arreter.
Argentarius, the officer who presides over the essaying of silver in the
Exchequer.
Arismeticus, arithmetical.
Armiger, an esquire.
Asoriptitius, bound to the soil ; applied to the condition of a villanus.
Asportare, to carry away.
Assalire, to assault. Med. Lat. for assilire.
Assartum, a clearing in a wood. See Essartum.
Assecurare, to assure. Old Fr. asseurer.
Assidere, to assess ; (p. 200) to have a seat in the Exchequer.
Assisa, an assize : (1) an assessment ; (2) a law or edict ; (3) a mode of
trial prescribed bv such a law ; (4) the select body employed to carry
out the trial ; (5) the trial itself.
Assisus, assessed. Part, of assideo, applied to redditus, assised rent.
Asturcarius, keeper of the asturcae, great hawks.
Atenere, to extend, to hold from such a time onwards.
Attachiameutum, a seizure of person or goods by legal process.
AttacMare, to seize person or goods by legal process.
Attaiutus, Attinet us, convicted. Fr. atteint.
Atterminare, to appoint a term for hearing.
Attornare, to appoint a substitute.
Aubergel; Aubergellum, a hauberk, a coat of mail. Germ. Halsberg.
Auxilium, an aid ; the feudal contribution so called.
Aventura, an adventure.
Averia, animals nsed in husbandry. Fr. avoir.
Averus, = affrus, a farm horse. Fr. avoir.

Bacheleria, (p. 332) probably means the body of knights bachelor ; used
loosely in this place, apparently, for the gentry of England, the landed
interest, beneath the rank of barons. The Low Lat. baccalarius was
originaTy the owner of a baccalaria or grazing farm; from bacca =
vacca, a cow.
Baillia, Baillivus, Bailliva; see Ballia. Ballivus, Balliva.

Glossary. roh
Balistarius, a crossbow-man.
BaJ^*?. ^^va; a charge, an office of trust; translated in English 'a
bailiwick,' and sometimes used for the area over which the functions of
the ottice extend ; from bajulare, to carry.
Ballivus, a bailiff, a person put in charge by his superior. The praepositus
or reeve, might be an elective officer, but the bailiff is the nominee of
the lord.
Ballium, charge.
Bancus, the bench, the tribunal of judges. Old High Germ. banc.
Bannerettus, a, banneret ; a person knighted on the field of battle ; more
loosely and obscurely, a nobleman below the degree of baron who leads
his retainers under his own banner.
Baro, properly a vassal, =Aomo; but generally a tenant in chief holding
by barony.
Baronagium, the collected barons, as an estate of the realm.
Baronia, a barony, containing, definitely, thirteen knights' fees anil a
third, (p. 503) but more loosely, any amount of land held in chief of
the Crown under grant as a barony.
Bassus, low ; Basse, in a low voice.
BedeUus, a beadle.
Bellum, trial by battle, = duellum, pp. 108, 112.
Beneplacitum, good pleasure.
Beroheria, a sheepfold. Fr. bergerie, from the Latin venex, or berbex.
Bernarius, bear-ward ; the keeper of the kings's bears.
Bisia, a hind or doe. Fr. biche.
Bladum, corn. Fr. ble.
Blaneus, white. Old High Germ, "blanch.
Blod-wit, the fine imposed for drawing blood ; forifactura sanguinis.
Boe-land, land the possession of which was secured by book, i.e. charter.
Borh, a surety; plegium or plegius.
Boscus, wood. Fr. bois.
Bot, amends, reparation. Lat. emendatio.
Botteleria, a buttery.
Bovaria, a cowhouse. Fr. bouverie.
Braciare, to brew. Fr. brasser.
Braciator, a brewer.
Brasium, Braseum, malt. Pliny gives brace as a Gaulish word.
Breve, a writ. Fr. bref.
Brid-tol, or Brud-tol, pp. 267, 310, perhaps, = brycg-tol, or pontage.
Briga, a dispute. Med. Lat. brica, Fr. brigue.
Brig-bot, Bric-bot, one of the three obligations of ownership of land,
called the trinoda necessitas ; the repair of bridges, pontis reparatio.
Bulla, the seal of gold or lead appended to papal, imperial, and royal
letters : hence the letter itself, which is properly epistola bullata.
Burdare, to joust. Fr. bohourt or behourt.
Burgagium, tenure of land or houses in a borough, equivalent to free and
common socage in the country.
Burg-bryce, the violation of a castle or palace.
Burgensis, a burgher or burgess.
Burgus, a borough, burh.
Burh, a fortress, castle, borough.
Burh-bot, Burcbota, areis reparatio, the land-owner's obligation of re
pairing local defences.
Burh-gemot, meeting of the burghers in council.
Burh-gate-seat, a seat at the town-gate, a local court of justice.
Burh-ware-mot, a meeting of the burghers, lurh-wara.

53^ Glossary.
Busca, bush or underwood. Fr. busche, from hois.
' Bytt-fyUing,' ' buccellorum impletio,' a filling of butts ;¦ an obscure expres
sion referring probably to the festivities common at the councils or local
assemblies of the Anglo-Saxons, especially the guild-meetings.

C
Calculus, a counter.
Calumnia, a claim, not necessarily a false one.
Calumniare, to claim, without the notion of falsehood or chicanery.
Calumniator, a claimant.
Camerarius, a chamberlain, keeper of accounts.
Cancellare, to cancel, to erase by cross-lining.
Cancellarius, a chancellor, the chief clerk of the curia regis ; so called
from sitting within canceUa, a screened partition: occasionally the
medieval writers derived it from his power of modifying the king's writs
by cancelling unjust provisions contained in them.
Capella, the furniture required by a priest for divine service ; a chapel.
CapeHet, a head-piece.
CapeUum, a head-piece. Fr. chapeau.
Capere, ' capere se,' to take to, to have recourse for satisfaction to seizure
of person or goods of an offender.
Capitale, capital, property in cattle. Caput (as we say a head of cattle),
capitale, eaptale, eatallum ; whence both cattle and chattels.
Capitalis, chief; as capitalis justitia, chief justice; capitalis dominus,
chief lord.
Capitaneus, a captain.
Capitulum, (pp. 109, 418) the chapter of a cathedral, collegiate, or con
ventual church ; (p. 327) an article or chapter of a document.
Carsta, Caretta, Carecta, a cart. Fr. charette.
Careetarius, Caretarius, (sc. equus), a cart-horse.
Cariagium, carriage.
Cariare, to carry. Fr. charrier.
Carpentarius, a carpenter.
Caristia, dearth.
Caruca, Carruoa, a plough. Fr. charrue.
Carucagium, a tax levied at so much a plough.
Carucata, Carruoata, the quantity of land that could be ploughed by
one plough or team in a season ; long varying in extent, according
to the locality or the nature of the soil,, but fixed in 1 1 94 at 100
acres.
Cassare, to quash.
Catallum, Catellum, a chattel ; see Capitale.
Ceap-gild, market-price ; from ceap, a market.
Centena, a hundred.
Ceuteriarius, the head man of the hundred.
Centuriata, Centuriatus, a hundred.
Ceorl, a churl, originally a freeman who is not noble, in opposition to eorl:
at a later period = villanus.
Certiorare, to make certain.
Cervisia, beer ; a Gaulish word, according to Pliny.
Chaceare, to chase. Fr. chasser.
Chamberlengeria, the chamberlainship of London.
Childwite, a penalty paid to the lord for impregnating his female villein.

Glossary. 539
Chiminagium, a tax upon waggons and other carriages going though a
forest. Fr. chemin.
Chiminum, a road. Fr. chemin.
Cirrus, a cup, scyphus.
Cimiterium, a church-yard, cemetery.
Clamare, to claim ; to complain.
Clamator, a crier of court.
Clamor, a claim ; a complaint ; hue and cry.
Claustralis, belonging to a cloister or monastery.
Clericus, a clerk.
Clerus, the clergy.
Cnipulus, a pen-knife. Fr. aanif.
Coadunare, (p. 366) to get together, to get in (the harvest^
Cognoseens, (p. 151) confessing.
Collecta, a collection of money, in alms or taxation.
Combustio, (p. 151) burning, the crime of arson; (p. 193) the process of
trying the silver at the Exchequer.
Comes, a ' gesith ' or companion of a lord ; generally, an earl.
Comitatus, a county or shire ; the county court or shiremoot.
Comitia, a pedantic expression for a legal assembly, such as the county
court.
Commeare, to come backwards and forwards at pleasure, as opposed to
residere, which implies a fixed position and regular duties.
Communa, an organised body possessing rights and property in common :
applied sometimes to a chartered town, sometimes to the community in
general. See pp. 162, 165.
Communitas, a community, like communa ; latterly it comes to mean the
Commons, as an estate of the realm.
Compotus, Computus, account. Fr. compte.
Computator, accountant.
Concanonieus, a fellow-canon.
Concelamentum, concealment.
Conoredere, to answer for the credit of a person.
Conductitius, a hired follower.
Conludium, collusion.
Conquisitio, Conquestus, conquest.
Cousiliarius, a counsellor ; a member of the council.
Consistorium, the bishop's diocesan tribunal.
Constabularius, (p. 1 79) constable of the king's court, comes stabuli, the
staller ; (p. 300) the constable of a castle; (p. 372) the high constable
of a hundred or wapentake; (p. 372) the constable of a township.
Consuetudo, custom, often in the sense of customary exaction.
Consulatus, a county ; a pedantic use of the word.
Consulere, (p. 140) to provide for.
Contenementum, explained by Selden to mean the amount of property
necessary for a man to maintain his position as knight or baron.
Continuare, to continue ; to adjourn.
Coutrabreve, counter-brief; the copy of a writ kept in court after the
original has been served.
Contra-rotulus, the counter-roll, kept as a check upon the public roll ;
hence the word control.
Contra-talea, counter-tally ; the half of the tally kept in the treasury to
check the half entrusted to the payer.
Convenire, (p. 139) to make application to a judge ; (p. 288) to be
agreed ; convenit, it is agreed ; (p. 330) to come together ; (p. 69) to
be convenient ; (p. 330) to consult.

540 Glossary.
Conveutio, a covenant.
Conventionale, to covenant.
Corditer, cordially, unless it is a clerical error for concorditer.
Cornare, to blow a horn.
Coronator, a coroner.
Costa, the coast.
Costera, the coast.
Cotarius, a cotter.
Cotsetus, a cotter.
Credentia, credence.
Cremeutum, increase or profit of a ferm over and above the fixed sum at
which it is let.
Crucesignatus, one who has taken the cross to go on crusade.
Cruciatus, a crusader.
Curia, (i) a court of justice (p. 143) ; (2) right of jurisdiction (pp. 77,
143> 3OJ) ! (3) the court of a house (p. 91) ; (4) a solemn assembly in
the king's presence (p. 128).
Curialis, courteous ; adv. curialiter, courteously.
Custodia, (p. 301) guardianship ; (p. 148) the tenure of a county as custos,
i. e. not at fixed ferm, but as accountable for all particulars.
Custuma, custom, in the sense of fixed tax.
Custus, cost. From constare, couter.
Cynebot, the atonement to the nation for the killing of the king.
Cynedom, the royal dignity.

Danegeldum, Danegildum, Danageldum, Danegeld.
Dapifer, a steward.
Deafforestare, to disforest.
Dealbare, to whiten, to blanch; hence our word daub. The process of
blanching a ferm is described at p. 220.
Dealbator, a bleacher.
Decauatus, a deanery.
Decania, a tithing.
Decanus, (p. 77) the head man of a tithing; (p. 130) the dean of a
chapter.
Decennalis, of the number ten.
Decima, (p. 106) a tithing ; (pp. 134, 160) a tithe or tenth.
Deeurtator, a clipper of coin.
Defalta, Defaltum, default.
Defensum, prohibition ; the close or fence time for fishing or hunting.
Cf. Fr. defense and defendre. Defendere is used in the same way.
Defortiare, to deforce, to dispossess by violence.
Demauda, a demand or application.
Demandare, (p. 384) to demand or request ; (p. 431) to ordain by man
date.
Demeuium, demesne, the portion of a manor which the lord retains in his
own hands and cultivates by his villeins.
Denageldum , see Danegeldum.
Denarius, a penny ; (pp. 144, 162, 200) money in general.
Departitio, separation, closing of the session of parliament.
Depauperare, to impoverish.

Glossary. 54 1
Depraeditatio, disendowment.
Detonsor, a clipper of coin.
Detruncatio, mutilation.
Dextrarius, a war-horse. Fr. destrier. So called because the squire led it
with his right hand.
Dimdare, to defy.
Disfacere, to defeat, to disregard.
Disparagatio, disparagement.
Disratiocmare, Disrationare, to prove one's cause or disprove one's
adversary's in a court of law, to prosecute a suit to its determination.
Dissaisiare, Dissaisire, to dispossess.
Dissaisina, dispossession.
Districtio, distraint or distress ; sometimes the thing seized in the dis
traint.
Distringere, to distrain, to compel by seizure of goods.
Disturbare, (p. 149) to prevent the due course of justice by a bribe or
by hush-money ; commonly, to disturb.
Divisa, a devise by will ; the will itself.
Divisa, the boundary of landed property ; also a court held on the bound
ary to settle disputes of the tenants. Thorpe.
Domesmenn, judges.
Dominicum , demesne.
Dominicus, held as demesne, or connected with it.
Dominium, demesne.
Duellum, trial by battle.
Dyscolus, perverse : from the Greek.

E
Ealdordom, the jurisdiction of an ealdorman.
Ealdorman, the chief magistrate of a shire. Lat. dux or princeps. Old
Ger. Heretoga.
Einescia, seniority. Fr. ainesse.
Emeuda, amends.
Emeudare, to make reparation.
Emendatio, reparation, amends ; = A. S. bot.
Eorlas, noblemen, opposed to ceorlas.
Equitatura, the furniture of a horse, or horse soldier.
Errare, to go on the eyre, or itinerate.
Escaeta, Esehaeta, Eskaeta, Excaeta, the reversion of a fief to the
lord on the extinction or corruption of the blood of the tenant ; the
estate so escheated. From the Old Fr. eschoir = carlere, to fall.
Escaetor, an escheater, an officer who received the escheats of the Crown.
Escambium, Excambium, an exchange.
Esnecca, a ship of transport.
Essartum, a clearance in the forest ; variously derived from ex-arare,
ex-ercere, ex-sarrirej spelled also assartum.
Essayum, Essaium, trial, examination by fire ; examen.
Essonium, an excuse. , . . ,, . . . a
Estoverium, Estuverium, fire-wood ; originally provision or stuff gene
rally. Fr. itouffer, Lat. stuffare.
Eventus, (p. 51 1) used apparently for attendance m parliament.
Ewagium, = aowaowm, a tax on water carriage.
Excidentia, escheats.

542 Glossary.
Exhaeredare, to dispossess of an inheritance.
Exitus, outgoings, issue.
Exorbitare, to go beyond bounds.
Expeditatio, the mutilation of dogs, by cutting their claws so as to
prevent them from being used in hunting.
Expeditio, the duty of military service, incumbent on all owners of land,
=fyrd.
Extraneus, a stranger.

F
Falco, a falcon.
Faleonarius, a falconer.
Falsarius, a forger or depraver of the coinage.
Falsonarius, a forger ; (p. 263) a forger of charters especially.
Falsoneria, forgery of coin or charters.
Felonia, felony.
Peodatarius, a feudal dependant.
Peodi-firma, fee farm.
Feodum, Peodus, Feudum, a fief, an estate held by tenure from a
superior lord ; (p. 506) a fee, in the modern sense of a payment as
honorarium.
Feoffamentum, feoffment, the act of conveying an estate in fee.
FeofFator, a feoffor.
Feoffatus, a feoffee, the person receiving or holding such an estate.
Feouatio, the fawning time. Fr. foinesun. Med. Lat. fannatio.
Peorm-fultum, rent paid in kind from royal demesne or public lands.
Feos-bot, (p. 73) amendment of the coinage.
Ferdingus, a freeman of the lowest grade.
Feria, a fair.
Feudatus, in possession of a fief.
Fidejussio, security.
Fidelitas, fealty.
Filare, to file, to string on a thread ; see Ami are.
Filum, the thread or course of a stream.
Finis, a payment made to procure the end of a lawsuit or immunity from
molestation, and in that sense a fine; not a mulct byway of punish
ment. Compare our fines upon leases.
Firma, ferm or farm ; a fixed sum or rent payable by way of composition ;
the profits of the county jurisdictions let at fixed sums to the sheriffs.
Firmarius, a person who fermed, compounded by an annual fixed pay
ment for the revenues of his official position.
Fiscus, the Exchequer ; revenue in general.
Flyma, a runaway.
Folgare, to follow. Germ, folgen.
Folgarius, a follower. Germ. Folger.
Polkes-mote, meeting of the folk or people in the shiremoot.
Fore-oath, the oath taken by plaintiff and defendant at the beginning of
a suit.
Foresta, forest. Germ. FSrst.
Forestel, an assault ; from fore and stellan, to spring. Thoepe.
Porisfacere, to transgress ; to forfeit.
Forisfactura, forfeiture.
Forstallatio, obstruction or hindrance ; from fore and stellan ; see
Forestel.

Glossary. 543
Fortitudo, force.
Porulus, a shelf or compartment.
Possatum, a ditch.
Prancus, a freeman, a freeholder.
Fraucus-plegius, a frank-pledge ; a member of an association for mutual
security.
Francus-tenens, a freeholder ; generally in socage.
Frith, peace.
Frith-borg, surety for the keeping of the peace ; Frithborga, an as
sociation of ten men for mutual security = frank-pledge ; Frithborgus,
a member of such an association. See p. 77.
Frith.-borge-h.eved, the head of a frank -pledge.
Frith-bot, Frithesbot, amendment of peace, payment to atone for breach
of peace.
Frith-bryce, breach of the peace.
Frith-gegildas, members of an association for mutual protection.
Fugare, to course.
Fugatio, right of coursing.
Fundus, the soil : often =feodut.
Furca, the gallows.
Furnum, an oven.
Furragium, provender. From furrare, to forage. Goth. fodr.
Fyrd, expeditio; the duty of military service for the defence of the
country.
Fyrdung, Fierdfare, the going on the fyrd.
Fyrdwite, the penalty for neglecting the fyrd.

G-ablum, tax ; from A. S. gafol. Fr. gabelle.
Gafol, tax.
Gaiola, a prison, a gaol. Fr. geole ; from the Lat. caveola.
Garba, a trave of corn. Old High Germ. Fr. gerbe.
Geldare, to pay tax.
Geldum, Gildum, a tax of any sort. Germ. Geld.
Gemot, a meeting.
Geneatland, land cultivated by geneats, or persons holding by service.
Neotan, to enjoy. Thorpe.
Gersumna, a customary gift or payment.
Gesithcundman, a man in the rank of gesith or comes ; a companion of a
king or great lord, and so ennobled by service.
Gewitenemot, = witenagemot.
Gieresgieve, the same as gersuma, a bribe given to the king's officers for
connivance. BRAnT.
Gild, (p. 72)=wer-gild. .... . , . .. ,
Gilda Gylda, a voluntary association for mutual protection, tor common
mercantile aims, or for religious worship.
Gildwite, (p. 310) probably a miswriting for childvrite.
Gisarma, a dart.
Grangia, a granary, thence a grange, a farm-house.
Grantum, security given.
Gravamen, a grievance.
Gravare, to aggrieve.

544 Glossary.
Gregarius, miles gregarius seems to mean a, knight employed properly
in military command, as contrasted with one who merely holds a knight's
fee in land.
Grith, immunity from molestation ; special frith or localised peace.
Guerra, Gwerra, war.
Gwerrina, in a state of war.

H
Haia, a hedge. Fr. haie ; Old High Germ. Haga.
Halbergettus, the material of which the common hauberk waB made.
Halimotum, the hall-moot, the local court of a franchise.
Hangewitha, the penalty for hanging a thief without process of law.
Ducange. Thorpe, however, defines it as a fine for letting a prisoner
escape from prison.
Hansa, a trade guild.
Hanshus, the hall where the hansa or guild met.
Haracia, a stud of horses. Fr. haras.
Haubio, Hauberio, a hauberk.
Healsfang, the sum a man sentenced to the pillory would have to pay to
save him from that punishment. Thorpe. Heals-fang properly is the
pillory itself. Schmid, however, explains it as really meaning a pay
ment of the nature of wer-gild, made to the near relatives of a slain
man.
Heimfara, a breach of peace by forcibly entering a man's house.
Heorthfest, having a fixed hearth or dwelling.
Herbagium, herbage.
Heriot, Heriet, a heriot ; from here-geatwu, the military equipment of a
vassal, which on his death reverted to his lord. In the later laws the
heriot is often Latinised, as relevium ; but properly it differed from the
relief, which was the payment made by the heir to secure the possession
of his inheritance.
Heyrinus, a heron.
Hida, a hide of land : a measure of arable varying at the time of Domes
day, but in Henry II's reign fixed at ioo acres. See p. 209.
Hlafordsokna, (p. 66) the right of the freeman to choose his own lord ;
hence the jurisdiction of the lord over his men.
Hokeday, the second Tuesday after Easter.
Hold, a Danish noble.
Homagium, homage, the process of acknowledging oneself the homo or
vassal of a feudal superior.
Hominium, homage.
Homo, generally a vassal.
Honor, an aggregation of knights' fees, held as an honour, as the qualify
ing holding of a baron or earl.
Horn-geltb., a tax upon horned cattle, cornage.
Horuus, of this year ; applied to a hawk that has not moulted.
Hospitare, to entertain.
Hospitatus, inhabited.
Hostiarius, = ostiarius, a door-keeper, an usher. Fr. huissier.
Hostium, = ostium, a door.
Hundredarius, the hundred-man, the bailiff of the hundred.
Hundredum, Hundredus, Huudretum, Hundret, the local division
called the hundred ; frequently also the hundred court.

Glossary. 545
Husting, Hustenge, Hustingus, the court of a borough held in a house;
from hus. a house, and thing, an assembly.
Huthesia, Hutesium, hue and cry made after criminals.
Hyda, a hide of land ; see Hida.
Hydagium, a tax imposed at so much a hide.
Hynde, the number ten.
Hynden, an association of ten men in a frith-gild.
Hyndenman, the head man over ten hyndens.

Imbreviare, to register.
Imbrochiare, to tap a barrel, to broach a cask.
Impetrare, to obtain by application, generally used of a writ or papal
bull.
Implacitare, to implead, to bring au action against.
Imprisouamentum, imprisonment.
Imprisonare, to imprison.
Incaustum, ink. From the Greek, ly/cavarov.
Inerementum, increase of profit over ferm-rent.
Indictameutum, indictment.
Infangentheof, jurisdiction over a thief caught within the limit of the
estate to which the right belonged.
Infeodare, to enfeof.
Ingeuium, a contrivance ; ' malum ingenium,' trickery, evasion of obliga
tions.
Ingravare, to burden.
Inland, ' terra dominicalis,' the demesne.
Instauramentum, the stocking of a farm.
Inst aur are, to stock a farm.
Interciare, to demand warranty of a person in whose hands stolen property
is found. Fr. entiercer.
Interprisa, a usurpation.
Intromittere (se), to meddle with.
Invadiare, to put in pledge for a loan, to mortgage.
Invenire, to find, in the sense of to furnish.
Irrotulameutum, enrolment.
Irrotulare, to enrol.

Jieresgieve, = gieresgive.
Jocalia, jewels. Fr. joyau =jocale.
Judicium, (pp. 76, 151) the ordeal.
Juisa, the ordeal. Fr. Justicia.
Jurata, a jury.
Justitia, ^justitiarius, a justice or judge.
Justitiabilis, amenable to jurisdiction.
Justitiare, to bring to justice.

Kalendarium, a kalendar, a list of agenda.
Kidellus, Kydellus, a weir.
N n

546 Glossary.

Laga, law. Icelandic, log.
Lagan, the right to matters thrown up by the sea, lying on the shore.
Lageman, a person possessing a certain jurisdiction in the Danelaw.
Lanutus, woolly ; pellis lanuta, a wool-fell.
Lardarium, a larder.
Legalis, lawful ; legalis homo, a man possessed of all the rights of a free
man.
Leod, the people. Germ. Leute.
Leporarius, a harrier.
Lesta, lading, a last, a weight of leather and other substances.
Lestagium, a custom exacted on a ship's lading.
Lesth, lading.
Leuca, a measure of 1500 paces ; later, a league.
Leue, = leva, an exaction, or compulsory gift to the magistrate, like scotale.
Leugata, the territory surrounding a town, at the radius of a leuca.
Lex, (pp. 112, 144, 224, 301) the ordeal.
Liberare, to deliver.
Liberatio, a delivering ; hence the thing delivered, equipment, livery.
Libra, a pound.
Librata, an estate in land worth a pound a year.
Licentiare, to dismiss.
Liesing, the Danish freedman.
Ligantia, allegiance.
Ligius, liege, ligius dominus, the lord to whom the oath of fealty was taken
contra omnes homines without exception.
Lingua, (p. 485) tongue, nation.
Lista, the selvage or listing of cloth.
Loquela, a legal claim.
Lorica, a coat of mail, as worn by a knight ; hence the knightly tenure.
Lot, the share of taxation imposed upon an individual payer towards
making up the aggregate required of the community.

M
Maeg-burg, the kindred.
Maironia, timber, =meremium.
Major, (p. 323) of age, twenty-one years old ; (p. 314) the mayor of a
community.
Malatolta, Malatollia, the unjust custom on wool, the evil tolta or tax :
tolta is a rude participle from tollo, to take as toll.
Malefactio, (p. 264) a misdoing ; in this place the stolen property.
Maucus, an English money of the same value as the mark, or 30 penings.
Maneries, manner, sort.
Manerium, a manor.
Mausio, a dwelling-house ; a manor.
Mauuug, the district or population under the jurisdiction of a, reeve.
A. S. amanian, to exact.
Mauuopere, with the hand in the act ; hand-habend, in possession of
stolen goods.
Manntenere, to maintain.
Marca, a mark, 8 ounces, two-thirds of a pound ; the mark of silver is
1 3s. 4<2. ; the mark of gold is six pounds sterling.

Glossary. 547
Marcandisa, merchandise.
Marescallus, a marshal, the ancient hors-thegn ; from mar, horse, scale,
servant.
Maritagium, the right of bestowing in marriage a feudal dependant.
Maritare, to give in marriage.
Maritatio, the act of giving in marriage ; the right of doing so.
Marka, a mark.
Marlera, a marl-pit.
Martrinus, Martrinis, belonging to a marten.
Mass-thegn, (p. 66) a priest holding thegn's rank.
Mastivus, a mastiff.
Mediatus, mesne : mediatus dominus, a mesne lord.
Merca, a mark, or boundary.
Mercaudisa, Mercandia, merchandise.
Mercarius, of merchants.
Mercata, the quantity of land which is worth a mark (13s. 40!.) a year.
Mercatum, a market.
Merchet, the sum paid by a villein to his lord for leave to give his daughter
in marriage.
Meremium, Meremum, timber; materiamen, Ducange.
Mesuagium, a house and ground.
Methel, an assembly, = mallus, or gemot.
Miles, a knight ; Militia, the right of knighthood.
Mttlarium, a sum of a thousand.
Minorare, to diminish.
Minutus, mean or small.
Misa, a capitulation.
Misericordia, mercy, a mulct at discretion : to be at the king's mercy was
to lie in such a position that the king might either exercise the right of
complete forfeiture or accept a fine in commutation.
Miskenning, Mescheniuga, 'variatio loquelae,' a shifting of the ground
of an action after it has come into court ; commonly the fine imposed
for such variation, levied on very trivial occasions, and abolished by
charter frequently as a privilege.
Modernus, of the present day ; from modo, now.
Molinus, a mill.
Monetagium, mintage, >¦, payment by the moneyers for the privilege of
coining ; otherwise explained as « payment by the subjects to prevent
loss by the depreciation or change of coinage.
Monetarius, a moneyer, a person empowered to coin.
Muratus, walled.
Murdrator, a murderer.
Murdrum, secret homicide ; sometimes the penalty paid by the district in
which a murdered person is found (see p. 201) ; wilful murder.
Mutatorium, a change (of raiment).
Mutatus, changed ; applied to a hawk that has moulted; hence the word

TJamiare, to distrain.
Namium, Namum, distress, seizure ; the thing taken by distress, =
districtio. Germ, nehmen, to take.
Nativus, a neif, or unfree dependant. N n 2

548 Glossary.
Nithing, a worthless person.
Nocumentnm, a nuisance.
TTundinae, a fair.
Nundinarius, having a fair.

Obolus, a halfpenny.
Occasio, an excuse.
Occasionare, to molest, to spoil.
Occasiuncula, a mean excuse.
Oferhyrnes, contempt, disobedience ; commonly the penalty of contempt
of jurisdiction.
On-hlote, =lot, the share of taxation apportioned to the individual mem
ber of a community.
Ora, a varying sum of pennies or denarii in the Danelaw ; twenty, some
times sixteen.
Ortillus, the toe of a dog's foot.

Pacabilis, payable ; applied to a beast that is a lawful tender in payment
in kind.
Facatio, payment.
Palefridus, a horse. Med. Lat. paraveredus.
Parmagium, the privilege of feeding swine in the woods. Old Fr. pasnage,
pasture ; from pastinaticum, a derivative from pastionem.
Parlamentum, Parliamentum, parliament: = colloquium, from parabolare,
to speak ; whence parole and parler.
Parliamentatio, parliamentary discussion.
Parochiauus, a parishioner.
Passagium, (p. 440) a voyage ; (p. 108) a tax upon passengers.
Pecunia, money or stock : pecunia viva, live stock.
Pedo, a foot-soldier.
Pelota, the ball of the foot of a dog.
Pensum, weight, as opposed to scala, rate.
Percognitio, a recognition ; see Hecognitio.
Percussura, coining.
Perdonum, pardon, remission of payment.
Peregrinatio, pilgrimage.
Perire, (p. 151) to fail in the ordeal.
Perquirere, to acquire, to purchase ; (p. 138) to seek or contrive.
Perquisitio, acquisition.
Persolta, = per-soluta ; seep. 231.
Persona, a beneficed clergyman.
Pertica, a perch, a measure of land.
Pilatus, a bolt for shooting.
Pilleus, a Cap.
Pincerna, a butler.
Placitum, a plea, a lawsuit.
Plegium, a surety, the condition of a surety.
Plegius, a surety, a person pledging himself for the appearance of another.
Port, (p. 66) a mercantile town.
Pontagium, bridge-toll.

Glossary. 549
Portreeve, the chief magistrate of a port, or mercantile town.
£ortsocha, Portsoka, the jurisdiction of a portreeve.
collie *' (?" I94) provender; (P- 366) a prebend in a cathedral or
Praeconarius, belonging to a crier.
Praemunire, to premonish.
Praemunitio, a premonition.
Praepositura, office of reeve.
Praepositus, = reeve.
Praesentatio, the right of nominating a clerk to a benefice.
Praestatio, a payment.
Praetaxare, to define beforehand.
Praevaricare, to break or evade an obligation.
Prindere, to take ; a form of prehendere.
Prisa, a taking, an exaction.
Priso, a prisoner.
Prisona, a prison.
Probator, an approver, king's evidence.
Procurator, a proctor, the person who holds a proxy.
Proouratorius, conveying delegated power : procuratoriae litterae, letters
of proxy.
Proficuum, profit.
Prolongare, to remove, to dispossess, by delaying seisin.
Prosolta, =pro-soluta ; see p. 231.
Protojustitiarius, the Chief Justice.
Providentia, (p. 334) a provision or ordinance.
Publicatus, notorious by report.
Purprestura, an encroachment.
Purpunetus, a sword-proof or spear-proof coat.

Q
Quarterium, a quarter, a measure of capacity.
Quietantia, quittance.
Quietum clamare, to quit-claim, release from obligation.
Quindena, a quinzaine, a day over the fortnight.
Quinquagenarius, (p. 439) a captain of fifty, used figuratively with refer
ence to 2 Kings i.

K
Ran, = raven, rapine.
Kecautum, a counter tally ; see Coutratalea, a security ; from re-caveo.
Recepta, receipt.
Kecidivare, to relapse.
Recognitio, an inquest by oath of twelve men, under the system of
assize; (p. 137) a declaratory statement of the law.
Becognoscens, a person acknowledging his offence.
Recordum, a record.
Bectare, see Bettare.
Bectitudo, right.
Kedemptio, ransom.
Bedimere, (p. 100) to redeem: (p. 251) to compel to redeem.
s n 3

550 Glossary.
Regratarius, a retailer who buys goods iu order to sell them again at
a higher price.
Reguardor, a person acting as visitor in a reguard.
Reguardum, Reguarda, a visitation of the forests.
Rehabere, to recover possession.
Relevare, to relieve, to take up an inheritance by payment of relief.
Relevatio, the act of relieving ; the relief.
Relevium, the relief, the money paid by the incoming heir for admission
to his inheritance.
Remandare, to remand.
Rememorare, to regard, or to place in the agenda of parliament.
Renegator, a renegade, heretic.
Replegiare, to remand under surety.
Respeetus, respite.
Retare, Rettare, to accuse ; from the Norse rett, an imputation or
accusation : not connected with the Lat. rectum, although early con
founded with it : hence the form rectare for rettare.
Retonsor, a clipper of coin.
Retta, Return, Rettum, an accusation. Norse, rett.
Revelach, A. S. reaflac, theft ; from reafian, to rob, to bereave.
Riparia, Rivaria, a river. Fr. riviere.
Robator, a robber. Germ. Rduber.
Roberia, robbery,
Rumbus, a turbot.
Runcinus, a horse.
Russettus, a common red cloth.
Rusticus, a native, a villein.
Ruttarius, a routier, a mercenary soldier. Low Lat. ruptuarius.

Saca, Sacha, jurisdiction in matters of dispute.
Saisiare, Saisire, to seize, to take possession of. Old High Germ, sazjan.
Saisina, possession.
Salvagius, wild. Fr. sauvage, from siluaticus.
Scaccarium, the Exchequer.
Scala, scale, rate as opposed to weight. I
Scannum, a bench.
Sehedula, a schedule, list of articles.
Schira, Scira, a shire, = comitatus.
Schirereva, Scyr-gerefa, a sheriff: the king's representative in the
shire, as the praepositus or gerefa (Ger. Graf; Engl, reeve) was in the
township. Lat. vicecomes.
Schot, a tax generally ; from sceatta, money.
Scir-gemot, Scyres-gemot, meeting of the shire; county court; comitahts.
Scirman, the headman of the shire, probably = sheriff.
Scotagium, = scutagium.
Scothala, Scotteshale, 'Public compotations at the charge of some for the
benefit of others.' Spelman. 'Abuses put on the king's people by his
officers, who invited them to drink ale and then made a collection, to
the end they should not vex or inform against them for the crimes
they had committed or should commit.' Brady. A forced contribution
levied on the pretence or occasion of a festivity.

Glossary. 551
Scrinium, a shrine.
Scriptorium, a writing-room.
Secta, (p. 401) suit, attendance at a court ; (p. 264) suit, pursuit of the
hue and cry.
Sectator, «, suitor.
Seedlip, a measure of wheat ; a seed basket.
Seisina, possession of land.
Senescallus, a steward, the senior scale or servant in a household.
Septimaua, a week. Fr. semaine.
Sequestrare, to separate litigants, to settle the matter between them ;
more commonly to sequestrate.
Sergantia, Sergantisa, Sergenteria, serjeanty, a tenure of land by pecu
liar service of special duty to the person of the lord.
Sermocinari, to preach.
Serrura, a lock. Fr. serrure ; from Lat. serare.
Serviens, a Serjeant; serviens ad placita, Serjeant at pleas; serviens ad
arma, Serjeant at arms.
Sextarius, a measure of four gallons.
Sithessocna, explained to mean the jurisdiction of a gesith, any private
franchise ; but the word occur.-, only in the form of Sipesocna, which
bas been understood to mean the district liable to furnish a ship to the
king's fleet.
Soca, Socca, Socna, Soka, Soken, jurisdiction; ' interpellate majoris
audientiae,' a liberty, privilege, or franchise granted by the king to a
subject ; also the area within which that franchise is exercised.
Socagium, Sokagium, tenure of land on condition of fixed and determi
nate services, especially that of suit to the lord's court or soken.
Sochemaunus, a man who has to pay suit to a soken ; hence a tenant in
socage.
Solemnium, a solemnity.
Solidarius, a paid soldier.
Solidata, the quantity of land that is worth a shilling a year.
Solidus, a shilling. Fr. sous.
Sollagium, = solagium, an impost claimed by the lord of the soil, by way
of ground rent.
Solta, = soluta ; seep. 231.
Speruarius, a sparrow-hawk. Fr. eperoier.
Stabilitio, probably the duty of erecting the hunting-station of the king
or lord of a forest, and otherwise providing for the carrying out of the
hunt.
StaUagium, payment for having a stall in the market.
Staurare, to stock a farm.
Stengesdint, from stenge (A.S.), a pole, and dingan, to strike : sense
obscure.
Sterilensis, Sterlingus, sterling ; lawful and current money of Eng
land.
Strata, street.
Suanimotum, the court of the freemen in the forest ; from ' swain, libere
tenens.'
Subclamator, a sub-crier, of parliament.
Submonire, to summon.
Sumagium, (p. 350) a burden; from summa, Fr. somme, Med. Lat. salma
= sagma; Ger. Saum, in Saumthier.
Summagium, (p. 167) a team of beasts of burden.
Summarius, a beast of burden ; a sumpter-horse.

552 Glossary.
Summonere, to summon.
Summonitio, a summons.
Supersedere, to treat as superfluous.

Tachiamentum, an arrest.
Tailagium, Taylagium, Tallagium, Talliagium, a tax, from taillare,
tailler, to tax ; specially a talliage, an aid demandable of demesne lands
at the will of the lord.
Tailliare, TaiUeare, Talliare, to tax or talliage.
Talea, Tallia, Taleola, a, tally, a long piece of wood on which the sums
received at the Exchequer were notched ; the tally being then split, and
half kept by the court, half by the payer, so that each was a check
on the other.
Tannator, a tanner.
Taxare, (p. 211) to fix.
Team, Theam, Them, Theim, the right of compelling the person in
whose hands stolen or lost property was found to vouch to warranty,
that is, to name the person from whom he received it.
Tenementum, a holding, an estate held feudally.
Ten-manne-tale, = frank-pledge ; (at p. 254, a mistake for Danegeld).
Tenseria, a tax.
Tenura, the modo of holding an estate feudally ; the holding itself.
Testimonium, (p. 14s) character; (p. 188) attestation.
Thegn, Thegen, Tein, Thaynus, Tainus, a thegn, or thane : originally a
young man, or warrior; hence often a servant, especially an armed
servant ; then one who becomes noble by serving the king in arras ; the
possessor of five hides of land. The thegn before the Conquest occupied
nearly the sa,me position socially as the knight after it. (Lat. minister.)
Theoden, a lord, as opposed to Thegen, a servant.
Theofgyld, money paid in compensation for robbery.
Thing, an assembly.
Thingemaunus, a Danish soldier, perhaps = huscarl.
Thrymsa, a coin worth three pence Mercian.
Timbre, a bundle of skins.
Tithing, Tethinga, a union often freemen for mutual security; or a local
subdivision of the hundred, in some parts of England.
Tithingman, the head of a tithing.
Tol, Thol, Toll, Theloneum, Thelonium, Telonium, Toloneum,
Theoloneum, duty on imports.
Tolta, a tax ; from tollo, to raise by taxation.
Trespas, a fine for trespass.
Trethingius, a third part of a county, a riding.
Treuga, a truce.
Tun-grevius, the reeve of a township, praepositus villatae.
Turniare, to attend a tournament.
Turnus, the touru or periodical court of the sheriff.
Twyhynde, *¦ man whose wer-gild was 200 shillings. The twelf-hynde
man's was worth 1200.
Tyenthe-heved, the head of a frank-pledge of ten men.
Tyhtbysig, of bad reputation ; tihtle, accusation, and bysig, implicated.
Thorp a

Glossary. 553

TJ
Unfrith, state of being out of the king's peace.
TJsuro, to bear interest.
Dthesium, hue and cry ; see Hutesium.
TTtlagare, to outlaw ; TTtlagatus, outlawed.
TJtlagia, outlawry.
TJtlagus, TJtlagh, an outlaw.
TJtware, explained as a grant of land by the king from the public land.
Thorpe.

Vadium, a wager, surety, gage; wages; ad remanens, security by way
of deposit. LYTTELTON.
Vaivus, a waif, a vagabond.
Valentia, value.
Vastus, waste. Cf. Fr. guaster, gater, to spoil.
Vavassor, an inferior baron, or vassal holding of a baron.
Venatio, privilege of hunting, venison.
Veredictum, verdict.
Vicarius, a deputy.
Vicecomes, a. sheriff. The word used after the Conquest to describe
the scyr-gerefa ; probably because the duties of the Norman vicecomes
corresponded with those of the English sheriff. The latter, however,
was a royal officer, and not the substitute for the earl or comes : but
an earl was sometimes hereditary vicecomes of his shire.
Vicedominus, the deputy of a lord.
Vicinetum, Vicinia, Visinetum, Visnetum, the neighbourhood, the
venue.
Vigena, a score.
ViUa, a town ; villa mercata, a market town.
Villanus, a villein ; see Hativus, Rusticus, Ceorl.
Villata, a township.
Villenagium, villein tenure : state of villenage.
Villula, a village ; villula nundinaria, a village that has the privilege
of holding a fair.
ViridariuB, a verderer.
Viridis, the privilege of using the wood in the forest ; vert.
Vivarium, a fish pond.

W
Wambais, a gambeson ; a doublet or purpoint of mail.
Wannagium, -Waynagium, Wainnagium, properly the extent of land
worked by the plough ; in some places it seems to mean farming stock,
but this is uncertain.
Wapentaocus, Wapentakius, Wapentagium, a wapentake, a subdi
vision of the riding.
Warantia, warranty.

554 Glossary.
Warantizare, to guarantee, to authorise.
Warantum, a warrant, a warranty.
Warantus, a warrantor.
Warda, pupillage, wardship ; an estate held by the lord in wardship.
Warde-mota, meeting of the ward in a corporate town.
Warennarius, a warrener.
Warennia, Warenna, a rabbit warren.
Warnistura, garnishing.
Wedd, a pleilge or gage, = vadium.
Wer, the pecuniary estimation of a man, by which the value of his oath
and the payment for his death were determined.
Wer-gild, the payment for the slaying of a man.
Werra, war.
Widrigildum, a Frank word, meaning probably the same as bot or com
pensation, and distinguished by Grimm from the wergild.
Witan, wise men, sapientes.
Wite, Wita, a mulct, a payment by way of punishment, opposed to bot,
which is compensation to the injured.
Witena-gemot, meeting of the wise men.
Wrec, wreck.

X
Xenium, a present ; more commonly written exenium. From the Greek.

Yeresgieve, see Gieresgieve.