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CORNELL 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 




IN MEMORY 



OF 



EDWARD SCHUSTER 






Date D^^^fl? Boofc 




DE^^ 




JN 2337.H35"''" """"""V "-ibrary 
'Jornjan institutions. 





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HARVARD HISTORICAL STUDIES 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF 
THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 



VOLUME XXIV 



HARVARD HISTORICAL STUDIES 



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XXIV. Norman Institutions. By Charies 
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HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A. 



NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 



BY 



CHARLES HOMER HASKINS 

GURNEY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY 




CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OxioKO UNiVEKsm Fkess 

I9I8 



LIBRARr 

or 
edwaud sshuster 



lW.7f 




COPYBIGHT, I918 
HAKVAKD UNIVEESITY PRESS 






TO THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

HUMANE UNFLINCHING 

CLEAR AND FREE 

THESE STUDIES IN FRENCH HISTORY 

ARE DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

The institutions of the duchy of Normandy occupy a unique 
place in the history of Europe. They have their local interest, 
giving character and distinctness to an important region of 
France; they furnished models of orderly and centralized ad- 
ministration to the French kings after the conquest of the duchy 
by Philip Augustus; and they exerted an influence of the first 
importance upon the constitutional and legal development of Eng- 
land and the coimtries of English law. Normandy was thus the 
channel through which the stream of Frankish and feudal custom 
flowed to England; it was the training groxmd where the first 
Anglo-Norman king gained his experience as a ruler, and the 
source whence his followers drew their ideas of law and govern- 
ment; and during nearly a century and a half of personal union 
with England it afforded a constant example of parallel develop- 
ment. In the larger view the effects of Norman institutions upon 
English lands are the most significant, and these naturally possess 
the principal interest for English and American students of his- 
tory. The following studies were undertaken in the first instance 
for the purpose of seeking light on the constitutional develop- 
ment of England, and while they necessarily include many mat- 
ters which bear on this but indirectly, their original purpose has 
detenniaed their scope and character. They begin with the earli- 
est trustworthy information respecting the government of Nor- 
mandy; they end with the loss of the duchy's originality and 
independence. 

'A constitutional history of Normandy in this period is, in any 
fuU or adequate sense, an impossibility for lack of sufficient in- 
formation. Normandy can offer no parallel to the abundance and 
continuity of the English public records; however great their 
original volume and importance, the documentary sources of 
Norman history have suffered sadly from war and revolution and 
neglect, until only fragments remain from which to spell out some 



VIU PREFACE 

chapters of the story, It will be necessary more than once to 
revert to this fundamental fact; ^ it is emphasized here as condi- 
tioning the nature of this volume. We cannot trace a fuU develop- 
ment, but must confine ourselves to such periods and topics as 
have left materials for their treatment, and some of these must 
await the results of more minute and special study. 

The continuity of Norman constitutional development has, 
nevertheless, been kept steadily in view, and however frag- 
mentary and inadequate the result, it is believed that light has 
been thrown upon some of the dark comers of Norman history. 
There is here given for the first time a comprehensive description 
of the government of Normandy under William the Conqueror, 
with special reference to conditions on the eve of the Conquest 
of England, and certain new conclusions are suggested respecting 
the military, fiscal, and judicial organization of the duchy. The 
weakness of the rule of Robert Curthose is made more evident 
by a systematic study of his charters. What is said of the govern- 
ment of Henry I rests for the most part upon new evidence and 
points to new conclusions. The persistence of Norman institu- 
tions under Angevin rule is shown, and the parallel development 
of England and Normandy imder Henry H is examined. New 
facts are brought out respecting the establishment of the jury 
under Geoffrey Plantagenet and Henry H, and other points will 
be apparent to the special investigator. No attempt has been 
made to restate matters already well established, notably by the 
masterly researches of Stapleton, Brunner, and Delisle, but care- 
ful attention has been paid to their writings as well as to more 
recent works, such as those of Valin and Powicke. That the re- 
sults of the parallel labors of students of English history, notably 
Maitland and Round, have been freely used will be seen from 
the frequent recurrence of their names in the notes and the index. 
Certain chapters, as indicated in each case, have already appeared 
in the American Historical Review and the English Historical Re- 
view," by whose permission they are here utilized; but these have 

' See especially Appendix A. 

» A summary of these articles has been prepared by M. Jean Lesquier for early 
publication in the Bulletin de la SocUU des Antiquaires de Normandie. See also my 



PREFACE IX 

been carefully revised from the sources and considerably expanded 
by the use of new matter. Unpublished documents and special 
discussions will be found in the appendices, which are supple- 
mented by facsimiles of certain charters of special interest. The 
documentary pubKcations of the past ten years have reHeved the 
volimie of many texts which had been gathered for its purposes, 
while the appendices have been further reduced by reason of the 
difficulties of collation under present circumstances. 

So far as this book contains new results, it rests primarily upon 
a systematic exploration of the documentary sources of Norman 
history, which in its early stages was made possible by a grant 
from the Carnegie Institution of Washington and in its later 
months was aided by the Woodbury Lowery Fellowship of Har- 
vard University. Begim in 1902, these researches have been 
prosecuted under certain inevitable disadvantages of distance 
and interruption, and it has been possible to conduct them only 
because of the generous and unfailing helpfulness of French 
archivists and librarians and the patience and good will of their 
assistants. Space forbids a full list of those who have given such 
aid, but I must express my special indebtedness to MM. Georges 
Besnier, archivist of the Calvados, R.-N. Sauvage, librarian of 
Caen, L. Dolbet, late archivist of the Manche, and J.-J. Vernier, 
archivist of the Seine-Inflrieure. For access to material in pri- 
vate hands my thanks are due to the Marquis de Mathan, at 
Saint-Pierre-de-Semilly, to the proprietors of the Benedictine 
de F6camp, and, in the days before the Separation Law, to the 
abbe L. Deslandes, of Bayeux cathedral, and the episcopal au- 
thorities of Seez and Coutances. At Paris I must acknowledge 
my constant obligation to the learning and friendship of a dis- 
tinguished Norman scholar, M. Henri Omont, of the Bibhoth^que 
Nationale, and to those who administer under his direction its 
great collections of manuscripts. I owe much to the advice and 
encouragement of the late Leopold Delisle, and in continuing his 
work M. Elie Berger has generously placed at my disposal the 

paper, Qudques probUmes de I'histoire des institutions anglo-normandes, read before 
the Congifis du Mill6naire normand (Rouen, 191 1); and my Normans in European 
History (Boston, 1915). 



X PREFACE 

proofs of the second volume of the Recueil des actes de Henri II. 
My thanks are also due to MM. Maurice Prou and Ferdinand 
Lot of Paris, to Mr, H. W. C. Davis, of Balliol College, Oxford, 
to my colleagues Professors Edwin F. Gay and Charles H. Mc- 
Ilwain, and particularly to Professor George B. Adams of Yale 
University. The Harvard Library has been generous in provid- 
ing books of a sort not ordinarily accessible in the United Statfes; 
and Mr. George W. Robinson, Secretary of the Graduate School 
of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University, has rendered valu- 
able assistance in the correction of the proof sheets. 

If the book has been over-long in the making, this has not been 
without compensations for the author. He has had time to linger 
over the great Norman chroniclers with his students and to try 
his conclusions in the give and take of seminary discussion. He 
has made the personal acquaintance of a number of workers in 
the field of Norman history, and has enjoyed several summers of 
study and research in some of the pleasant places of the earth. 
And as the work comes to a close, the memories which it recalls 
are not so much of dusty fonds d' archives or weary journeys on 
the Ouest-fitat, as of quiet days of study in provincial collections, 
long evenings of reflection by the Ome or the Vire or in the 
garden of some cathedral city, and rare afternoons at Chantilly 
with L6opold Delisle, now gone the way of the Norman historians 
and chancellors on whom he lavished so much labor and learning. 
Requiescant a Idborihus suis, opera enim illorum sequuntur illosl 
To these historians of an elder day must now be added friends and 
students whose end has come recently and all too soon, French, 
and English scholars of promise and already of fulfillment, Ameri- 
can scholars in the making, martyrs to a common cause which is 
higher than scholarship and dearer than life itself. May their 
works likewise follow them! 

Cambridge, December, 191 7. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Normandy under William the Conqueror, 1035-1087 . . 3-61 

Importance of early Norman institutions 3 

Fragmentary nature of the evidence ... 4 

Norman feudalism in 1066 5 

The problem of the existence of knights' fees . . ... . 8 

The military obligations of the Norman monasteries . . 9 

The case of Saint-Evroul 11 

Obligations of the bishops: Bayeux and Avranches 14 

Other features of feudal tenure ... 19 

The military supremacy of the duke . . 22 

Sicilian parallels 23 

Feudal jurisdiction ... 24 

Grants of immunity .... ... 25 

Ducal and baronial pleas .... ... 27 

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction .30 

The council of LUlebonne, 1080 . . ..31 

The bishop's ' customs ' . ... 32 

The duke's ecclesiastical supremacy ... ■ • ■ 35 

The Truce of God . . •• • 37 

Restrictions upon private war 38 

The duke's revenues ... -39 

Evidence of a sj^stem of fiscal administration . 40 

Relative superiority of Normandy in finance . .... 44 

Local government: the vicomie .... . . . 45 

The forests ... . . . 47 

Municipal institutions . ... ... .48 

The ducal household ... 49 

Chapel and chancery 51 

The curia as a court of justice .... . . 54 

Conditions under William's predecessors 58 

Summary 60 



CHAPTER II 

Normandy under Robert Curthose and William Rutus, 

1087-1106 62-84 

Robert's lack of governance 62 

Losses of the Abbaye aux Dames 63 

Evidence of the Consttetudines et vusticie and the council of Rouen . 64 

Robert's charters 66 



XH CONTENTS 

Their character and geographical distribution 70 

Their irregularities show the weakness of the administrative system 7 2 
Robert's chancellors and scribes: Ralph of Arri, Amulf of Cheques, 

and Hugh of Flavigny 74 

Scanty evidence of governmental organization 76 

William Rufus in Normandy 78 

His charters 80 

His surviving writs show a stronger government 82 

CHAPTER III 

The Administration of Normandy under Henry I, 

1106-1135 . . 85-122 

Interest and difficulty of Henry's reign 85 

The conquest of the duchy and the reestablishment of ducal 

authority 86 

The central court and the duke's justices . ... 88 

Examples of their sessions . 89 

The justiciar and the seneschal ... 99 

Local justices 99 

Ducal administration illustrated by writs from Montebourg . . 100 

Restrictions on baronial and ecclesiastical jurisdiction 103 

Fiscal organization 105 

The Norman treasury and the treasiu-ers . 106 

Royal clerks and chaplains no 

How far had Normandy a distinct administration ? 112 

The Co«ifo'<M/Jo dowJM regw and the Norman household . ... 114 

Henry's entourage in his closing years ... 120 

The esnecca, or royal gaUey .... 121 

CHAPTER IV 

Normandy under Stephen of Blois and Geoffrey 

Plantagenet, 1135-1150 123-iss 

The problem of Angevin influence in Normandy 123 

King Stephen as ruler of Normandy 124 

The conquest of the duchy by Geoffrey 128 

He rules for his son Henry 130 

Geoffrey's Norman charters 132 

His chancellors 136 

His preservation of Norman forms 140 

His itinerary and followers 143 

The ducal curia 146 

The itinerant justices and the jury 148 

Local officers 150 

The Norman church 153 

Geoffrey's policy a contmuation of that of Henry I 155 



CONTENTS XIU 



CHAPTER V 



The Government of Normandy tjnder Henry H, 

1150-1189 156-195 

The position of Normandy in the Plantagenet empire .... 156 

The records of Henry's nde in Normandy 157 

Henry as duke, 1150-1154 ... 161 

First period of his reign as kmg, II 54-1 1 64 163 

The Norman justices 164 

The local courts 167 

The recognitions 169 

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction 170 

Secondperiodof Henry's reign, 1164-1 189 174 

The work of Richard of Ilchester, 1176-1178 174 

Comparison of the Norman and English Exchequers 176 

The Norman Exchequer as a court . 178 

Growth of officialism . . 181 

Henry's great court days 183 

WiUiam Fitz Ralph as seneschal . .' . 183 

The jurisdictions of vicomte and baUU 185 

Criminal jurisdiction of the duke 187 

Civil procedure 188 

Absence of restrictions upon the duke's authority 190 

Normandy and England ' 190 

Normandy under Richard and John 193 

Modem diaracter of the Norman state 195 



CHAPTER VI 

The Early Norman Jury 196-238 

Norman origin of the English jury 196 

New evidence for its history 197 

Importance of the reigns of Geoffrey and Henry II in its development 198 

The Livre noir of Bayeux and its assizes 199 

The recovery of the bishop's lands 201 

The sworn inquests under Geoffrey 204 

Do they presuppose a ducal ordinance ? 209 

The Bayeux inquests under Henry II 213 

The recognitions for Saint-fitienne of Caen 215 

Inquests concerning advowsons 218 

The legislation of 1159 219 

Other inquests under Geoffrey and Henry II 220 

The sworn inquest in ecclesiastical courts 223 

Baronial inquests 228 

The procedure in Anjou compared 230 



XIV CONTENTS 

The sworn inquest in the Norman kingdom of SicUy 232 

Inquests in England in the early years of Henry II 234 

Probable priority of Normandy over England in the matter of 

recognitions 237 

Conclusion • • • 237 



APPENDICES 

A. The Documentary Sources of Early Norman History . 241-249 

B. The Eaeily Ducal Charters eor Fecamp 250-264 

C. The Materials for the Reign oe Robert I 265-276 

D. The Consuetvdines et Ivsticie of William the 

Conqueror 277-284 

E. Unpublished Charters of Robert Curthose 285-292 

F. Unpublished Charters of Henry I 293-308 

G. The Norman Itinerary of Henry I . 309-320 

H. Documents concerning the Norman Courts, 1139-1191 321-328 

I. The Early Legislation of Henry H 329-333 

J. Norman Assizes, 1176-1193 .... 334-336 

K. Documents from the Avranchin . . 337-343 

INDEX 347-377 



FACSIMILES 

1. Charter Hactenus of Richard II for Fecamp, 1006. 

2. Charter Quoniam veridica of Richard II for Fdcamp. 

3. Charter Propicia of Richard II for Fecamp, io27(?). 

4. Charter of Robert I for F6camp (A). 

5. Charter of Robert I for Fecamp (B). 

6. Forged charter of WiUiam the Conqueror for Fdcamp. 

7. (o) Writ of Geoffrey Plantagenet for the lepers of Rouen. 
(6) Sealed charter of Geoffrey Plantagenet for Bee, 1149. 



LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 

A. B. R American Historical Review. New York, 1895- • 

B. &.C BiMiotMque de I'JEcok des Charles. Paris, 1839- • 

Davis H. W. C. Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, i. 

Oxford, 1913. 
Delisle Leopold Delisle, Recueil des actes de Henri II, roi d'Angleterre 

et due de Normandie, concernantles promnces franqaises et les 

af aires de France, introduction. Paris, 1909. 
Delisle-Berger Ditto, tomes i, ii, oeuvre posthume revue et publUe par Mie 

Berger. Paris, 1916- . 
Delisle, Cartulaire Leopold Delisle, Cartulaire nortnand de Philippe-Auguste, 
normand Louis VIII, Saint Louis, et Philippe-le-Hardi, in Memoires 

des Antiquaires de Normandie, xvi (1852). 
Delisle, S.Sauveur. . . .Ldopold Delisle, Histoire du chdteau et des sires de Saint- 

Sauveur-U-Vicomte. Valognes, 1867. 
Deville, Analyse £tienne Deville, Analyse d'un ancien cartulaire de Saint- 

Etienne de Caen, fivreux, 1905, reprinted from Revue 

cathoUque de Normandie, xv. 

E. B. R English Historical Review. London, r886- . 

B. F Recueil des historiensdesGaulesetdelaFrance. Paris,i738- . 

La Roque Gilles-Andrfi de La Roque, Histoire genealogique de la maison 

de Harcourt. Paris, 1662. 
Le Pr6vost, Eure . . . .Auguste Le Provost, Mimoires et notes pour servir d I' his- 
toire du dSpartement de I'Eure. fivreux, 1862-1869. 
Livre noir Antiquus Cartularius Ecclesiae Baiocensis {Livre noir), ed. 

V. Bourrienne. Paris, 1902-1903. 
hot, S.-Wandrille Ferdinand Lot, &tudes critiques sur I'ahbaye de Saint- 

Wandrille. Paris, 1913. 
M. A. N Mimoires de la Socilti des Antiquaires de Normandie. Caen, 

1824- . 

M.G. B Monumenta Germaniae Bistorica. Hanover, etc., i826f- . 

Neustria Pia Arthur Du Monstier, Neustria Pia seu De omnibus et singulis 

Abbatibus et Prioratibus totius Normaniae. Rouen, 1663. 
Pollock and Maitland Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic W. Maitland, The Bis- 

tory of English Law before the Time of Edward I. Second 

edition, Cambridge, 1898. 

Powicke F. M. Powicke, The Loss of Normandy. Manchester, 1913. 

Round J. Horace Round, Calendar of Documents preserved in France 

illustrative of the Bistory of Great Britain and Ireland, i, 

918-1206. London, 1899. 
Sauvage, Troarn R. N. Sauvage, L'abbaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn. Caen, 

191 1 ; and Mimoires des Antiquaires de Normdndie, xxxiv. 
Stapleton Thomas Stapleton, Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae sub 

Regibus Angliae. London, 1840-1844. 
Valin Lucien Valin, Le due de Normandie et sa cour {giz-i2o4). 

Paris, 1910. 
Vernier J.-J. Vernier, Charles de Vabhaye de Jumihges. Rouen, 1916. 

Manuscripts cited without further indication of place are in the Biblioth&que 
Nationale. 

XV 



NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 



NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 



CHAPTER I 

NORMANDY UNDER WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR' 

The Anglo-Nonnan state of the twelfth century is one of the most 
interesting phenomena in the history of European institutions. 
Whether in the extent and cohesion of its territory, in the central- 
ized authority of its rulers, or in the precocity and vigor of its 
administrative system, whose many-sided activity can still be 
traced in writ and roll and exchequer record, the Anglo-Norman 
kingdom finds no parallel in the western Europe of its time. More- 
over, on its institutional side at least, it was no local or temporary 
affair. Themselves the product of a variety of elements — Anglo- 
Saxon, Danish, Prankish, not to mention the more immediate 
Norman and Angevin — the contemporary influence of Anglo- 
Norman institutions extended from Scotland to Sicily, while their 
later outgrowths are to be seen in the imitation of Norman prac- 
tices by the kings of France, as well as in the whole fabric of 
English government. 

Of the two sets of institutions which were suddenly brought 
into contact in 1066 and continued side by side under the same 
rulers for a century and a half, those of Normandy are much the 
more obscure. It is not, of course, impUed that investigation of 
the Anglo-Saxon period has reached its limits: within twenty 
years the labors of Maitland and Liebermann, of Round and Vino- 
gradoff — to mention no others — have shown what can be done, 
and what remains to be done, by a more scientific study of the 
Domesday survey and the legal sources and by a wider view of the 
relations of England to the Continent, and we are Ukely to see 
further additions to our knowledge in these directions. Still the 

* Revised and expanded from A. B. R., xiv. 433-476 (1909), incorporating ako 
the special study of knight service in E. H. R., xxii. 636-649 (1907). A summary 
was read before the International Congress of the Historical Sciences at Berlin in 
August 1908, and before the American Historical Association at Richmond in 
December 1908. 



4 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

mere mention of these scholars and the sources which are at their 
disposal shows the great advantage of England over Normandy, 
both before and after the Conquest. It is only natural that the 
history of Normandy should generally have been approached, as 
in the classic researches of Leopold DeUsle, from the point of view 
of France rather than of England, and although it is forty years 
since Brunner first showed the way to a broader study of Anglo- 
Norman legal history, little has been done to apply his method to 
new materials and other problems. The paucity of sources is, of 
course, the great obstacle. Normandy has no Domesday and no 
dooms. Its earliest law book, the older part of the Tres Ancien 
Coutumier, dates from the very end of the twelfth century, and 
while there are indications of the existence of a distinctly Norman 
body of custom before 1066,^ the only formulation of the law of 
the Conqueror's day is a brief statement of certain of the ducal 
rights drawn up four years after his death by order of his sons.' 
There is almost no contemporary evidence for the tenth century, 
when even grants of land were made orally without any written 
record,* and although Dudo of Saint-Quentin is useful so far as he 
reflects the conditions of his own age, about the year 1000, for the 
greater part of the eleventh century we have only narratives put 
together twci or three generations later. Our main rehance must 
be upon the charters, and even here, such has been the destruction 
of Norman records, the body of materials is less than for contem- 
porary England or for such adjacent regions as Anjou and Flan- 
ders, and is notably small for the earUer part of the Conqueror's 

' ' Donavi apud Argentias leuvam iuxta morem patriae nostrae ' : charter of 
Robert I for Fecamp, Appendix B, no. 10. ' Consuetudines quoque et servicia 
omnia que de terra exeunt secundum morem Normannie ' : Delisle, S.-Sauveur-le- 
Vicomte, pieces, no. 24. In 1074 Roger, earl of Hereford, is tried ' secundum leges 
Normannorum ': Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Le Prfivost, ii. 264. 

' The so-called Consuetttdines et iusticie, Appendix D. On the sources of early 
Norman law see now E.-J. Tardif , &ude sur les sources de I'ancien droit normand, i 
(Rouen, 1911), who emphasizes the canons of councils as a source of secular law. 

* L. Valin, Le due de Normandie, p. 145; Lot, S.-Wandrille, p. Ixi. The criticism 
of Dudo has at last been made by H. Frentout, 6tude critique sur Vudon de 
S.-Quentin et son histoire des premiers dues normands (Paris, 1916); cf. A. H. R., 
xxii. 432 f. The two principed historians of the later eleventh century, William of 
Poitiers and William of Jumifiges, are of slight use for the study of institutions. 
On the evidence for the reign of Robert I see Appendix C. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 5 

reign.* A large part of this documentary material is still un- 
printed and unsifted, and we cannot use it in full security until it 
has been collected and tested monastery by monastery, after the 
admirable example set by Lot in the case of Saint-Wandrille. 

For the present any treatment of early Norman history must be 
provisional, and we can never hope to understand the interaction 
of Prankish and Scandinavian elements in the tenth century or 
/the government of the first dukes." For lack of sufficient earlier 
'evidence, the study of Norman institutions must begin about half 
a century before the Conquest of England, with the chronicle of 
Dudo and the charters of the later years of Richard II. Even for 
this period we sliall find the material too fragmentary to yield 
conclusions on many points, and we shall need to supplement it 
from the more abundant, but still meager, records of the latter 
part of William the Conqueror's reign. Ideally what we should 
most wish is a picture of Normandy at the moment of the invasion 
of England; but as a practical problem we shall find it hard 
enough to piece out some account of the govenmient of Nor- 
mandy if we use all the sources of the Conqueror's reign, defining 
wherever possible the points that can be established as prior to 
1066, and those also which are anterior to his accession as duke. 

First of all, it is plain that Norman society in 1066 was a 
feudal society, and one of the most fully developed feudal soci- 
eties in Europe.' Feudalism, however, may mean many different 

^ See in general Appendix A. H. W. C. Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normanno- 
rum, begins with 1066 and includes only a portion of the Norman charters of the 
Conqueror; cf. A. H. R., xix. 594-596- The Biblioth6que Nationale possesses (MS. 
Lat. n. a. 1243) a collection of copies of William I's charters made by Achille 
Deville, which, though far from complete, is of considerable convenience. 

' See, however, for this period Tardif, Sttide sur les sources, pp. 7 f., 19-21; 
Prentout, Shide sur Dzidon, pp. 415-424. Prentout's Ettide treats in detail the nar- 
rative history of the early dukes, which is also sketched in his Essai sur les origines 
et lafondation du duche de Normandie (Paris, 1911). 

' See J. Flach, Les origines de I'ancienne France, iii. 88, who singles out Nor- 
mandy, Flanders, and the county of Barcelona as the earliest feudal states in 
France, and assigns the preeminence to Normandy as ' berceau a l'6tat fSodal en 
France.' The question of the feudal relation of the Norman dukes to the French 
crown lies outside the limits of the present volume. Consult F. Lot, Fiddles ou 
vassaux ?, ch. 6; Flach, in Comptes-rendm de I'Academie des Sciences Morales et 
Politiques, cbraxi, 138-165 (1914); Prentout, Mude sur Dudon, p. 267 ff. 



6 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

things,' and we must seek to determine what specifically feudal 
institutions then existed, keeping in mind always those which are 
significant with reference to subsequent English developments. 
Vassalage and dependent tenure meet us on every hand, and 
while there are holdings for life ' and the word allod occurs, 
though not always with a very exact technical meaning,'" the 
greater part of the land seems to be held by hereditary tenure of 
some lord. There are degrees of such tenure, and in some instances 
subinfeudation is weU advanced," but it is impossible to say 
whether all land was supposed to be held ultimately of the duke. 
Some measure of the extent to which feudal ideas had gone in 
early Normandy may be got from the iadications of their disin- 
tegrating influence upon the Church. Before 1046 a provincial 
council prohibits bishops from granting the lands and revenues of 
the clergy as benefices to laymen,'^ and the need of such legisla- 
tion appears from the case of Bishop Robert of Coutances, who 
gave cathedral prebends as fiefs to his relatives." The feudal 
relation might be created out of other ecclesiastical rights besides 
land, as when the bishop of Bayeux and the bishop of Seez 
granted in fee the episcopal consuettidines of several parishes," 

" Cf. Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, i. 67; G. B. Adams, Anglo- 
Saxon Feudalism, mA.H. R., vii. 11-35. Pollock and Maitland's chapter on Nor- 
man law, though brief, contains the best accoimt of conditions before the Conquest, 
and it is not necessary to repeat what is there said of feudal tenure. M. Rabasse, 
Du rlgime desfiefs en Normandie au moyen dge (Paris, 1905), is of no value for the 
eariy period and is confused for the later. 

' E. g., Collection Moreau, xxi. 8, 9, 25, 30. 

" See William's grant to Saint-Julien de Totirs (1063) of the allod of Roncheville 
as his vassal Adam had held it: Delisle-Berger, Henri II, no. 137; L.-J. Denis, 
Les chartes de S.-Julien de Tours, no. 29. Various instances of alodium in this period 
will be found in Lot, S.-Wandrille. 

" Infra, pp. 16, 21. 

" Council of Rouen (1037-1046), c. 10: Mansi, Concilia, xix. 753; Bessin, Con- 
cilia Rotomagensis Provinciae, i. 42. 

" Before 1048, Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 218. Cf. also in the cartulary of the 
chapter of Rouen (MS. Rouen 1193, ff. 31, 54V) the account ' quomodo villa de 
Duverent de dominicatu archiepiscopatus exiit ': Archaeological Journal, iii. 6; 
Valin, pieces, no. i. 

" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 63, 335; Denis, CharUs de S.-Julien de Tours, 
no. 24 (1053). Cf. also Ordericus, ii. 26, iii. 473, v. 183; Imbart de la Tour.in Revue 
historique, Ixviii. 49. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 7 

or the archbishop of Rouen turned an archdeaconry into an 
hereditary fief.*' 

That the Norman barons before the Conquest held their lands 
from the duke by military service has been clearly shown by 
Brunner " and the authors of the History of English Law," but it 

'' Ordericus, ii. 132; infra, note 17. 

" Die Entstehung der Schwtirgerichte, p. 131, note 3. Waitz had declared (Got- 
tingen Nachrichten, 1866, p. 95 f.) that we knew nothing of Norman feudal law 
before 1066. 

" Pollock and Maitland, i. 69-72. Cf. H. Lagouelle, La conception juridique de 
la proprieU fonciere dans le tres-ancien droit norntand (Paris, 1902), p. 114 ff. The 
following instances may be added to those cited by these authors: A vassal of 
Richard the Good makes the following grant to Saint-PSre de Chartres: ' tres 
milites concedo cum beneficiis suis qui sic vocantur, Rollo et Angoht et Unbeina, 
ut inde persolvant liberum servitium ' (Cartidaire, i. 108; cf. pp. 109, 40, 146, 152). 
Robert I confirms to Saint-Wandrille land piurchased ' ab Hugone archidiacono qui 
eam ex me tenebat in beneficio,' and ' terram Durandi militis quam prefato abbati 
cum servicio filiorum ipsius dedi': Lot, S.-Wandrille, piSces, no. 14. He grants 
to F6camp, giving their names, ' quidam homines mei scilicet milites cum omnibus 
sibi pertinentibus . . . etiam alios milites': Appendix B, no. 10. Robert also gave 
La Croix ' in beneficium cuidam militum suorum nomine Adelelmo ' (Round, Cal- 
endar, no. 709), and granted to Mont-Saint-Michel half of Guernsey ' quam quidam 
fidelis noster nomine Nigellus in beneficio tenet ' (ibid., no. 705; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, 
piSces, no. 9). Richard de Beaufou grants to Saint-Amand ' unum feudum laici c. 
acrarum quod Anschitillus presbyter tenet ' {Monasticon, vii. iioi; La Roque, iii. 
suppl., 2). For the Conqueror's reign before 1066 see his grant, ca. 1048, of 
' terram Atzelini equitis mei,' Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 26 ; his charter of 1063 for Tours 
(' equites huius terre qvd servierunt Adam serviant Sancto luliano '), Denis, Chartes 
de S.-Julien, no. 29 (= Delisle-Berger, Eenri II, no. 137); Cartulaire de S.-Ymer, 
no. i; Livre noir de Bayeux, nos. i, s; Round, Calendar, no. 1109; Pommeraye, 
Histoire de S.-Oaen, pp. 424, 460; the grants to Fecamp copied in the Collection 
Moreau, xxii. io8v, xxv. 249; the cartulary of Prfiaux (Archives of the Eure, H. 
7ri), nos. 301, 320, 429, 439; and the grant to JumiSges by Gislebertus of ' bene- 
fitium Alsvillam scilicet quam a predicto meo domino nulitans obtineo ' (original 
in the Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure; Vernier, no. 25). 

The statements of the chroniclers are in themselves of doubtful value, but taken 
in connection with the passages in the charters they offer supplementary evidence of 
some interest. Thus Ordericus (ii. 397) says that Fulk, dean of fivreux, ' ex patema 
hereditate feudum militis possedit,' and mentions the grant to Saint-£vrouI by an- 
other Fulk of ' archidiaconatum quoque quem in feudo ab antecessoribus suis de 
archiepiscopo Rotomagensi tenebat ' (ii. 132). In 1056 or 1057 a judgment was 
rendered ' in curia S. Ebrulfi ' depriving one of the abbey's knights of 'omnem 
feudum quem ipse de S. Ebrulfo tenebat ' (ii. 60). The dealings of Saint-fivroul 
with Baudri de Bocquencfi (ii. 74 f.) are also interesting in relation to feudal justice 
and service, fealty, and castle guard. Feudal relations are also mentioned in the 
Vita aitera Berluini (Mabillon, Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti, vi. a, p, 356). 



8 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

has not been established that their military service had been 
definitely fixed in amount or assessed against specific pieces of 
land, and the problem requires at this point somewhat detailed 
examination. 

The question whether a system of knights' fees existed in Nor- 
mandy before 1066 can best be approached from the side of the 
ecclesiastical holdings. In England, Round has called attention 
to " the appearance from the earliest period to which our infor- 
mation extends of certain quotas of knight service, clearly arbi- 
trary in amount, as due from those bishops and abbots who held 
by military service "; '^ and he has shown that these quotas were 
fixed shortly after the Conquest by the arbitrary act of the king. 
In this the Conqueror may have been instituting something new 
or may have simply followed previous Norman practice, and it is 
from many points of view interesting to compare with the English 
inquest of 11 66 the earliest statement of the service due from the 
Norman tenants-in-chief, the returns collected by Henry II in 
1172.*' In these the service of the ecclesiastical tenants is given 
as follows: — 

Episcopus Abrincensis debet servicium v militum de Abrincensi, et de 
honore Sancti Philiberti v milites. 

Episcopus de Costanciis, servicium v militum, et ad suum servicium xiii 
milites, [id est debet capere servicixun xiii militum pro exercitu, et similiter 
de aliis]. 

Episcopus Baiocensis, servicium xx miUtimi, et ad suum servicium cxx 
milites. 

Episcopus Sagiensis, servicium sex militum. 

Episcopus Lexoviensis, servicium xx militum, et ad suum servicimn xxx 
milites et terciam partem unius miUtis, et preter hec habet x milites in 
banleuca Lexoviensi, qui remanent ad custodiendam civitatem donee retro- 
bannus summoneatur, et tunc ibunt cum propriis expensis episcopi. Idem 
habet ii milites de dono regis Henrici filii Matildis, scilicet in Mesnilio Odonis 
et in Corbespina. 

Abbas Fiscannensis, serviciimi x militmn, et ad suum servicimn xiii milites 
et tres partes unius militis. 

Abbas Bernaii, ad suum servicium ii milites. 

Abbas Gemeticensis, servicium iii militum, et preter hoc ad suum servi- 
cium i militem in Esmalevilla, quem comes Hugo le Bigot ei difforciat. 

18 Feudal England, p. 298. 

" B. F., X3dii. 693-699; Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 624-645. Those who 
made no returns are mentioned at the end; the list mcludes the archbishop of Rouen 
and the bishop of fivreux, but no abbot. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR g 

Abbas Montis Rothomagi, servicium vi militum et tres partes unius 
nuUtis. 

Abbas de Monte Sancti Michaelis, servicium vi militum in Abrincensi et 
Costanciensi et i militem in Baiocassino, quem faciunt vavassores nisi fuerint 
in exercitum. 

Abbas Cadomensis, servicium i militis, de feodo de Taillebois. 

Abbas Sancti Ebrulfi, servicium ii militum, et preter hoc feodum Rogeri 
Gulafre, quod Guillelmus Paganelli habet de rege in vadio, imde dififordat 
servicium abbatis. 

Abbas Sancti WandregisUi, servicium iiii"' militum. 

Abbas Sancti Audoeni de Rothomago, serviciiun vi militum, et ad suum 
servicium quatuordecim milites. 

Abbas de Bemaio habet de feodo suo ii milites. 

Abbas Sancti Dyonisii, serviciimi i militis, de feodo Bemevallis. 

Abbatissa de Mosterviller, serviciimi iii militum, et ad suum servicium 
V milites et terciam partem unius militis. 

The servitia debita of this list are smaller than those of the Eng- . 
lish bishops and abbots, and, perhaps for this reason, the group of 
five knights is not quite so much in evidence, but the most striking 
thing is the small number of monastic foundations which owe mili- 
tary service to the duke. If we deduct Saint-Denis, which is not 
Norman, and Saint-fitienne of Caen, which is evidently assessed 
not as a barony but for a fief which has come into its possession,"" 
there remain only nine monastic baronies in a land where religious 
houses were numerous and closely subjected to the duke's control."* 
Upon what principle had these nine been selected ? Not, as we 
might expect, because they were the monasteries which had been 
fovmded by the dukes, for La Trinit6-du-Mont and Saint-£vroul 
were established by the duke's vassals, and such important ducal 
foundations as Cerisy, Caen, and Montebourg are not included. 
The explanation must be sought in some other direction, and the 
most natural one is that of age. None of the nine was established 
after 1050; except Saint-fivroul, all are older than the Con- 
queror's accession. Jumieges, Fecamp, Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint- 
Ouen, and Saint-Wandrille were restored under the early dukes; 
Bemai goes back to the reign of Richard II, La Trinite and Monti- 

2" Cf. the fief held by Saint-Svroiil in addition to its normal assessment. The 
fief of Taillebois does not appear in the early charters enumerating the possessions 
of Saint-fitienne. Seven knights' at Grainville were granted to Saint-Ouen between 
loss and 1066: Le Provost, Eure, ii. 38. 

" Cf. H. Bohmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie, p. 31 f. 



lO NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

villiers to that of Robert, while Saint-Denis had held Bemeval 
since 968.''' It is true that these are not the only monasteries 
which claimed to be earlier than Duke William, but it is not clear 
that any of the other abbeys which were independent in 11 72 was 
sufficiently organized and endowed at the time of William's acces- 
sion to be assigned definite military obligations. Saint-Taurin of 
fivreux, which is undoubtedly older, was subjected to Fecamp by 
Robert I in exchange for the independence of Montivilliers ; Cerisy , 
though begun in 1032, owed its completion to William; if Saint- 
Amand goes back to 1030, which is disputed, its church was not 
dedicated till 1078; Pr6aux is barely earlier than Robert's depar- 
ture for Jerusalem; Herluin may have founded his monastic com- 
mtmity in 1034, but he did not establish it at Bee until some years 
later. ^' The list of 11 72 is essentially a list of the oldest monas- 
teries of the duchy. If this be the case, it is altogether likely that 
the erection of these into baronies owing definite quotas of mili- 
tary service took place in this same early period — if not while 
they were the only monastic establishments, at least while they 
were still the most important ones. Moreover, since the early 
years of William's reign were hardly a favorable time for so 
marked a manifestation of ducal authority, this step may well 
have been taken before the death of Robert the Magnificent, 
whether entirely in his reign or partly in that of his predecessors 
we have no means of knowing. Then, for some reason which like- 
wise escapes us,^^ Saint-£vroul was added after its foundation in 
1050, thus completing the list as we have it in 1172." 

" It claimed to have received it from Rollo: H. F., ix. 731; cf. Dudo of Saint- 
Quentin, ed. Lair, p. 171. 

" In the absence of a critical study of the early monastic history of Normandy 
the dates of these fomidations are often uncertain. The chief authorities are the 
documents in the Gallia Christiana and Neustria Pia; Ordericus, ii. 9 ff., with Le 
Provost's notes; Robert of Torigni, ed. Delisle, ii. 184 ff.; and his continuation of 
WiUiamof Jumi6ges,bk. vii,c. 22 (ed.Marx, p.2S2). Cf.E.Sackur, Die C/wmocenier, 
ii. 41-54; and the monastic histories enumerated in Sauvage, Troarn, pp. xlv-xlix. 

" Probably because the lands granted to the abbey already rendered knight 
service to the duke. Cf. note 30 below. 

« The returns of 11 72 do not cover arrifire vassals. The Norman monasteries 
which appear as arriSre tenants in the registers of the French kings in the early 
thirteenth century are likewise early foundations. Thus Lire dates from 1046, 
Troam from ca. 1050, and CormeUles from ca. 1060. See H. F., xxiii, 6i 7, 705, 714 f . 



WILUAM THE CONQUEROR II 

This conclusion with respect to the early existence of the 

monastic baronies in Normandy may be reached by a different 

route by examining the account of the creation of the barony of 

Saint-fivroul which has fortunately been preserved in the long 

confirmation of that abbey's privileges and possessions grafted by 

Henry I in 1128: — ^ 

Concede etiam eis et cx)nfinno totam villam de Cueleio cum ecclesia et 
omnibus pertinentiis eius de donis sepe dictonim Roberti et Hugonis de 
Grentemaisnil, que est feodum unius lorice, et aliud feodum lorice de dono 
Willelmi Geroiani quod est inter Tolchetam et villam que Villaris dicitur et 
appellatur Bauchencaium, de feodo de Mosterol, de quibus predictus Willel- 
mus pater mens, cum assensu et volxmtate Theoderici abbatis eiusdem loci 
primi post tempora Sancti EbruM et predictorum Roberti et Hugonis de 
Grentemaisnil et dicti Willelmi Geroiani avunculi eorvun predicte abbatie 
fundatorum, baroniam imam constituit ad servitium suum et heredum 
suorum faciendum in exercitibus et aliis negotiis suis per totam Norman- 
niam, ita tamen quod Ric. de Cueleio et Baldricus filius Nicholai milites, 
quibus memoratus abbas Theodericus Ula duo feoda loricarum in hereditatem 
de se tenenda donavit cum assensu dicti W. patris mei, servitiimi Ulud facere 
tenebuntur quisque pro feodo suo cum equis et armis et cum expensis suis, 
et heredes eonmi, quando abbas S. Ebrulfi a me submonitus fuerit et ipsi 
ab abbate, et habebimt rationabiles taUias pro exercitibus et aliis negotiis 
meis in Normannia concessas. Si vero de servitio illo defecerint et abbas 
submonitionem suam adversus eos probare poterit, in eorum corpora et cat- 
alla a me et successoribus meis capietur emenda et abbas relevamenta et 
placita habebit et alia iura que habent barones Normannie in f eodis loricarum 
suarum. . . . Item de donis Emaudi Geroiani totam terram que est inter 
Tolchetam et Carentonam, que est de feodo Escalfoii, quam dedit Theoderi- 
cus abbas Baldrico filio Nicholai tenendam de se per servitium unum va- 
vassoris, quotiens habere voluerit, cum nemore Baldrici. . . . 

As Theodoric was abbot from 1050 to 1057 and William Gere 
departed for Italy before 1056,^' it thus appears that Saint-£vroul 
was erected into a barony by the duke shortly after its revival and 
reendowment in 1050, and in any case not later than 1056. The 
abbot's miUtary service was fixed at two knights and assessed 
against two of its holdings, Cullei and Bocquenc6, which were 
with the duke's consent granted as knights' fees to Richard de 
Cullei and Baudri son of Nicholas respectively, Baudri also receiv- 
ing a piece of land between Touquette and the Charentonne in 
return for a vavassor's service. These statements are in general 

" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 204-210. 

" Ordericus, ii. 56-63; William of JumiSges, ed. Marx. p. 178. 



12 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

accord with what we know from other sources. Two knights are 
the quota of Saint-fivroul in the inquest of 1 172 and the later 
Norman returns,^* and they are charged against the fiefs of Cullei 
and Bocquenc6 in the registers of Philip Augustus.^' Now Cullei 
and 'Bocquence as the duke's archer Baudri had held it,'^" as weU 
as the land between Touquette and the Charentoime, appear as 
possessions of the abbey in Duke William's charters of 1050,'^ 
where, however, Bocquence is said to have been bought from Er- 
naud Gere. The successor of Theodoric, elected in 1059, soon had 
trouble with Baudri de Bocquenc6, but after this had been settled 
Ordericus declares *tam ipse quam Rodbertus filius eius usque 
in hodiemum diem pro terra de Balgenzaio solummodo monachis 
militavit.' '^ Toward the end of the eleventh century the son 
Robert appears as lord of the honor,*' and a suspicious charter of 
the early years of Henry II records the settlement, in favor of 
the monks, of a dispute between them and their knight Roger de 
Bocquenc6 concerning the services due for a knight's fee at Boc- 
quenc6 and ' quadam vavassoria terre que est inter Tolquetam et 
Carentonam.' '^ CuUei appears as a knight's fee in a charter of 
Henry I, where it is granted to Nigel d'Aubigny.'^ 

There are-, it is true, some difl&culties with regard to Henry I's 
charter of 11 28. Although it was printed by the editors of the 
Gallia Christiana 'ex authentico,' the original has disappeared in 
the wreck of the abbey's archives; it was not copied into any of 

2' H. F., xxiii. 694, 710; supra, p. 9. » H. P., xxiii. 637. 

'" If Baudri the archer had held Bocquenc6 as a knight's fee of the duke, we can 
easily see why the duke should insist upon the continuance of the military service 
when the fief passed into the abbot's control — a possible explanation of the singling 
out of Saint-fivroul as the only monastery among the later foundations which was 
held to render military service to the duke. There is a discrepancy with respect to 
the various Baudris. The Baudri de Bocquenc6 of whom Ordericus speaks was the 
son of Baudri the German, not of Nicholas, and Le Provost identifies the grantee of 
the abbey's fief with Baudri de Guitry, whose father's name was Nicholas. Orderi- 
cus, ii. 75-76, iii. 38, 199, 248, note; Le Pr6vost, Eure, ii. 224 f.; Lot, S.-WandrUle, 
nos. 16, 27. 

»i Printed in Ordericus, v. 173-180. Cf. ii. 33, 35. 

» im., u. 7S. " Ibid., V. 184. 

" Archives of the Ome, H. 564; cartulary of Saint-fivroul (MS. Lat. 11055), 
no. 21; Round, Calendar, nosi 638, 639; Delisle-Berger, no. 513. 

'" Ordericus, v, 200; Round, Calendar, no. 627. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 1 3 

the extant cartularies, nor is it mentioned by Ordericus. The 
form of dating is exceptional, and the other final clauses are an 
obvious imitation of a papal bull. Moreover, it awakens suspicion 
to find that all of the witnesses appear in earlier charters for Saint- 
fivroul,'* and that one of them, William Bigot, went down in the 
White Ship in 11 20.''' On the whole, however, there does not seem 
to be sufficient reason for considering the charter a forgery, though 
it is quite probable that it has undergone something of the re- 
touching of which there are indications in certain charters of 
Henry II for Saint-£vroul.'* If we assume that the list of wit- 
nesses has been correctly printed, stiU the name of William de Sai 
which precedes might easUy have caused the scribe to substitute 
William Bigot for his brother Hugh, who is well known in the 
charters of the later years of Henry I — a kind of blunder which 
may be seen in an original charter of Henry I for Saint-fitienne, 
issued two or three years later.'* Imitations of papal forms are 
not unparalleled in Norman documents of this period,** and the 
issue of the charter in a provincial coimcil is a sufficient explana- 
tion of the unusual style of dating. We know from Ordericus that 
the abbot of Saint-£vroul was present at the council in which the 
charter was granted, and as his monastery was one of the largest 
holders of the parish churches and tithes which this council pro- 
hibited monasteries from receiving at the hands of laymen,*' it 
would be natural for the abbot to secure at once from the king a 
detailed enumeration and confirmation of the abbey's possessions, 
clothed with aU the formalities which the council could give. 
Even if the initial and final clauses be rejected as spurious, the 
body of the charter, compared with earlier charters for the same 

38 Ordericus, v. 199, 204. ^ Ibid., iv. 418. 

'» See Round, Calendar, p. 224, note; Delisle, Henri II, p. 316 f. 

39 Archives of the Calvados, H. 1834, no. 13-5 bis; infra, p. 96. Here John, 
bishop of Sfiez, appears as Robert between Robert de Sigillo and Robert, earl of 
Gloucester. 

*" For illustrations from 1131 see Henry's charter for S6ez, Appendix F, no. 11; 
the letter of Geoffrey, dean of Rouen, in MartJne and Durand, Thesaurus Anecdo- 
torum, i. 380; and a charter of John, bishop of S6ez, in Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 
160. The presence of the papal legate at the council of 11 28 might have had some 
influence on the form of Henry's charter. 

" Ordericus, iv. 496 f. 



14 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

house,*' gives no occasion for suspicion. Such comparison shows 
moreover that even if the charter be declared a fabrication, it 
contains elements of imquestionable genuineness, while for the 
passage printed above concerning the knights' fees there is in- 
ternal evidence that it was reproduced from an older document. 
The preservation of the names of the original tenants of Cullei 
and Bocquence with their obligations expressed in the future 
tense, as if Duke WiUiam were still speaking, constitutes an 
anachronism which could hardly arise if Henry were making his 
own statement of the abbey's service, or if a forger were mak- 
ing the statement for him, but would be natural enough if he, or 
a later compiler, were incorporating into his charter the Con- 
queror's own formulation of the terms on which these knights' 
fees were to be held. 

If the confirmation of Henry I has thus preserved for us the 
original terms of the grant of Cullei and Bocquence, certain of its 
phrases acquire special significance. The exact regulation of such 
matters as summons and individual liability {quisque pro feodo 
suo), the proviso that the service is to be at the vassal's cost, and 
the reference to the rights of his other barons in their knights' 
fees, all imply that Duke William is dealing with no new or ex- 
ceptional arrangements but with an institution which has been 
adjusted and defined as the result of considerable experience of 
the points which needed guarding. Even if it be held that these 
provisions represent only the language of Henry I's day, there is 
no reason to suppose that the erection of Saint-fivroul into a 
barony was anything unique or in advance of the duke's policy 
elsewhere. Indeed, the fact that the abbey had just been restored 
and reendowed makes it probable that William was here extend- 
ing to Saint-fivroul a system which was already in force in other 
ecclesiastical baronies. 

That the military obligations of the Norman bishops, all of 
whom are expected to make return in 1172, had been fixed quite 
as early as those of the abbots is of course altogether likely,*' but 

*" Ordericus, v. 173-207; Monastkon, vii. 1079. 

" Two knights of the bishop of Lisieux attest a charter as early as the reign of 
Richard II: M. A. N., xiii. 11. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR !£ 

the evidence is somewhat different from that in the case of the 
monasteries. The earliest detailed account which has been pre- 
served of the tenants and obligations of a great Norman fief, the 
Bayeux inquest of 1133,^^ relates to the lands of a bishop, and the 
conditions of tenure therein set forth are those which prevailed in 
the latter part of the eleventh century. The returns, it is true, 
simply state that the inquest was held immediately after the 
death of Richard Fitz-Samson, who died in Easter week, 1133,^* 
to determine what services were owing to the duke and the bishop 
from the bishop's knights and vavassors; but it is clear that this 
was part of a comprehensive inquest which covered the whole 
extent of the bishop's rights and possessions, and sought to deter- 
mine how they had been held in Bishop Odo's time (1050-1097).^' 
The matter is thus stated in an early charter of Henry II: 

Quoniam ecclesia Baiocensis post mortem Odonis episcopi [tum] per subse- 
quentiiim episcopormn impotentiam cum per eorumdem negligentiam et per 
venditiones et donationes et commutationes ab ipsis factas fere ad nichilum 
redacta erat, ne funditus ecclesia predicta destrueretur provide Hemicus rex, 
avus meus, instituit ut iuramento antiquorum hominum qui rem norant 
recognoscerentur tenedure iam dicte ecclesia sicut fuerant in tempwre pre- 
dict! Odonis, tarn in dominicis quam in feodis militum, vavassorum, et 
rusticorum. Ipsius equidem tempore hec omnia iurata sunt et recognita et 
sepedicte ecclesie precepto eius resignata et munimine carthe sue, quocunque 
modo a possessione ecclesie alienata essent, reddita sunt et confirmata.*' 

According to these returns, the bishop owes the duke ten 
knights for service to the king of France and twenty for the duke's 
own service in Normandy, the proportion being in the first case 
one knight for every ten who owe service to the bishop, and in the 
second case one knight for every five. Groups of five or multiples 
of five make up the greater part of the bishop's own military 
force, which according to the proportions just given should be 100 

" Printed in M. A. N., viii. 425-431; Bfaiers, Mlmoircs . . . du diocise de 
Bayeux, i. 142; and H. F., jcdii. 699-702, which furnishes the best text. Le Pr6- 
vost's copy ' sur une copie coUationn6e faite en 1637,' is in MS. Lat. n. a. 1837, 
p. 282. A summary of these returns is appended to the Norman returns of 1172: 
H. F., xxiii. 699; Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 645-647. 

* Ordericus, v. 31. 

« Infra, Chapter VI. 

*' Livre noir, i. 20, no. 14. See also the writ and charter of Geoffrey, nos. 16, 39, 
and the bull of Lucius II, no. 157. 



l6 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

knights, but in fact amounts to a long hundred of 120.** These 
had plainly been the obligations in the days of Bishop Odo, but 
there is no direct intimation that they had been so fixed in the 
period of his episcopate which fell before the Conquest. The his- 
tory of one of the bishop's honors, however, indicates that its mili- 
tary obligations had been fixed even before Odo's day, and it is 
safe to assume that the amoimt of the bishop's service to the duke 
had been determined at least as early as the amount due to the 
bishop from his vassals. The honor in question had formerly 
belonged to Grimald, one of the conspirators defeated at Val des 
Dunes in 1047, who died a traitor in the duke's prison at Rouen.** 
La 1074 William the Conqueror granted to the bishop of Bayeux 
in demesne Grimald's forfeited honor, which included Plessis and 
certain other lands, 

Que omnia olim tenuit supradictus Grimoldxis et de quibus eidem sancte 
ecclesie quam supra diximus servivit.'" 

What disposal was made of these lands we learn from the inquest 
of the bishop's military tenures in 1 133 : 

Episcopus vero de eodem feodo fecit septem prebendas at retinuit in 
dominium suum maneriiun de Plesseyo cum foresta de Montpinchon. De 
reliquo vero honoris Grimoudi habet episcopus servitiimi octo militum cum 
terra de Bougeyo et de Dampvou, que fuit de predict© feodo dimidium mili- 
tis, quam terram Gmllelmus de Albigneyo tenebat de Grimoudo in maritagio 
ciun sorore Grimoudi. De hiis autem militibus servit episcopus regi sicut de 
feodis que comes Glocestrie tenet de episcopo.*' 

William d'Aubigny, accordingly, must have held Danvou and 
Bougy of Grimald, who held them of the bishop, before the trea- 
son of 1047, ^ clear example of early subinfeudation. It is entirely 
possible that the assessment of half a knight's service by which his 
descendants held these lands ^^ was not made until later, but the 
language of the inquest indicates that they had been held as half 
a knight's fee in Grimald's time, and the fractional amount of the 

" It so appears in the returns of 1172, quoted above (p. 8); but the actual re- 
turns of 1 133 give only 117!, and the abstract of them in the Red Book 1195. 

*» See Wace, ed. Andresen, ii, Unas 4219-4242; and the Bayeux inquest. 

'» Liwe noir, no. 3; M. A. N., xxx. 700, from the Uwe blanc of Saint-Florent; 
incomplete in Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65. Cf. Livre noir, no. 155. 

" H. F., xxiii. 700, « Ibid., xxiii. 702. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 1 7 

service would seem to imply the existence of a knight's fee 
which had been divided before or at the time of the grant to 
William. 

There is also reason for thinking that as early as Grimald's time 
the honor owed the service of ten knights. In the inquest of 1133, 
as just quoted, the bishop owes service to the duke for the 
enfeoffed portion of this honor in the same proportion as the earl 
of Gloucester for his holdings, namely, for every ten knights that 
the earl holds of the bishop two knights for the duke's own ser- 
vice and one knight for the service to the king of France. Such 
an arrangement evidently presupposes a group of five knights or 
some multiple of five, such as we find in the case of the earl of 
Gloucester and the other greater tenants of the bishop, and we 
should expect the honor of Plessis, like the earl's honor of fivrecy 
and several honors in the later Norman inquests,^' to contain ten 
knights' fees. In 1 133, it is true, it furnishes but eight knights, but 
these are charged against the portion remaining after the bishop 
has created seven prebends and retained the manor of Plessis and 
the forest of Montpingon in demesne, so that Grimald's honor 
must have supported more than eight knights when it came into 
the bishop's hands in 1074. The number may not have been ten, 
but it was pretty certainly a multiple of five. Remembering that 
this service was the amount due to the bishop and not that due to 
the duke, who received only one-fifth of it, we must conclude that 
it was assessed when the holder of the honor 'served the church' 
of Bayeux, not when the honor was in the duke's hands, so that we 
are carried back to Grimald's time or before. If the assessment of 
Plessis antedates 1047, so in all probability does that of such other 
fiefs of the bishop as can be traced back to the beginning of 
William's reign, as, for instance, the honor of Evrecy and the 
Suhard fief.'* And if the bishop's groups of five and ten knights 

^ E. P., xxiii. 694, 69s, 700. 

" See Bishop Hugh's charter of 1035-1037 in the Liwe noir, no. 21; Delisle, 5.- 
Sauveur, no. 13. Haimon's fief of fivrecy is also mentioned by Wace, ed. Andresen, 
ii, line 4044. See also the witnesses to Bishop Hugh's charter of 1042 for Prfiaux, 
Mabillon, Annates, iv. 444. That the bishop had tenants by military service be- 
fore 1050 is also apparent from a charter of Bishop Hugh preserved in the Archives 
of the Seme-Inffirieure {fonds Jumieges, charters of Rouvray) and printed by Le 
Prgvost, Eure, iii. 45; Vernier, no. 8. 



1 8 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

go back to so early a time, so, it is altogether likely, does his own 
service of twenty knights to the duke. 

If the preceding line of inference is valid, the Bayeux inquest is 
important, not only in lending support to the conclusions already 
reached with regard to the existence of ecclesiastical baronies and 
knights' fees before 1066, but also in confirming Roimd's view 
that " the Normans were familiar with servitium debitum in terms 
of the ten-knight unit when they landed in England." ** Round 
seems indeed to consider this point well established, but his only 
authority is Wace's accomit of the deliberations of 1066; and, 
after the destructive criticism to which Wace, in another con- 
nection, has been subjected by him,^^ it is hardly necessary to point 
out how little value 'a mere late compiler ' has for the events and 
conditions of that year. The Bayeux returns are a better sort of 
evidence, and they not only show clearly the prevalence of the 
five- and ten-knight unit in Bishop Odo's time, but render it prob- 
able that part, if not the whole, of this scheme of tenures is of still 
earlier origin. If statements of later chroniclers were to be ac- 
cepted as conclusive, we should not overlook a passage in a writer 
earlier than Wace, the report in Ordericus of the deathbed speech 
of William the Conqueror in which he mentions the assessment of 
an arbitrary service of one hundred knights upon Coimt Guy of 
Ponthieu, when vassalage was imposed upon him in 1056." 

Fortunately the bishopric of Avranches offers evidence which is 
still clearer and more direct. In the inquest of 11 72 the bishop 
owes five knights for his lands in the Avranchin and five for the 
barony of Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle, in the diocese of Lisieux. Now 
the barony of Saint-Philbert came to the church of Avranches as 
a gift of Bishop John in 1066, being half of his paternal inheritance 
from Raoul d'lvry, and in the Conqueror's charter of that year 

^^ Feudal England, p. 259 f. 

^ Ibid., pp. 399-418. Round admits that in the passage in question the figures 
" are far too large, and savor of poetic license " (p. 260, note). 

^ ' Widonem vero comitem Baiocis quandiu placuit in carcere habui et post 
duos annos hominium ab eo tali tenore recepi ut exinde mihi semper fidelis ex- 
isteret et militare servitium ubi iussissem cum centum mUitibus mihi singulis annis 
exhiberet ' (Ordericus, iii. 237). Cf. a charter of 1071-1082 confirming the acquisi- 
tion by Marmoutier ' de feudo unius militis nomine Serlonis ' (Round, Calendar, 
no. 1 211). 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR ig 

confirming the gift it appears that this was a fief of five knights 
andwas thereafter to be held as such of the bishops of Avranches.** 
Evidently the whole had hitherto been an honor of ten knights. 
Moreover, by thus fixing the date of the acquisition of this supple- 
mentary obligation, we establish as anterior to 1066 the assign- 
ment of the service of five knights for the original holdings of the 
bishopric in the Avranchin. 

Besides defining the amount and distribution of the ordinary 
feudal service, the Bayeux returns of 1133 include castle guard,^' 
the equipment and service of vavassors, and the aids and reliefs 
due to the bishop,*" on all which points, as Guilhiermoz has 
shown,*! tjiey yig^jj remarkably early and significant information. 
Their importance, especially for the student of contemporary 

^' The Conqueror's charter is found in full in a vidimtis in the Archives Na- 
tionales, JJ. 71, no. 90; and is printed by Le Prdvost, Ewe, iii. 183, where the date, 
which rests also upon internal evidence (comet, dedication of the Abbaye aux 
Hommes, signature of Archbishop Maurilius), is incorrectly printed as 1076. E. A. 
Pigeon, Le diocese d'Avranches, ii. 660, gives only an extract. 

** On castle guard see Round, Calendar, no. 319; Ordericus, ii. 74; and the de- 
cisions of Robert of Belleme's court in the Chartrier rouge of Troam (MS. Lat. 
10086), f. 180, 182V, i86v. On its appearance in England after the Conquest, see 
Round, in Archaeological Journal, lix. 144. 

"" On reliefs cf. Round, no. 320. Other early examples of vavassors will be 
found in Round, nos. 319, 639; Le Provost, Eure, iii. 467; Revue catholique de Nor- 
mandie, x. 49; Neustria Pia, p. 587; Monasticon, vii. 1074; Lot, S.-WandrUle, 
no. 38; Bulletin de la SocilU historique de I'Orne, v. 62, 68. The following notice 
in the Livre blanc of Saint-Martin of Sfiez (f . 47 of the original) illustrates also other 
matters of tenure: ' Cum Willelmus de Daraio anno ab incamatione domini m™". 
Ixxx""". octavo ex divinoiuditio nimia corporis infirmitate aggravatus emori time- 
ret, . . . donavit quicquid de sua terra dominica Stephanus metearius tenebat et 
colebat, et insuper tantum de suo alio dominio sine calumpna quieto quod plenarie 
sufficeret ad imam carrucam preter prata de ponte de Roca que ipse etiam donavit, 
necnon etiam terra Fulcoun quam predict! monachi a prefato Willelmo in feodo, 
nee in feudo ut prius sed in elemosina sicut cetera donavit. Namque affirmando 
rectum esse dicebat ut qui suis filiis centum vavassores dimittebat sibi atque mona- 
chis cum quibus victurus atque moriturus erat unum saltim ex illis proprie et solute 
retineret.' . . . 

" Essai sur Vorigine de la noblesse (Paris, 1902), pp. 185, note 34; 187, note 36; 
267, note 37; 268, note 40; 275, notes 56, ST, 286, note 90; 292, note 102; 312, 
note 164. The earliest mention of reliefs which I have found is in a charter of Roger 
de Clera, anterior to 1066, for Saint-Ouen (Collection Moreau, xxii. 118, from the 
original; Le Prfivost, Eure, iii. 467): 'nee retinui ex ipsa terra preter les reilies de 
vavassoribus,' 



20 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

English institutions, is naturally increased when it is seen that the 
conditions they describe are those of the latter part of the eleventh 
century. As an illustration of this, let us take one of the points in 
the history of feudal institutions which most needs clearing up, 
the matter of the forty days' service. This was certainly the nor- 
mal amoimt in Normandy in the twelfth century, and seems to 
have passed thence to the other continental domains of the Plan- 
tagenets;^^ but while its prevalence in England has generally been 
assumed, it has recently been asserted that even " its theoretic 
existence can hardly be proved for England out of any authorita- 
tive document." '^ Now the earliest mention, of the forty days' 
limit so far noted is fomid in the Bayeux inquest, where it appears 
as the regular period for the service due to the king of France as 
well as for that owed to the duke within the confines of Nor- 
mandy.** The same period is foimd in upper Normandy in a 
Saint-Amand charter of the Conqueror's reign, which is also 
interesting as bringing out the distinction between complete 
equipment and 'plain arms' which appears for the first time 
elsewhere *^ in the Bayeux inquest: 

Ego Baldricus annuente domino WiEelmo Anglorum rege et Norman- 
norum duce clamo quetum sanctimonialibus de Sancto Amando Rothomagi 
servicium duorum militum quod quadraginta diebus debent per annum 
de feudo Bascheville donee ego vel meus heres reddamus .jdcs. libras Rod- 
mesinorum quas Sancto Amando et sanctimonialibus debeo pro sorore mea 
Elisabeth que ibi effecta est monacha. Testes sunt GUbertus, Alannus, 
Radulfus fil[ius] Heluini, Robertus de Bothes, Ricardus de BoievUla, Wil- 
lelmi regis, («<;) Baldrici. Ante hoc vademonium predicti milites sic erant in 
servicio parati: imus horum totis armis, alter vero ad plainas armas.* 

From still another part of Normandy, between 1070 and 1081, 
we have another example of the forty days' limit, this time as 
applied to watch and ward. Here, if we may trust the natural 
interpretation of the possessive pronoims, we also find the prin- 
ciple, later well known, that the forty days' service is at the vas- 

<^ Guilhiermoz, p. 275 £. " Pollock and Maitland, i. 254. 

"* H. F., xxiii. 699-700. 

'^ Guilhiermoz, pp. 185-188. 

•» From a vidimus of Philip the Fair of 1313; Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, 
fonds Saint-Amand. The word plainas is badly rubbed, but only the penultimate 
letter is uncertain. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 21 

sal's expense, but any other service is at the cost of the lord." The 
document, which comes from the cartulary of MontrSaint- 
Michel,^' contains so many points of interest that it is worth 
reprinting in full: 

Conventio inter abbaiem et Guilldmum Paginelhim. 

Haec carta narrat conventionem Baiocis factam coram regina inter ab- 
batem de Monte Sancti Michaelis et GuiUelmum Paginellum. Si Willelmus 
Paginellus habet guerram de ilia terra quam rex Anglorum dedit sibi cum 
femina sua, conventio est quoniam Hugo de BricaviEa quadraginta diebus 
iUi faciet de guarda vel custodia sese septimum de caballaribus ad suum 
cibum. Et nepos illius Hugonis similiter faciet si in parage terram suam 
tenuerit secundimi hoc quod tenebit. Rursus si GiuUelmus Paginellus ilium 
Hugonem submonuerit, cum duobus equitibus eum in sua famUia ad suimi 
dbum habuerit vel filium suum, si liber erit de submonitione abbatis. Nee 
si[c] eum donnus abbas semper habebit quin Guilleknus Paginellus hoc habeat. 
Et ita equidem habebit in sua famUia nepwtem Hugonis et Robertum de 
Cantelupo et GuiUelmum Becheth et Ulum qui honorem Scollant habebit. 
Et si vindictam vel pladtum habuerit ad faciendum, homines quos tenet de 
Sancto Michaele ita habebit quod in sero erunt ad suas domos. Et si homines 
sibi deficient de his serviciis que hie simt divisa, rectum sibi facient ad 
unam mansionum quas tenet de Sancto Michaele. Auxilium accipiet de 
terra quam tenet de Sancto Michaele pro sui corporis captione aut pro sua 
terra, si forisfecerit eam erga regem vel abbatem, vel pro filio huius femine de 
qua est hereditas si captus fuerit in servitio regis vel abbatis de quo est fedus, 
aut pro una sola fiha maritanda quam habet de hac femina. Conventio est 
quoniam GiuUelmus PagineUus in terra quam tenet de abbate statuet vmum 
hominem apud quern abbas mittet pro submonitionibus quas habet facere 
ipse abbas in terra quam GuiUelmus PagineUus tenet de iUo. Qui si bene 
submonitiones fecerit et Ule remaneat quem monuerit, abbas suam foris- 
facturam inde accipiet. Quod si in Ulo submonitore remanet submonitio, 
abbati decern et octo solidos emendabit et abbas postea per suum legatimi 
submonitionem suam fecerit. Conventio est quoniam WiUehnus PagineUus 
unoquoque anno duodecim quercus ad suum cois accipiet in sUva de Longa 
ViUa usque ad aquam que dicitur Ars, nee plus habet aceipere nisi per ab- 
batem fecerit. Conventio est quoniam abbas de Monte unoquoque anno 
dat UU unum provendarium de cera vel viginti solidos, et est in cois abbatis 
dare quale horum maluerit, et hoc pro relevationibus de Cantelupo et pro 
pastura de Lalande, si homines de Cantelupo possunt iUam de raisneer in 
curia GuUlelmi Faginelli. De Lavidande, quam WUlelmus PagineUus inter- 

<" Guilhiermoz, p. 275. 

" MS. 210 of the library of Avranches, f. 95; there are also two copies of the 
fifteenth century in the remnant of a cartulary of Saint-Pair preserved in the 
Archives of the Mzxiche, fonds Mont-Saint-Michel, ff. iv, sv. Printed by Stapleton, 
in Archaeologia, xxvii. 27 (1838); Round, Calendar, no. 714. Cf. P. Chesnel, Le 
Coteniin et I'Aiiranckin sous les dues de Normandie (Caen, 1912), pp. 211-219. 



22 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

rogat in fedo, dum venit in Monte Sancti MichaeKs est in respectu donee 
coram rege. Conventio est de septem paribus de honore quern Willelmus 
Paginellus tenet de abbate de Monte Sancti Michaelis quoniam submonuerit 
illos in sua curia, qui si sponte sua ambulare voluerint ibunt si liberi erunt de 
servicio abbatis. Si vero ire noluerint, hoc debet Guillelmus Paginellus de 
raisneer in curia abbatis per homines qui sunt de honore quern accepit cum 
sua uxore qui illos viderunt in suo servicio per consuetudinem antecessonmi 
suorum. Huius cause testes existunt presul Abrincensis Michael, episcopus 
Sagiensis Robertus, Rogerius de Montegomerii, Richardvis proconsul, Ro- 
gerius de Bellomonte, Hubertus de Ria, Unfredus de Bohon, Hubertus de 
Portu, Turgisus de Tracei, Alveredus Malbedenc, Gaufredus de Sai. 

The document is not always so explicit as we could wish, but 
certain points are fairly clear. We see the Conqueror disposing of 
the hand of an heiress who holds an honor of the abbey of Mont- 
Saint-Michel, and her husband receiving aids, reliefs, and suit of 
court from the men of the honor. The aids are carefuUy defined: 
the lord may have an aid for his ransom from captivity or for 
redeemiag his forfeited land from the duke or abbot, for marrying 
one daughter, or for ransoming his son if captured in the service of 
the duke or abbot. The last is noteworthy, suggesting that the aid 
for knighting the eldest son may have developed comparatively 
late with the growing importance of the institution of knighthood. 
The mention of tenure in parage would be important, if it were 
more specific, with reference to the parage of Domesday and the 
early history of the tenure in Normandy, where it seems to be 
otherwise imknown before Henry II.** 

In aU these feudal arrangements, the ultimate supremacy of the 
duke is clearly recognized. Even under the weak rule of Robert 
Curthose a declaration of liege fealty to the bishop of Bayeux con- 
tains an express reservation of the ducal rights; '" while the whole 
system of assessing knight service is a convincing manifestation of 
the duke's power and authority. Moreover, the duke's right of 
calling out the general levy of the country in case of invasion 

" Cf. Follock and Haitland, ii. 264; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 
pp. 145-146; GuilhieTmoz, Origine de la noblesse, p. 214 S.; Round, in Victoria 
History of Hampshire, i. 441; G£nestal, Le parage normand (Caen, 191 1); Powicke, 
The Loss of Normandy, pp. 98-102. 

'" See the elaborate agreement between the bishop and Ranulf, vicomte of the 
Bessin, drawn up doubtless shortly after Bishop Odo's return in 1087, in Livre noir, 
no. 76; Roimd, no. 1435, The early mention of ' fidelitas ligia ' is noteworthy. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 23 

appears clearly in the Bayeux returns, where it is found under the 
name of retrobannus, or arriere-ban, by which it is later known; 
and it is specifically reserved in one of William's charters for 
Saint-Etieime.'i From the care with which his vassals reserve 
this obligation as regards their dependents and even their towns- 
men/^ it would seem that the duke held the lords responsible for 
producing their men when occasion arose." Materials are lacking 
for any comparison of this system with the Anglo-Saxon /yr^?, but 
it is highly probable that the familiarity of the Norman kings 
with the arriere-ban in the duchy made natural that preservation 
of thefyrd which is usually set down to dehberate desire to main- 
tain Anglo-Saxon popular institutions. It should also be noted 
that the ordinance which, a century later, is generally said to have 
' recreated and rearmed this ancient force ' of the fyrd,''* the 
Assize of Arms of Henry II, is drawn on the same lines as an 
earlier assize for Henry's continental dominions.''* 

Certain distinctive characteristics of feudal tenure in Nor- 
mandy would doubtless stand out more clearly if we could com- 
pare them in detail with the feudal arrangements established by 
the Norman conquerors of southern Italy and Sicily. Unfortu- 
nately, evidence on this point is lacking for the South in the 
eleventh century, and while we now know that the substance of 
the South-Italian Catalogus baronum''^ belongs to the reign of 
King Roger and thus antedates the English cartae of 11 66 as well 

'"■ Delisle, Carhdaire normatid, no. 826. Cf. Guilhiermoz, pp. 289-292, where 
the text of the Bayeux returns is emended. Wace (ed. Andresen, ii, lines S2osff.) 
mentions the calling out of the peasants against the king of France in 1058. 

"* Ordericus, iii. 36, 39. 

'" Cf. the Worcestershire custom, Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 159. 
On the fyrd in general see P. Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, 
p. 22 £F. 

" Stubbs, Sdect Charters, eighth edition, p. 154; Constitutional History, i. 632. 

" Benedict of Peterborough, i. 269; Guilhiermoz, I. c, pp. 225-227. 

'» See the text in Del Re, Cronisti e scrittori sincroni (Naples, 1845), i. 571- 
616; and my discussion of its date and contents, E. H. R., xxvi. 655-664 (1911). 
A similar conclusion regarding the date was reached independently by Giulio de 
Petra: Rendiconti delta R. Accademia di Archeologia di Napoli, 1911, p. 35; Supple- 
mento all' opera 'Le Monete delle Due Sicilie,' ed. Cangiati, March-June, 191 2. 
Cf. Miss Evelyn Jamison, The Norman Administration of Apidia and Capua 
{Papers of the British School at Rome, vi, T913), pp. 258, 338-341' 



24 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

as the Norman inquest of 1 172, we are in no position to apply it 
to the conditions of an earlier time. The Catalogus baronum, how- 
ever, is based upon the fundamental Norman institutions of the 
knight's fee, the groups of five and ten knights, and the arriere- 
ban, while other evidence shows the existence of the feudal aids 
and the forty days' period of service; and these parallelisms are so 
close that they can be satisfactorily explained only by treating the 
feudalism of the South as an offshoot from the parent stem in 
Normandy in the early period of Norman expansion. 

Intimately connected with feudal tenure is the matter of feudal 
jurisdiction. First of all, there is the jurisdiction which is strictly 
feudal, the justice of the feudal lord over his tenants. Robert of 
BeU6me has an important court of his barons." The monks of 
Saint-Evroul have their court, in which they may declare the for- 
feiture of a fief.'' The honor of Ralph Taisson has its barons, who 
can be summoned to record against encroachment the title of the 
abbey of their lord's foxmdation." The honor which William 
Painel holds of the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel has a court of 
seven peers, who owe service according to the custom of their 
ancestors, and there are also separate courts for his manors.*" 
Besides this feudal justice, there is the jurisdiction which is fran- 
chlsal, arising from the grant of public rights by the sovereign, the 
justice which men will one day say has nothing in common with 
the fief. We cannot in the eleventh century draw the line separat- 
ing these two sorts of jurisdiction with the sharpness which later 
feudal law permits ;*i the justice of the feudal lord may owe some- 

" Archives of the Ome, H. 2150; Bry, Histoire du pays et comtS du Perche (Paris, 
1620), pp. 82, 103; Round, Calendar, no. 654; Vernier, no. 34. 

" Ca. 1056, Ordericus, ii. 60, 75. Cf. Round, no. 713 (Mont-Saint-Michel); 
the stipulation of suit of court, supra, p. 22; Chevreux and Vernier, Les archives 
de Normandieet de la Seine-InfSrieure (Rouen, 1911), no. 7 (= Round, no. ii6)' 
Le Provost, Eure, iii. 209; Vernier, no. 24. 

'" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65 {ca. 1070). 

'" Supra, p. 22. The number seven suggests the usual number of the Prankish 
scabini from whom the peers of feudal courts seem to have been derived; probably 
it is these same seven who owe the military service due from the honor. 

*' Cf. Esmein, Corns d'histoire du droit franqais, eleventh edition, p. 293 fif.; 
Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 80. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 25 

thing to royal grant, and the holder of the franchise may not 
always be able to point to the act which created it, yet the 
distinction seems thus early Justified by the facts. 

We must at the outset give up any attempt to follow the Nor- 
man franchises back into Prankish days. Doubtless Norman 
churches enjoyed the immunity which all such bodies were sup- 
posed to possess under Louis the Pious, ^^ and some had more 
specific privileges;*' but the nature and development of the im- 
munity is obscure enough in those regions which have preserved 
an unbroken series of such grants,** and in Normandy the coming 
of the invaders not only made a wide gap in our records, but pro- 
duced important changes in the holders of land and probably in 
the rights exercised over it. The clearest case of continuity is 
furnished by Bemeval-sur-Mer, which .had been a dependency of 
-Saint-Denis under the Prankish kings and was confirmed to the 
abbey by the first Norman dukes. *^ This confirmation was re- 
peated by Richard I in 968 in a charter which grants full immu- 
nity and all rights exercised in Bemeval by count or viscovmt, 
vicarius or centenarius.^^ When we come to the charters of the 
eleventh century, the clause of immunity, though reminiscent of 
Prankish models, is shorter and more general. Richard II grants 
to Picamp" and Jumi^ges** the possession of their lands "with- 
out any disturbance of any secular or judicial authority what- 
ever, as property belonging to the demesne fisc," and the same 
phrases appear, omitting the reference to the fisc, in his charters 

^ H. Bninner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 291. 

»» Lot, S.-WandriUe, no. 4; H. F., viii. 650 (Saint-Ouen). 

" For the literature of the controversy, see Brunner, I. c, ii. 287 ff.; A. Meister, 
Deutsche Verfassungsgeschicht^ (in his Grundriss, 1913), pp. 77-80; G. von Below, 
Der deutsche Stoat des Mittdalters (Leipzig, 1914), i. 252-261. 

86 Bohmer-Miihlbacher, Regesten der Karolinger, nos. 60 (58), 190 (186); Dudo 
of Saint-Quentin, ed. Lair, p. 171. 

" H. F., ix. 731; cf. Lot, Les demiers CaroUngiens, p. S7- 

" ' Haec omnia . . . concede . . . ut habeant, teneant, et possideant absque 
ulla inquietudine cuiuslibet secularis vel iudiciarig potestatis sicuti res ad fiscum 
dominicum pertinentes.' Original in Mus6e de la Bfinfidictine at Fficamp, no. 2 
ter; Neustria Pta, p. 217. See Appendix B, where the documents relative to the 
F€camp immunity are discussed. 

88 Cartulary no. 22, f. 7, and vidimus of 1499 and 1529 in Archives of the Seine- 
Inf&ieure; Vernier, no. 12 (i. 40). 



26 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

for Bemai*' and Saint-Ouen.'" The clause is not found in Rich- 
ard's grant to Mont-Saint-Michel, but appears in the charter of 
Robert I,'^ who likewise made the sites of Saint-Amand and La 
Triait6-du-Mont ' immune from the judicial exaction of his 
authority.' ^^ I have found no such clauses in any new grant after 
Robert's time, though phrases are common which grant such 
protection as is enjoyed by the duke's demesne." 

How much, if any, actual authority these vague grants of im- 
mimity conveyed, it is impossible to say. Except in the very early 
instance of Bemeval, they make no direct grant of fees or jurisdic- 
tion, and if they are more than a pious formula, it would seem 
that their primary purpose was to assure the duke's protection. It 
is altogether likely that, in Normandy as elsewhere, such phrases 
persist in documents after they have lost aU real meaning.'* In 
any event it must be borne in mind, as one of the few points upon 
which there is general agreement, that the Prankish immunity 
itself, whatever its ultimate effects in establishing private juris- 
dictions, did not create exemption from the authority of the 
coimt,'' so that, apart from the question of any devolution of 
royal rights to the Norman dukes, they would stiU as counts '* 
retain some control of the great religious establishments. That 
the clauses of immunity in the charters of the Norman dukes were 
not intended as a general grant of the duke's judicial powers is 

" Le Prfvost, Eure, i. 285; Neustria Pia, p. 399. 

so Pommeraye, Hisioire de S.-Ouen (Rouen, 1662), p. 405; Valin, p. 222. 

" ilf. X. iV., xii. Ill (Round, no. 705). 

^ Cartulaire de la TrinM-du-Mont de Rvzien, no. i; Monasticon, vii. iioij 
Valin, p. 223. 

9' Brunner, Schwurgerichte, p. 238 ff . The charter of Richard I for Saint-Taurin 
of fivreux is said to have granted ' tantam libertatem in curia Sancti Taurini 
quantam suis hominibus in sua curia ' : Bonnin, Cartulaire de Louviers, i. 2, where 
we have only a later notice, not the act itself (Prentout, Stude critique sur Dudon de 
S.-Quentin, p. xxiv, note). 

" E. Stengel, Die ImmunitSts-Urkunden der deutschen Konige (Innsbruck, 1902); 
M. Kroell, L'immunitS frangtte (Paris, 1910), p. 303 ff. 

" BnameT, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte,n. 166,300,302; G.Seeiiga, Die Bedeufung 
der Grundherrschaft (Leipzig, 1903), p. 80 ff.; Kroell, /. c, pp. 217, 249 ff.; Dopsch, 
Die Wirthschaftsentwickelung der Karolingerzeit (Weimar, 1912-1913), ii. 958. 

" On the use of count as a title of the Norman dukes, see Lappenberg, 
Geschichte Englands, ii. 18; Vernier, i. 75; and the charters of Robert I cited in 
Appendix C, note 39, 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 27 

shown by the practice,'' which appears as early as Richard II, of 
granting, sometimes in the very documents which contain the 
immunity clause, the ducal consuetudines in specified places. Thus 
Richard II's charter to Bernai conveys the duke's consuetudines in 
all the villae possessed by the monastery,'* and his charter for 
Jumieges grants his customs, here styled constietudines comitatus, 
in three places." The term is, of course, a general one, 1°" com- 
prising tolls, market rights, and a great variety of rights of ex- 
ploitation other than the profits of justice, but it specifically 
includes ' laws and forfeitures ' in Richard's grant of the customs 
of the Mount to Mont-Saint-Michel,i°i and its jurisdictional con- 
tent is more exactly defined in documents to which we shall come 
in a moment. We may say provisionally that when the duke 
wished to convey jurisdiction, he made a grant of the ducal con- 
suetudines, but we can understand what this means only when we 
have examined what judicial rights the duke had to grant. 

It is commonly asserted by modem writers "^ that the duke of 
Normandy was the only feudatory of the French crown who suc- 

" This point is overlooked by Valin, p. 223, in his argument from the later in- 
terpretation of monastic immunities. 

^ Le Provost, Eure, i. 285. 

^ ' Ex quibus nostro tempore donavit per nostrum consensum Rotbertus archi- 
episcopus frater noster omnes consuetudines que ad comitatum pertinent quas ipse 
ex nostro iure possidebat. ... In Vado Fulmerii unum alodarium et omnes con- 
suetudines quas ex iure comitatus in onmibus terris ipsius loci tenebam. . . . Pro 
quo et nos donavimus omnes consuetudines que ex ipsa terra pertinebant ad nos.' 
Cartulary 22 in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, ff. 7-11 ; mdimus of 1499 a°d iS^Q 
in same archives; Vemier,no. 12. Cf. iVeMs/rJaPio, p. 323; Delisle-Berger, no. 527; 
Monasticon, vii. 1087; Le Prdvost, Eure, ii. 296; and the long and interesting list 
of consuetudines of the count of Maine at Ch4teau-du-Loir in Archives historiques du 
Maine, vi. 34. 

^'"> Cf. Flach, Origines de Vancienne France, i. 203; and notes 109, 163, below. 

'" NeustriaPia,p.sy8; M.A. N.,:di.jio; Round, no. 702. Cf. the Conqueror's 
charter in Cartidaire de S.-Pere de Chartres, i. 168. On the other hand his charter 
for Saint-D&ir mentions ' consuetudinibus et forisfactis ' {Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 203). Undefined ducal grants of consuetudines will be found in Liwe noir, 
no. i; Sevue catholique de Normandie, x. 49; La Roque, iii. 26; Cartulaire de Notre- 
Dame de Chartres, i. 86; Sauvage, Troarn, p. 349 f.; Collection Moreau, xxi. no 
(Saint-Ouen). 

'" Brussel, Usage des fiefs (Paris, 1750), i. 253; A. Luchaire, Manuel des institu- 
tions fransaises, pp. 24s, 256. Valin, pp. 60, 182-193, also criticizes the current view, 
but in too juristic a fashion, overlooking the early evidence cited below, which was 



28 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

ceeded in retaining for himself the monopoly of haute justice 
throughout his dominions. Now if we mean by haute justice what 
the lawyers of the thirteenth century meant, jurisdiction by virtue 
of which the duel could be held and penalty of death or mutilation 
inflicted, this statement is far from correct, for so-called pleas of 
the sword are often held by the duke's vassals "^ and the duel is 
waged in their courts."* If, on the other hand, we mean that a 
baron could possess such pleas only by virtue of a ducal grant, and 
that certain of them were never granted, the statement will prob- 
ably hold. For the pleas of the sword in the twelfth century we 
have a list drawn up under Henry II, which can be supplemented 
by certain chapters of the Tres Ancien Coutumier^"^ and confirmed 
by the Exchequer Rolls. This Hst, however, expressly says that 
murder belongs " to the duke alone or to those to whom he or his 
ancestors have granted it," and it is plain that the same Umitation 
is intended to qualify others of the pleas enumerated. The matter 
is clearer in the inquest of 109 1, which gives a statement, includ- 
ing fewer pleas but professedly incomplete, of the 'customs and 
justice ' exercised by William the Conqueror in the duchy. Assault 
in the duke's court or on the way to and from it, offenses com- 
mitted in the host or within a week of its setting forth or its 
return, offenses against pilgrims, and violations of the coinage — ■ 
these place the offender in the duke's mercy and belong exclu- 
sively to his jurisdiction."^ On the other hand, it appears from 
the same inquest that there are other offenses, such as attacks on 
houses (hainfara), arson, rape, and imwarranted seizure of sure- 
ties, jurisdiction over which belongs in some places to the duke 

printed in 1908 and 1909. His theory of the late development of ducal sovereignty 
has been answered by Powlcke, Loss of Normandy, pp. 80-84. 

"s See B. £. C, xiii. 108-109; Stapleton, Magni Rotuli, i, p. xxxiii; and the 
texts cited below. 

1°* See, for example, the duels held in the court of the abbot of Jumifiges in 1036, 
MabiUon, Annates Ordinis S. Benedicii, iv. 519; and in the court of Roger of Beau- 
mont, Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 202. 

"" Ed. Tardif, cc. 70 (inquest), 15, 16, 35, S3, 5&, 59; cf. 67, 69. Cf. Pollock 
andMaitland, ii. 455; andinfra, p. 187. 

"» Appendix D, cc. 1-3, 12, 13. The protection of the plow by the duke, as we 
find it in the Tr6s Ancien Coutumier, likewise goes far back into Norman, if not into 
Scandinavian, history. Dudo, ed. Lair, pp. 171-172; Wilda, Strafrecht, p. 245; 
council of Rouen, 1096, c. 2. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 29 

and in others to his barons; *"' and we find arson, rape, and hain- 
fara among the consuetudines which Duke William, in the year of 
his marriage, granted to the abbot of Preaux.i"' Similar pleas 
were doubtless included in the consuetudines de sanguine granted 
by the Conqueror to Bee, which possessed jurisdiction over mur- 
der and mayhem among the ' royal hberties ' it enjoyed under 
Henry I; 1"° and while there were probably local differences, as in 
Anglo-Saxon England, where Domesday shows curious parallels 
to the Norman forfeitures,"' it is evidently jurisdiction over 
crimes of this sort which is conferred by the ducal grants of con- 
suetudines to monasteries. The great lay lords might also have 
such customs; indeed the forfeiture of life and limb in baronial 
courts is presupposed in the inquest of 1091.'" The coimts of 
fivreux and Mortain have blood- justice; "^ the count of Eu has 
justice in the himdred of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive over all forfeitures 
except the duke's. army and coinage; "' Robert, count of Meulan, 

"' Cc. 9, 10. 

los Appendix D, p. 279; Valin, pieces, no. z. Kings Robert I and Philip I enu- 
merate ' sanguinem, raptum, incendium, homicidium ' among the consuetudines of 
Micy: Pfister, Robert le Pieux, no. 68; Prou, Actes de Philippe I, no. 77. 

"" ' Predicto monasterio tradidit idem comes Normannie omnes consuetudines 
de sanguine et theloneo quas habebat circa ipsum monasterium ' : before 1066, MS. 
Lat. 12884, f- 177; rf- E. Porfie, Histoire du Bee, i. 327, 367, 646. The relevant 
portion of the charter of Henry I for Bee (Round, Calendar, no. 375) is printed 
below in Chapter III, note 21 ; see also the charter on the next page establishing the 
jurisdiction of Fecamp over homicide and arson by grant of Henry's predecessors. 
Cf . also Robert I's grant of Harfleur ' cum sanguine ' to Montivilliers {Gallia 
Christiana, 3d. instr. 326) ; the Conqueror's grant of ' leugam cum sanguine ' to the 
monks of Saint-Benoit (Prou and Vidier, Recueil des chartes de S.-Benoit-sur-Loire, 
no. 78); and Henry I's charter for Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, where, however, pleas 
relating to the army and the coinage are expressly reserved {Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 157). John, abbot of F6camp (ro28-io79), grants a piece of land ' retenta 
publica iustitia in consilio nostro ': Collection Moreau, xxi. 25. 

"" Cf. Pollock and Maitland, ii. 454; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 
pp. 87-88; Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. iii ff. 

^ C. 8. 

™ Count Richard of fivreux (d. 1067) gives ' Deo et Sancto Taurino tres con- 
suetudines quas habebat in terra Sancti Taurini, videlicet sanguinem, septeragium 
(sesteragium ?), et thelonagium.' ' Little Cartulary' of Saint-Taurin, Archives of 
the Eure, H. 793, no. 26. For Mortain see B. E. C, xiii. 108, note. 

"' Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 156-158; cf. col. 203. See also Countess Adeliza's 
grant of ' omnem vicecomitatum . . . et omnes consuetudines ' to Auchy-Aumale: 
Archaeologia, xxvi. 359. 



30 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

gives the abbot of Preaux, in Saleme, his " forfeitures which ac- 
cording to human law are collected by ancieiit custom from homi- 
cides, thieves, and such others as are capitally convicted," and in 
another district kainfara, arson, and ullac}^* The privileged area 
of the banleuca also existed."' 

Whatever view one may hold as to the relative development of 
seigniorial jurisdiction on the two sides of the Channel before the 
Conquest, there was one field in which England had much to 
learn from Normandy, that of ecclesiastical justice. We have the 
Conqueror's word for it that in England " the episcopal laws had 
not been observed properly nor according to the precepts of the 
sacred canons," "^ and it is generally, recognized that we must 
seek in Normandy the principles underl3Tng the ordinance sepa- 
rating the spiritual and temporal courts which he issued within 
ten years of his accession to the Enghsh throne. Of course the 
Norman precedents must not be scanned too narrowly without 
due regard to the jurisprudence of the Roman Church as a whole, 
but it is significant that in this period this jurisprudence came to 
England through Norman prelates and Norman manuscripts, as 
has been clearly shown in the case of the Pseudo-Isidorian decre- 
tals.'" What the Norman practice then was we can in some meas- 
ure discern from the canons of the council of Lillebonne, issued 
by an assembly of prelates and barons held by William's com- 
mand in 1080."' Freeman, it is true, with his splendid indifference 

"* Cartidary of Pr6aux (Archives of the Eure, H. 711), nos. 68, 347; MS. Lat. 
n. a. igag, no. 250; Le Pr6vost, Eure, iii. g7 (cf. on p. g6 the grant of Roger of 
Beaumont); Valin, pieces, no. 4. For vllac see Appendix D, note 16. Tithes of 
the baron's forfeitures are frequently granted to monasteries, e. g., Le Prfivost, 
Eure, i. 408 (= Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 41); Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. lag. 

'" See infra, p. 4g. 

"6 Liebermann, Gesetze, i. 485, ii. 440, 531; Stubbs-Davis, Sdect Charters 
(igi3), p. gg. 

"' See the account of MS. 405 of Trinity College, Cambridge, brought from Bee 
to Canterbury by Lanfranc, and its derivatives, in H. Bohmer, Die Falschungen 
Erzbischof Lanfranks von Canterbury (Leipzig, igo2), pp. 61-65. Norman copies 
of Pseudo-Isidore will be found in MS. Lat. 3856 and MSS. 701-703 at Rouen. 
For decretals of Alexander II addressed to the bishop of Coutances, see Jaff6- 
IxSwenfeld, nos. 447g, 4480. 

"8 Teulet, Layettes du TrUor des Charles, i. 25, no. 22, from an early copy in the 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 31 

to such ecclesiastical matters as were not architectural, says that, 
apart from the renewal of the Truce of God, this council merely 
pronounced " a great number of enactments of the usual kind " ; "' 
but when we recall that Henry II began his great struggle with the 
church by decreeing that the provisions of the council of Lille- 
bonne should be observed,^'"' we shall hardly dismiss so lightly an 
authoritative statement of the law of the Conqueror's day on 
matters of church and state. Unfortunately, these decrees, while 
affording abimdant evidence respecting the existence of a system 
of ecclesiastical courts, leave us in the dark on some of the matters 
we most need to understand. Besides the enforcement of the 
Truce of God, the bishop has cognizance of offenses committed in 
churches and churchyards, including the disturbance of worship 
and assaults on those going to and from church. He has his fines 
from criminous and delinquent clerks and from offending mem- 
bers of a clerk's household, and dwellers within the church en- 
closure are likewise subject to the ' episcopal laws.' Of the 
offenses of laymen from which the bishop has his fine, specific 
mention is made of adultery, incest, desertion, divination, as- 
saults upon priests or monks, and the burning of their houses. A 
fine is also due from those who fail at the ordeal or are excommu- 
nicated for resistance to justice. The question throughout is one 
of fines to be paid the bishop, and while in secular justice it is a 
fairly safe rule that he who has the fines will also have the juris- 
diction, it is entirely possible that for certain offenses the bishop 
should have had fines from laymen who were convicted in secular 
tribunals, just as he had from those who denied their guilt and 
failed at the ordeal, and, later, from violators of the Truce of God 
convicted in the duke's court."^ It is hardly likely, for example, 
that the fine to the bishop was the only penalty for slaying a 
clerk. 

Archives Nationales attested by the seal of Henry I; Ordericus.ii. 316-323; Bessin, 
Concilia Rototnagensis Provinciae, i. 67; Mansi, xx. 555. Cf. Tardif, fyude sur les 
sources de I'ancien droit normand, i. 39-43- 

"' Norman Conquest, 2d edition, iv. 657. 

"° Robert of Torigni, i. 336; see infra, Chapter V, note 83. The importance of 
the council is realized by H. W. C. Davis, England under the Normans and Angevins, 
pp. 527, 533, but his interpretations of its canons are not always sound. 

"• Bessin, Concilia, i. 81; Tris Ancien Coutumier, c. 71; Round, no. 290. 



32 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Little is said of the relation of the clerk to lay courts, either in 
civil or in criminal matters. With respect to his secular holding 
the priest is subject to the court of his lord, although if the ques- 
tion concerns the church he can have it brought before his bishop. 
Violations of the forest laws by clerks are beyond the sphere of the 
bishop's authority, and it would seem from the decree of an 
earlier council that a clerk who exposed himself to the blood-feud 
could be attacked after due notice to his bishop.^^^ A well known 
passage of William of Poitiers indicates that the Conqueror was 
in the habit of interfering when the sentence of the court Chris- 
tian seemed to him too light, and inflicting discipline on the bishop 
or archdeacon as well as on the culprit; '^^ but specific instances 
of this sort are lacking. When the archdeacons of the diocese 
of Bayeux consult Lanfranc respecting the case of a priest who 
had committed homicide in self-defense, the question is not one 
of punishment at their hands, but simply how soon, if at all, 
the offender can be restored to his priestly fimctions.*''* In an- 
other case, before William, archbishop of Rouen, a priest con- 
victed of a variety of offenses suffers degradation and the loss of 
his benefice. 1^^ 

Throughout the canons of Lilleboime nms the assertion of the 
ultimate authority of the duke. The council attempts no innova- 
tion : duke, barons, and bishops are to have the customs and jus- 
tice which they have enjoyed under William and his father, but 

122 ' Ut etiam clerici arma non ferant nee assaliant vel assaliantur nisi ipsi pro 
meruerint, neque etiam tunc nisi facta prodamatione apud episcopum rationabili- 
ter ': Council of Lisieux (1064), c. 5, in Journal des savants, 1901, p. 517. 

12' Ed. Duchesne, p. 194; Migne, cxlix. 1241. The participation of the duke in 
ecclesiastical discipline is also implied in Richard II's charter for Mont-Saint- 
Michel: Neusiria Pia, p. 378. 

™ Lanfranc, Ep. 62, Migne, cl. 550. Cf. Migne, cxlvii. 266 (1061). 

•2' ' Notum sit omnibus quod Gausfredus presbyter de Verliaco ... ad iudicium 
utrinque venerunt coram Guillelmo Rotomstgensi archiepiscopo presbyter scilicet 
et monachi. . . . Ibi presbyter accusatus atque convictus de multis criminibus tam 
per se ipsum perpetratis quam sua consensione per quendam filium suum, videlicet 
de furtis, de sacrilegiis, de fomicationibus, et de contaminatione ecclesie sue, cum 
se de his nulla posset ratione purgare, ab ordine suo depositus est ab archiepiscopo. 
. . . Veniens in curiam regis Anglorum apud castrum Nielfam guerpivit coram 
omnibus totum omnino beneficium vel quicquid reclamare poterat ullo modo in 
ecclesia nostra de Verliaco. Insuper coram tota ipsa curia iuravit non se quicquam 
eorum ultra reclamaturum.' MS. Baluze 77, f. 61, from cartulary of Marmoutier. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 33 

the judicial privileges are held by virtue of the duke's concession, 
and in case of dispute as to their extent the court of the duke is to 
decide.'^^ The bishop's rights over laymen were a matter of cus- 
tom, and varied from place to place. In many parishes the char- 
ters show that he had, in whole or in part, lost his jurisdiction, for 
the episcopal fines and forfeitures were valuable rights, like his 
synodal dues and visitation fees,i" and were often granted in fief 
to laymen ^^ or handed over to monasteries in the form of exemp- 
tion from episcopal consuetudines,^^^ just as ducal consuetiidines 
were granted by the duke. Thus Fecamp claimed certain churches 
free from the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Rouen,'^" and 
by privilege of Archbishop Robert the monks of Saint-Pdre of 
Chartres held the church of Fontenay in the Vexin free from bishop 
and archdeacon.i''^ Robert I was said to have given Mont-Saint- 
Michel the ' episcopal laws ' in half of Guernsey. "^ The abbess 
of La Trinite had the fines from episcopal forfeitures in two 
parishes of Caen,''' and the abbot of Saint-Etienne had similar 

128 So the author of the Acta archiepiscoporum says of William, after the diffi- 
culties between the archbishop and the monks of Rouen in 1073 : ' In his omnibus 
semper apud ipsum cautum extitit ne quid sibi archiepiscopus quasi sub ecclesiastico 
vigore in causis huius ecclesie insolenter arrogaverit.' Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, 
p. 226; Gallia Christiana, xi. 35. On the author see Vacandard, in Revtte catholique 
de Normandie, iii. 121 £f. 

1" On which cf. the protest of the canons of Chartres in H. F., x. 498; and Ful- 
bert of Chartres, Epistolae, nos. 48, 1x5 (Migne, cxli. 225, 265). 

'^' Supra, notes 12-15. Cf. council of Rouen, 1096, c. 6: ' Nullus laicus habeat 
consuetudines episcopales vel iustitiam que pertinet ad curam animarum ' (Orderi- 
cus, iii. 473). For England cf. the grant of ' pladta hominum de christianitate ' in 
Davis, no. 71. 

^'' GalliaChristiana,xi. msti.y.3, 126, 231; Nettstria Pia, pp. sjg, 431; Sauvage, 
Troam, p. 356; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pieces, nos. 46, 48; Mus6e des archives dSparte- 
mentales, no. 25 (Lessay) ; Bry, Histoire du Perche, p. 70. The following grant of 
1053 is more specific: ' aecclesiam Sancte Marie de Berlo et altare et omnes reditus 
eorum, decimas scilicet, primitias, sepulturam, sinodalia, circada, et omnes forfac- 
turas ad ipsam aecclesiam pertinentes, hoc est: sacrilegium, latrocinium, infrac- 
turam cimiterii, et cum omnibus commissis episcopo pertinentibus ' (charter of 
William of La Fert6-Mac6, Denis, Charles de S.-Julien de Tours, no. 24; Rewie 
catholique, i. 168). 

"0 See Appendix B. 

1" Cartulaire, ed. Gu6rard, i. 115; Gallia Christiana, viii. instr. 297. 

182 Cartulary (MS. Avranches 210), f. io6v. 

'" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 71. 



34 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

privileges.^'* In such cases the bishop sought to retain the ulti- 
mate authority, whose symbol, the administration of the ordeal 
at his cathedral church, was specifically reserved to him by the 
council of Lillebonne; ^'^ yet two years later the abbot of Saint- 
Wandrille established in the duke's court his ancient right to 
administer the ordeal in the four parishes subject to his jurisdic- 
tion.*'* That the bishop's jurisdiction was comprehensive and 
attendance at his court no light matter, appears from the case of 
Mont-Saint-Michel: the residents of the Moimt complained of 
their frequent smxmions to Avranches as parties or witnesses in 
the bishop's court in all matters contra christianitatem, and of the 
bishop's refusal to accept excuses in time of invasion or storm, so 
that they were constantly being fined or punished on this accoimt; 
imtil in 1061 the bishop consented to make the abbot his arch- 
deacon for the Moimt, reserving to himself, however, the admin- 
istration of the ordeal, the hearing of matrimonial causes, and the 

'^ Gallia Christiania, xi. instr. 73; charter of Odo, bishop of BayeiK (copies in 
Archives of the Calvados, H. 1825; MS. Fr.n. a. 20218, f. 6): 'Tradoistaquehicde- 
termino, videlicet de omnibus in prefatis ecclesiis donubus terris habitatoribus om- 
nium forisfacturarum de criminalibus peccatis vel de non criminalibus prodeuntium 
pecuniam et de ipsis omnibus habitatoribus de non criminalibus peccatis penitentie 
iniunctionem. Addo etiam ut ex ipsis criminalibus peccatis quandocunque in prefatis 
ecclesiis domibus terris audiri contigerint ab archidiacono Baiocensi, abbas vel prior 
predicti cenobii, non ipse super quo crimen auditum fuerit, moneatur et ibidem ab 
utroque disposito termino congruo ac prefixo die conveniant monachus et archidia- 
conus et in ipsa parrochia in qua crimen auditum fuerit predictis presentibus in- 
quiratiir, inquisito discutiatur, et discusso, si inde iudicium portandum prodierit 
vel cognitio peccati potuerit, Baiocensis ecclesia ut decet requiratur vel causa 
examinationis vel gratia consequende reconciliationis.' Cf. the similar charter of 
Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances (in charter of Archbishop William, copied in Archives 
of the Calvados, H. 1825) : ' De his autem omnibus supradictis si placitum contin- 
gat, in curia abbatis Cadomi agatur et forisfacturam si contingat abbas habebit. 
Si iudicium inde portandiun prodierit, ad Hulmum ut constitutum est requiratur, 
vidente archidiacono, et penitentia detur.' Early in the twelfth century Abbot 
Eudo ' separavit Robertum Blundum ab uxore sua coram Osberto archidiacono, 
qui fuit ibi in loco episcopi Ricardi filii comitis,' bishop of Bayeux (Deville, Analyse, 
P- 32)- 

"' See the charters quoted in the preceding note, and the arrangement between 
the archbishop of Rouen and Bee, Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 17. There is a curious 
account of the holding of an ordeal at Bayeux before archdeacons, by order of the 
duke's court, in Archaeologia, xxvii. 26. William's ordinance separating the tempo- 
ral and spiritual courts in England likewise reserves the ordeal for the cathedral. 

"« Bessin, Concilia, i. 76; Lot, S.-Wondrille, no. 39 (cf. no. 40). 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 35 

imposition of sentence in other cases."' It appears from other 
documents that matrimonial matters were an important part of 
the work of the courts Christian."* 

The duke's assertion of authority over church courts and his 
interference, at the council of LiUebonne, in the enforcement of 
sacerdotal ceUbacy "' are only one phase of an ecclesiastical 

"' ' Cogebantur enim venire Abrmcas ad respondendum de quacunque accusa- 
tione contra christianitatem, nee excusare poterat eos mare insurgens nee Britonum 
insidiequiapreveniri ac provideri poterant, etita sepe in forifacta et emendationes 
episcopales incidebant et sepe iuramentis fatigabantur. . . Episcopus vero pre- 
fatus, ut erat animo et genere nobilis, petitioni abbatis annuit et archidiaconum 
suum in Monte eum fecit, ita tamen ut quod bene non faceret vel nou posset epis- 
copus corrigeret Abrincis et ecclesiastico iuditio terminaret. De coniugiis autem 
iUicitis si qui legales testes procederent, apud episcopum audirentur et per sacra- 
mentum ipsorum lege dissolveretur quod contra legem presumptum erat. De 
criminalibus culpis venirent ad iuditium et sententiam episcopi confessi vel con- 
victi coram suo archidiacono, excommunicati ab episcopo ad eius satisfactionem et 
absolutionem venirent. Iuditium f erri igniti et aque ferventis Abrincis portaretur.' 
MS. Lat. 14832, f. 183V; Migne, cxlvii. 265; Pigeon, Le diocise d'Avranches, ii. 658^ 
It should be noted that Richard II's charter had granted to the abbot all ducal and 
episcopal consuetudines in the Mount, including ' omnes leges omnesque forisfactu- 
ras clericorum ac laicorum virorum ac muherum eiusdem biurgi ' in terms which 
suggest a later interpolation (Cartulary, f. 2iv; Neustria Pia, p. 378; MabUlon, 
Annates, iv. 651. Cf. the description of these liberties in the Roman du Mont- 
Saint-Michel, lines 2406 ff.). On the other hand, the statement of the rights of the 
bishop of Avranches over the abbeys of his diocese, preserved in a MS. of the twelfth 
century in the Vatican (MS. Regina 946, f . 73V) states the matter from the bishop's 
point of view: ' Salva est autem episcopo Abrincensi in predicta abbatia in omnibus 
canonica iusticia.' See Appendix K. 

The agreement of 1061 is of possible interest in relation to the use of sjoiodal 
witnesses in Normandy; see Chapter VI, note iig. 

"' See the case from Caen cited in note 134, supra; Barret, Cartidaire de Mar- 
moutier pour le Perche, no. 18 (109 2-1 100) ; and the notice of the grant by the mcomtes 
to Saint-Sauveur of freedom ' ab omnibus pladtis et querelas, videlicet de trevia, de 
adulteriis, et de omnibus aliis rebus que pertinent ad christianitatem, ita ut mo- 
nachi habeant placita in curia sua onmemque emendacionem ' (Delisle, S.Sauveur, 
pieces, no. 46) . The penance imposed by the bishop of S^ez upon the slayer of three 
pilgrims to Mont-Saint-Michel illustrates another phase of the bishop's jurisdic- 
tion: Lanfranc, Epistolae, no. 9 (Migne, cl. 517). Cf. an agreement of 1084 be- 
tween the count of Anjou and the bishop of Angers: L. Halphen, L'Anjou au XI' 
siicle, p. 314, no. 242. 

^^ H. Bohmer, Kirche und Staat in England und in der Normandie (Leipzig, 1899), 
p. 127 f. On p. 36, note 2, he questions the authenticity, in its present form, of the 
canon of LiUebonne (c. 3) which deals with this subject. The last sentence is some- 
what perplexing, but it appears in the text as confirmed by Henry I (Teulet, Lay- 
ettes, i, no. 22) and may perhaps mean that the judgment of parishioners and the 



36 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

supremacy to which the eleventh century affords no parallel."" 
A familiar passage of Eadmer >^' assigns a Norman origin to the 
customs which the Conqueror established with respect to church 
matters in England — control over coimcils and appointments, 
necessity of the king's approval for the excommimication of his 
barons and for the reception of letters or legates from Rome — 
and there is little to add to what is already known concerning his 
policy in these respects in Normandy."^ WiUiam was regularly 
present at the meetings of church councils, and their decrees were 
issued with his sanction. He not only appointed the bishops and 
abbots, like the stronger princes of his time, but was able on occa- 
sion to secure their deposition. The monasteries were under the 
special protection of the duke, and this was so effective as to leave 
little room in Normandy for the avoues who play so large a part in 
monastic and feudal history elsewhere."' No bishop succeeded in 
getting permanent possession of a county or even in acquiring the 
full rights of a count in his episcopal city, where the presence of 
the vicomte was a constant reminder of the duke's authority and 
might, as at Rouen in 1073, even serve to protect the prelate in 
time of disturbance."* If we may judge by the case of the see of 

penalty prescribed in the preceding clause had been forced by the king upon the 
unwilling bishops. 

"" "Das landesherrUche Kirchenregiment war hier mithin viel starker entwickelt, 
als in den anderen Staaten des Kontinents: " Bohmer, p. 33. The absence of such 
control over the bishops was a constant source of weakness to Normandy's powerful 
neighbor, the count of Flanders: Lot, 6tndes sur le regne de Hugues Capet, p. 219. 

'" Eisioria Novorum, p. 9; Liebermann, Gesetze, i. 520. 

1^ Bohmer's discussion is the best. The council of Lisieux of 1064, discovered 
and published by Delisle {Journal des savants, 1901, p. 516), should be added to his 
list of councils. On the appointment of bishops see also Imbart de la Tour, Les 
elections ipiscopales dans I'iglisfi de France (Paris, 1891), pp. 247, 273, 291-294, 455. 

"' Brussel, Usage des fiefs, ii. 810; F. Senn, L'institution des avoueries ecd6sias- 
iiques en France (Paris, 1903), p. 95 ff.; both of whom insist too absolutely upon the 
exclusion of the avouS from early Normandy. See Valin, pp. 85-88; and Sauvage, 
Troarn, p. 61. The absence of the vidame is also noteworthy: Senn, L'institu- 
tion des vidamies p. 98 f. See, however, below, p. 167. 

i« Gallia Christiana, xi. 34; on the date see Vacandard, Revue catholique, iii. 118 
(1893). Geoffrey de Montbray had no land in Coutances when he became bishop, 
and was obliged to purchase what he needed from the duke: Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 219. The bishop of Lisieux had greater freedom: Stapleton, i, p. cbdx; 
H. de Formeville, Histoire de I'ancien ivtchi-comti de Lisieux (Lisieux, 1873), PP- 
dxlvii, 315. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 37 

Bayeux, "' the bishops lost rather than gained by the anarchy of 
the Conqueror's successor, and when bishops appear taking an 
important part in secular affairs in the twelfth century, it is as the 
agents and justices of the duke and not as his rivals. 

One function of the Norman ecclesiastical courts found no 
occasion for its exercise in England,"^ namely their enforcement 
of the Truce of God. Introduced into Normandy in its Flemish 
form early in the Conqueror's reign,"' the Truce was reaffirmed 
by councils of 1064 and 1080 and elaborated at the coimcil of 
Rouen in 1096. The original penalties were ecclesiastical and their 
imposition was the duty of the bishop and his deputies: before 
1067 the bishop of Evreux is trying to punish monks for its infrac- 
tion;"* under Henry I the bishop's claim to his fine is clearly 
recognized; "' and as late as 1233 the bishop of Avranches and his 
rural deans assert their immemorial right to hold placita treuge}^" 
The duke, however, has likewise an interest in maintaining so 
important an adjunct to pubhc order: the council of LiUebonne 
provides that the lord of the land shall aid the bishop in coercing 
recalcitrant offenders, and, failing his aid, the vicomte of the duke 
shall take the matter into his hands; while by 1135 the ptmish- 
ment of serious violations has become the function of the ducal 

"^ Livre noir, pp. xli, xlii. 

"' On the absence of the Truce of God m England, see F. Liebermann, Ueber die 
Leges Edwardi Confessoris, p. 59 ff.; Pollock and Maitland, i. 75 f. Their conclu- 
sions do not seem to me invaUdated by what Powicke says on the subject {Loss of 
Normandy, p. 94), although his general views on the Norman phase of the question 
appear sound. Cf. Liebermann, Gesetze, ii. 687 f. 

"' Bessin, Concilia, i. 39; Mansi, xix. 597; cf. Gallia Christiana, sd. instr. 202; 
Acta Sanctorum, August, iv. 834; Analecta Bollandiana, xxii. 438; M. G. H., Scrip- 
tores, viii. 403. On the date of the council, which is not later than 1047 and is prob- 
ably of 1042 or 1043, see Tardif, Siude, p. 29 f., where the paraUeUsm with the 
Flemish form of the text is overlooked. The latest edition of the Norman ordinance, 
that of the M. G. H., Constitutiones et Acta Publica, i. 600, does not pay sufficient 
attention to Norman MSS., such as MS. Rouen 1383, f. 9, a MS. of the eleventh 
century from JumiSges, or MS. Lat. 1928, f. 173V (used by Bessin). The provisions 
of the various councils are analyzed by Tardif, p. 30 ff. 

"' Migne, cxliii. 1387. ' 

"9 Tres Anciln Coutumier, c. 71; Round, no. 290. Cf. Delisle, in B. £. C, xiii. 
102. 

"° L. Auvray, Registres de GrSgoire IX, no. 1308; Collection Moreau, mclxxxviii. 
68. 



38 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

court, and the bishop's interest is merely pecuniary."" "As it 
appears in the first part of the Tres Ancien Coutumier, the Truce 
of God has ahnost become the peace of the duke." "^^ 

While, however, the ducal authority welcomed such aid in the 
diflftcult task of maintaining order, it did not owe its supremacy 
to an ecclesiastical principle imported from without; Normandy 
was not one of the coimtries where the Landfrieden sprang from 
the Gottesfrieden. In the reign of Robert I we see the duke's mes- 
senger separating combatants and putting them imder oath to 
abide by the decision of his court,"' while their repression of dis- 
order and their rigorous administration of justice are the constant 
refrain of Dudo's eulogies of the first three dukes."" From the 
Conqueror's reign we have his law limiting the blood feud in 
1075,"^ and the numerous restrictions upon private war formu- 
lated in the Consuetudines et iusticie.^^ According to these no one 
was allowed to go out to seek his enemy with hauberk and stand- 
ard and soimding horn. Assaults and ambushes were not per- 
mitted in the duke's forests, nor could a Joust be made an occasion 
for an ambuscade. Captives were not to be taken in a feud, nor 
could arms, horses, or property be carried off from a combat. 
Burning, plimder, and waste were forbidden in pursuing claims to 
land, and, except for open crimes, no one could be condemned to 
loss of limb save by judgment of the proper ducal or baronial 
court. Moreover castles and strongholds could be built only by 
the duke's Hcense and were required to be handed over to him on 
demand, and he could also exact hostages as a guarantee of a 
baron's loyalty."" Coinage was his,"^ and everything relating 

"1 Supra, note 149. "2 Tardif, p. 49. 

ii>3 Vita Herluini, in Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, vi. 2, p. 348. 

'" Ed. Lair, pp. 171, 183, 196, 200 f., 205, 245, 248, 255, 259, 261-264, 266, 268 f., 
272, 280, 290-293. On the nature of their legislation against disorder see Tardif, 
&tude, pp. 14-21. 

156 Duchesne, p. 1018; see below, Appendix D, note 9. Cf. the restrictions upon 
private war in the case of clerks, council of Lisieux, 1064, cc. s, 7 {Journal des 
savants, 1901, p. 517). On the Conqueror's early legislation see Tardif, £tude, 
p. 31 f. "« Appendix D. 

"' Respecting the Conqueror's control over castles compare William of JumiSges 
(bk. vii, c. I, ed. Marx, p. 115 f.) on the beginning of his reign with Ordericus (iii. 
262) on conditions after his death, "' Appendix D, p. 280. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 39 

thereto. There was, we have already seen, a well developed ducal 
jurisdiction, and the maintenance of the duke's judicial suprem- 
acy was only one form of the persistent assertion of his ultimate 
authority over his barons. The extermination of disorder and vio- 
lence was doubtless less complete than the Conqueror's panegyrists 
would have us believe,i^' but the peace of the duke was already a 
fact as well as a theory. 

An authority such as the Conqueror wielded in church and state 
required a considerable income for its maintenance, and while 
there are no fiscal records for Normandy earlier than 1180, it is 
possible to trace back to William's time most of the sources of 
revenue which appear in detail in the Exchequer Rolls a century 
later.i™ The duke had his domains and forests, scattered through- 
out the duchy and sometimes of considerable extent, which might 
yield a money rent as well as a great variety of payments in kind. 
He had his mills, such as the eight ' fiscal mills ' on the Eau de 
Robec at Rouen, his salt-pans, his fishing-rights at certain points 
on the rivers and on the coast, and his monopoly of the taking of 
whales and other ' great fish.' Wreck and treasure-trove were his, 
as well as the profits of coinage.'" He had large possessions in 
certain towns — he could sell half of Coutances to its bishop '^^ — 
in addition to tolls, rights over markets and fairs, and other urban 
consuetiidines}^^ Bernagium for his himting dogs was a burden on 

159 William of Poitiers, ed. Duchesne, p. 193 (Migne, cxlix. 1240); Ordericus, 
ii. 177; Wace, ed. Andresen, lines 5348-5352. 

ISO See the classical study of Delisle, Des revenus publics en Normandie au dou- 
zUme siecle, in B. t,. C, x. 173-210, 257-289, xi. 400-451, xiii. 97-135. On the 
domain of the early dukes, see Prentout, Etude sur Dudon, p. 265. 

1^' On the ducal rights over coinage, see Appendix D. 

162 Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 219. 

"' E. g., in a charter of 1068 for Troam, ' in Falesia totam terram Wesman et 
consuetudines eius ad regem pertinentes ': Sauvage, Troam, p. 350. The follow- 
ing, relating to Bayeux, is more specific: ' Et ille bene sdt domos infra civitatem et 
terram extra civitatem positam semper fuisse quietas ab omni consuetudine 
Normannorum principis, scilicet theloneo, gildo, molta molendinorum, et custodia 
vigilianim, et dominus predicte terre si faceret adducere vinum suum de Argencis 
asset quietus suum carragium apud Cadomum et apud Baiocas ' {Archaeologia, 
xxvii. 27). For Caen see H. Legras, Le bourgage de Caen (Paris, 1911), pp. 39-42, 
52, 74 fi- 



40 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

the land,"* as was also an exaction called gravaria}^^ The fines 
and forfeitures of justice and the receipts from feudal dues were 
naturally important. 

How the revenues of the Norman dukes were collected and ad- 
mraistered is a question of great interest, particularly to the stu- 
dent of English institutions. Since the days of the Dialogue on the 
Exchequer "^ there have not been wanting those who have main- 
tained that the English Exchequer was organized on the model of 
an earlier Norman institution; and while recent investigations 
have traced portions of the Exchequer system back to Anglo- 
Saxon times "' and have suggested that an elaborate fiscal system 
is more likely to have grown out of the collection of a heavy tax 
like Danegeld than out of the more ordinary and miscellaneous 
set of revenues which we have just enxunerated,"' the possi- 
bility of Norman influence upon the Enghsh Exchequer has by no 
means been eliminated from the discussion. The Norman evi- 
dence, it is true, is of the most meager sort,'*' the absence of any- 
thing like the Domesday survey being the greatest gap; but the 
argument from silence is especially dangerous where the destruc- 
tion of records has been so great as in Normandy, and it is well to 
bear in mind that, save for the accident which has preserved a 
single Pipe Roll of Henry I, the existence of the English Excheq- 
uer is barely known before Henry II. A ducal treasury appears in 
Normandy as early as Richard II, who gives a himdred pounds 
from his camera to redeem lands of Saint-Benigne of Dijon,"" and 

'" Infra, Appendix D, p. 279; Round, Calendar, no. 2; Monasticon, vii. 1074; 
Liber Alius of Le Mans, no. i; charter of William I for Saint-fitienne, Archives of 
the Calvados, H. 1830, 2-2 (' quietum ab omni gravaria et bemagio '); charter of 
William Rufus for Bee, Davis, Regesta, no. 425 {infra, p. 82). 

165 DuCange, Glossarium, under ' gravaria '; Stapleton, i, pp. Ixxxvii, xcvii, 
cxxviii, clxxxi; P. de Farcy, Abbayes de I'evichS de Bayeux, Cerisy, p. 81 f. (before 
1066); Roimd, Calendar, nos. 117, 1175; B. &. C, xiii. 120-122. 

"* Bk. i, c. 4, ed. Hughes, Crump, and Johnson, p. 66. 

!«' See especially Round, Commune of London, p. 62 ff.; and R. L. Poole, The 
Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1912), chs. 2, 3. 

"' Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 140. 

"° The name exchequer appears in Normandy in a document of ca. 1130: 
Round, E. H. R., xiv. 426; infra. Chapter III, note 18. An exchequer roll of 1136 
was cited in the eighteenth century, M. A. N., xvi, p. xxx. See below, p. 175. 

i'» ' Tactus pater meus divina inspiratione dedit de camera sua predicto Attoni 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 4 1 

grants to Fecamp permanently the tithe of his camera."^ The 
latter grant, which has come down in the original, is particularly- 
interesting, for the duke goes on to define the camera as compris- 
ing everything given to him " by reason of the service of any- 
thing, whether lands purchased or fines or gifts or any sort of 
transaction " — in other words, any extraordinary or occasional 
addition to his treasure.^'^ The profits of coinage are separately 
reckoned, and the fiscalis census and " what are anciently called 
customs " are expressly excluded. It would be rash to attempt to 
define too closely the content of the census and the customs, but 
the census must at least have covered the returns from the 
demesne and forests, and the customs would naturally include 
the profits of tolls and markets and justice — altogether much the 
sort of thing which was later comprised within the farm of the 
vicomte or prevote. The duke plainly knows the difference between 
his ordinary and his extraordinary sources of income. So a cen- 
tury and a half later we find that returns from the mint and re- 
ceipts of the camera are separately accoimted for; the Exchequer 
Rolls record only the revenues gathered by the local ofl&cers. 

Can we discover in the eleventh century any indication of sys- 
tem in the collection of these fixed sources of revenue ? We may 
dismiss at the outset, as the report of a later age, Wace's picture 
of Richard II shut up in a towef with his vicomtes and prevdts and 

centum libras nummorum.' Charter of Robert I, MS. 1656 of the Bibliotheque 
Sainte-Genevieve at Paris, p. 46; printed, inaccurately, in Deville, Analyse, p. 34. 
Cf. Appendix C, no. 4. 

'" ' Concedo jtiam decimas monetg nostrae ex integro et decimas nostrg camerg, 
videlicet de omnibus qugcumque michi alicuius rei servitio dabuntur, videlicet aut 
emptarum terrarum aut emendarum aut cuiuslibetcumque negotii sive dono 
muneris gratis dati excepto fiscali censu et exceptis his quae costumas antiquitus 
dicunt. Do et decimas telonei de burgo qui dicitur Cadumus.' Charter of 1027 for 
F6camp, Mus6e de la Benedictine, no. 2 ter; Neustria Pia, p. 217; infra, Appendix 
B, no. 5. The grant of the toll of Caen shows that tolls are not included in the 
receipts of the camera. Cf . the grant by Robert I of ' decimam denariorum suorum ' 
to the canons of Rouen: Le Provost, Eure, ii. 520. 

•" So when Nigel grants Ceaux to Mont-Saint-Michel a pajfment is made to 
William I's camera: ' Pro cuius rei concessu dedit prefato GuiUelmo centum et 1*" 
libras quas accepit Radulfiis camerarius' (MS. Avranches 210, f. 107); c£. the 
cubicularii who are ordered to make a payment from Robert's treasury (William of 
Jumifeges, ed. Marx, p. 107) ; and the ministri camere sue who draw up the descrip- 
tion of William's treasure in 1087 {De obitu Willelmi, ibid., p, 146). 



42 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

going over their accounts; "' but it is nevertheless possible, by 
working back from documents of the twelfth century, to reach cer- 
tain conclusions with respect to the fiscal system of the Con- 
queror's reign. In the first place it is clear that the farm of the 
vicomte existed under William I, for we know from a charter of 
Henry I that certain fiaced items in the later roUs, to wit twelve 
pounds in the farm and twenty shillings in the toll of Argentan 
and sixty shillings and tenpence in the toll of Exmes, had been 
settled as alms to the canons of Seez by grant of his father and 
mother."* Permanent charges of this sort, either in the form of 
tithes or of definite amounts, are frequently recorded against the 
farms in the Norman rolls of the twelfth century, as in the English 
Pipe RoUs of the same period, but whereas in the English rolls 
such fixed ahns are of recent creation, ia Normandy they can often 
be traced back into the eleventh century. Thus Saint-Wandrille 
produced charters of Richard II to secure its title to the tithes of 
the toll of Falaise, Exmes, Argentan,"^ and the Hiesmois, of the 
mcomtes and tolls of Dieppe and Arques, and of the fair of Caen."* 
By grant of the same prince Fecamp received the tithe of the toll 
of Caen,'" ajid Jumieges the tithes of the privates of Bayeux and 

"' Ed. Andresen, lines 2009-2012. The early form of the passage (William of 
Jumieges, ed. Marx, p. 89) speaks merely of ' quarumdam rerum publicarum totius 
Neustrie . . . generale placitum.' Cf. E. H. R., xxxi. 151. 

1" ' Preterea duodecim libras in firma nostra de Argentomo et viginti et mium 
solidos in teloneo eitisdem ville et sexaginta solidos et decern denarios de tdoneo 
meo de Oximis, que dederunt pater meus et mater mea ecclesie Sagiensi ad victmn 
canonicorum duorum, quod antiquitus in elemosinam statutum fuerat: ' MS. 
Alenjon 177, f. 98; MS. Lat. 11058, f. 8. See the charter in full in Appendix F, 
no. 11; andd. infra, Chapter III. These items are duly charged in the rolls of 1180 
and 1184: Stapleton, i, pp. Ixxxviii, xcvi, cxxxii, 39, 50, 103; Delisle, Henri II, p. 

334- 

'"■ In the later rolls this has become a fixed rent of 15 pounds: M. A. N., xvi, 
p. xii; Delisle, Henri II, p. 334. 

i'6 See the charges in Stapleton, i, pp. xcvi, ci, cviii, cxxiii, cxxxii, 39, 30, 57, 68, 
90, 103; and the charters in Lot, S.-WandrUle, no. 11 ABCD, who shows their late 
origin (pp. Ixxxii f., xcvi f .). Note, however, the grant of the tithe of the markets 
of the Hiesmois by Robert I in no. 14. 

"' See above, note 171; Stapleton, i, pp. xxiv, c, 56. Saint-Taurin, later a de- 
pendency of Fficamp, received from Richard I the tithe of the vicomti of fivreux, 
but this passed out of the duke's hands and does not appear in the rolls: ' Little 
Cartulary," fE. 57, iisv; Bonnin, Cartidaire de Louviers, i. i; Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 138; Martina and Durand, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, i. 154. The tithe of 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 43 

the Bessin.i" The abbey of Cerisy received its tithes, as granted 
by Robert I and confimied by the Conqueror in 1042, from the 
vicomtes of the Cotentin, Coutances, and Gavray, and from a 
number of the ducal forests."' By authority of William I the nuns 
of Saint-Amand had the tithe of Barfleur, of Saint- James, and of 
the modiatio of Rouen ; 1*" those of La Trinite had two-thirds of the 
tithe of the prevdie of Caen; the bishop of Coutances had the tithe 
of the toU of Cherbourg, and the canons of Cherbourg the tithe of 
the ducal mills in Guernsey.'*' Specific grants make their appear- 
ance in the same reign: besides the above mentioned grant to 
Seez William gives, before 1066, to the nims of MontiviUiers a 
hundred shillings in the prevdte of Caen.'*^ In none of these cases 
does the original grant use the word farm, although the duke's 
revenues at Barfleur and in the vicomtes of the Cotentin, Cou- 
tances, and Gavray are expressly stated to be in money, but it is 
altogether likely in view of the charter to Seez that the vicomtes 
and prevStes were farmed in the Conqueror's time. This was 
almost certainly true in the case of Avranches, from whose farm 
of £80 twenty were regularly credited at the Exchequer on ac- 
count of the ducal manor of Vains and its appurtenances, which 
had been granted by the Conqueror to Saint-Etienne. If the 
farm had been established after the date of this grant, it would 
have been stated net, instead of recording to no purpose the 
deduction for what was no longer a source of ducal income, so 

Avranches, granted to the cathedral by Robert I (Pigeon, Le diocese d' Avranches, 
ii. 667), does not appear in the rolls, for similar reasons. 

"' NeustriaPia,p. 323; Monasticon, ini. loSy; Delisle-Berger, no.527; Staple- 
ton, i. 7, 40; Vernier, i. 40, ii. 23. 

"' Netisiria Pia, p. 432; Monasticon, vii. 1073; Farcy, Abbayes de V&vichS de 
Bayeux, pj 78; Appendix C, no. 3. 

"" Monasticon, vii. iioi; Stapleton, i. 37, 40. 

"1 Stapleton, i, pp. c, 56, kxxiii, 30, kxvii, 27. The tithe of Moulins {ibid., pp. 
cxxxiv, 105) also went back to a grant approved by William before 1066: Cartulaire 
de S.-Pere de Chartres, i. 146. 

»8« Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 328; Stapleton, i. pp. c, 56. The Conqueror also 
assigned against this prtiSti twelve prebends for his hospital at Caen, and similar 
charges were made against the prevSti of Bayeux: Stapleton, i, pp. bd, ci; cf. 
Henry II's charter for the lepers of Bayeux, Delisle-Berger, no. 689. 

The duke's ofiScers also pay tithes and fixed charges granted by his barons on 
toUs which have subsequently come into his hands. B.£.C.,x. 178, 196; Stapleton, 
i, pp. bdv, cxviii, 8, 14, 17, 82. Cf . Diaiogus de Scaccario, bk. ii, c. 10. 



44 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

that we must infer the existence of this farm under the Con- 
queror.i*' In any event, in order to make grants of tithes of fixed 
amounts, the duke must have been in the habit of dealing with 
these local areas as fiscal wholes and not as mere aggregates of 
scattered sources of income; the uliit was the vicomte or pr^dti, 
and not the individual domain. He can tithe the revenue from 
such a district as he can tithe the receipts of his camera. One 
other point of interest deserves to be mentioned in connection 
with these entries of fixed alms, the fact, namely, that wherever 
the matter can be tested, the various fixed charges are entered 
under each account in chronological order.i^^ This cannot be 
mere chance, nor is it likely that a later exchequer oflicial would 
have sufl&cient historical interest to rearrange them chronologi- 
cally; it is much more probable that when each grant was made it 
was entered, probably on a central record similar to the later 
exactory roll. If this is the correct explanation, it follows that 
where the list begins with the grants of Richard II and continues 
with those of William, i*^ the entries were made as early as the 
Conqueror's time. There would be nothing surprising in the exist- 
ence of a record of amoimts due and allowances to be made; such 
a roll is the natural part of the system of farms and fixed alms 
which we have fotmd under the Conqueror, if not of the state of 
affairs existing under Richard 11.^^ 

Whatever weight may be attached to these inferences, it would 
seem clear that in the matter of fiscal organization Normandy 
was well in advance of neighboring lands such as the county of 
Anjou or the royal domain.^*^ The Capetian charters of the 

^^ See the inquest of 1171 in Delisle, Benri II, p. 343; and my observations in 
E. H. R., xxvi. 327. For the grant of Vains as confirmed by Robert II, see infra, 
Appendix E, no. i. 

's* Stapleton, i. 7, 30, 38, 39, 50, 56, 68, 70, 90, 97, 103, in; M.A. N., xvi. 109. 

'*' E. g., Stapleton, i. 39, 56. 

"* Compare the early development of a fiscal system in Flanders: H. Pirenne, 
Histoire de Belgique, i. 109. 

'" A comparative study of fiscal arrangements in the eleventh century is much 
needed. The charters of the Angevin counts are listed by L. Halphen, Le comtS 
d'Anjou au XI' sUcle (Paris, 1906); those of Robert I and Henry I by C. Pfister, 
&tudes sur k rigne de Robert le Pieux (Paris, 1885), and F. Soehn6e, Catalogue des 
actes d'Henri I" (Paris, 1907). The charters of Philip I are now accessible in the 
admirable edition of Maurice Prou, Recueil des actes de Philippe I" (Paris, 1908). 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 45 

eleventh century, for example, indicate fairly primitive economic 
conditions. The kings are liberal in granting lands and exemp- 
tions and rights of exploitation, but fixed grants of money are rare 
and small in amount, and are nearly always charged against an 
individual domain or a specific source of revenue rather than, as in 
Normandy, against the receipts from a considerable district. '*» 
Whereas the Conqueror's grants give evidence of a considerable 
money income, the ruder economy, or Naturalwirthschaft, of the 
Capetian kings is shown by the prevalence, well into the twelfth 
century, of fixed charges which are paid m kind — the tithe of the 
royal cellars and granaries at Auvers and Poissy,'*' two sellers of 
salt in the granaries of Perche, fourteen muids of grain in the mills 
of Bourges, or twenty muids of wine from the vineyards of Vorges 
and Joui."" It is thoroughly characteristic of the condition of 
eleventh-century Normandy that the dukes should be sparing in 
conferring extensive franchises and rights of exploitation, while 
they were generous in permanent grants of money from the 
income which their own officers collected. 

In local government the distinctive feature of the Norman sys- 
tem is the presence of a set of officers who are public officials, 
rather than mere domanial agents, and are in charge of adminis- 
trative districts of considerable extent. As has been anticipated 
in the account of Norman finance, the chief local officer of the 

188 The nearest paralleb to the Norman grants among the grants of the Capetian 
kings are the gift by Robert I to the church of fitampes of ten sous of ' census de 
fisco regali Stampensi ' {H. F., xi. 579; Soehn6e, no. 73), an<J the grant by Henry I 
to Saint-Magloire of the tithe of the port of Montreuil, where however the tithe of 
the money had already been granted to another monastery and the tithe of beer 
to a third: Tax&i, Monuments historiques, no. 262; Soehnde, no. 33. 

189 Prou, Philippe I, no. 63; A. Luchaire, Louis VI (Paris, 1890), no. 350. 

"0 Cartulaire de Nogent-le-Rotrou, no. 117; Luchaire, Louis VI, nos. 224, 621; 
d. nos. SS7, 628, 630. The Norman grants of wine from the modiatio of Rouen are 
different, being from the proceeds of a toll (levied on every hundred modii) instead 
of from an ordinary storehouse or vineyard. See particularly the Conqueror's 
charter (before 1055) giving Saint-Amand ' decimam mee modiationis de Rotho- 
mago' (ii«ijj»M J in Archives of the Seine-Inf^rieure); apdcf. £. ^. C, xi. 424; Beau- 
r^aire, La VicomU de I'Eau de Rouen (Rouen, 1856), p. 19. For an early Norman 
grant in produce, later paid in money, see the gift of Richard II in Le Prdvost, 
Ewe, ii, 413; or Stapleton, i, p. cxzxvii. 



46 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

eleventh century was the vicomte, and the principal local division 
the vicomUP^ The older Prankish areas, pagus,^^^ centena,^^^ and 
vicaria,^^^ have not wholly disappeared, and in some cases the 
vicaria may have become the vicecomitatus,^^^ but the vicomte is a 
far more important personage than the voyer of neighboring 
lands,"* and the territory which he rules is considerably larger. 
Whether the Norman vicecomes contributed anything more than 
his name to the Anglo-Norman sheriff, is a question to which no 
satisfactory answer can be given until we know more of the func- 
tions of both officials.^'' The vicomte is a military leader, com- 
manding the duke's troops and guarding his castles; "* he is 
charged with the maintenance of order, and may proclaim the 
duke's ban; ''' he collects the ducal revenues for his district, iu- 
cludiag the customary dues from the demesne; '""' and he admin- 
isters local justice in the duke's name,^" assisting the bishop in the 
enforcement of the Truce of God ^"^ and doubtless exercising the 

'" The prevalence of the vicomte as the local division appears from the council 
of Lillebonne, c. i, as well as from the frequent mention of vicomtes in charters from 
all parts of Normandy. 

"* See particularly Le Prfivost, Anciennes divisions territoriaies de la Normandie, 
in M. A. N., xi. 1-59, reprinted in his Eure, iii. 485-544. Cf. Powicke, Loss of 
Normandy, p. 61 ff. 

'" M. A. N., XXX. 668; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 158; cf. Valin, p. 97. 

•" Stapleton, i, p. Ixxxi; ' extra vieriam Belismi,' charter of Robert of Bell£me, 
Archives of the Ome, H. 2150; Denis, Charles de S.-Jtdien de Tours, no. 29. 

'" E. Mayer, Deutsche und franzosische Verfassungsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1899),!. 
357. Their equivalence is implied in Ordericus, ii. 470; and in a charter of the 
vicomte of Mantes in 1117 (Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 57). 

•" For Anjou see Halphen, Moyen Age, xv. 297-325. 

"' Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 292, note. On the Anglo-Saxon sheriff 
see now W. A. Morris, E. E. R., xxxi. 20-40 (1916). 

''' Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pp. 2-3, and pi6ce 34, where N6el the elder holds the 
castle of Le Honmie ' quia vicecomes erat eiusdem patrie.' 

"' Gallia Christiana, xi. 34; Bessin, Concilia, i. 63 (1073). 

Ml Delisle, S.-Sauveur, no. 35; Round, Calendar, nos. 1169, 1170. 

'" See the account in Ordericus of the vicomte of Orbec (iii. 371) and particularly 
the cases at Neaufle ' in curia Roberti Normannorum comitis . . . coram Guil- 
lelmo Ciispino iUius terre vicecomite ' (Le Prfivost, Eure, ii. 506) and ' in curia regis 
Anglorum apud castrum Nielfam ' (BibliothSque Nationale, MS. Baluze, 77, t. 61). 
William Crispin is also mentioned as vicomte of the Vexin in Migne, Patrologia, cl. 
737; and in MS. Tours 1381, f. 25V. See Por€e, Histoire du Bee, i. 178 ff.; J. 
Armitage Robinson, Gilbert Crispin (Cambridge, 1911), p. 13 ff. 

"" Council of Lillebonne, c. i. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 47 

jurisdiction comprised in the consuetiidines mcecomitatusP^ He is 
a frequent attendant at the duke's curia, witnessing charters and 
taking part in the decision of cases,^"^ and he may be specially- 
commissioned to hold a sworn inquest ^"^ or execute the decision 
of the court.""' The office might become hereditary, as in the 
Bessin and the Cotentin,""' but the annual farm was still due and 
the duke's control seems to have been maintained.^"* The evi- 
dence is not sufficient to enable us to define the relations between 
the vicecomitatus and the prepositura in the eleventh century, but 
it seems probable that they were " from the first convertible 
names for the same description of jurisdiction, however qualified 
in extent," *"' in somewhat the same way as the offices of privdt 
and voyer in contemporary Anjou.^^" The scattered prepositi who 
appear in the charters ^" are plainly not men of importance, and, 
as in the case of the thelonearii "'" and gravarii,^^^ the texts do not 
always make it possible to distinguish ducal from baronial agents. 
Beyond certain names of foresters,"* we get no light on the 
forest administration, but it is evident that the ducal forests are 

2<w See above, notes 99, 108, 113. 

2" See below, note 280. 

*'" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65. 

'"^ Archaeological Journal, iii. 6; Le Provost, Eure, iii. 184. 

^'" Stapleton, i, p. Ivii; Lambert, Les anciens vicomtes de Bayeux, in Mlmoires de 
la SocUtS d' Agriculture de Bayeux, viii, 233 ff.; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, ch. i; Valin, 
p. 97; Chesnel, Le Coientin et I'Avranchin, pp. 1 14-134. 

^'" Ordericus implies the removability of the local officials when he says of the 
Conqueror, in 1067: ' Optimosque indices et rectores per provincias Neustrie con- 
stituit ' (ii. 177). 

209 Stapleton, i, p. bd; cf. B. £. C, xi. 402. 

2111 Where the prlvSt is the more important of the two but exercises the same 
functions as the voyer: Moyen Age, xv. 297 ff . For the Capetian pr^dt see Luchaire, 
Institutions monarchiques, i. 209-212, 219-235; Fliche, Le rigne de Philippe I", 
pp. 158-162. 

™ Le Prfivost, Eure, i. 141, 460, ii. 393; Round, Calendar, no. 713; Cartulaire 
de la Trinity de Rouen, nos. 24, 27, 42, 44, 51; Denis, Charles de S.-Julien, no. 29. 

212 Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 66; Pommeraye, Histoire de S.-Amand, p. 79; 
Cartulaire de la TrinitS, no. 16. 

2" Cartulaire de la Triniti, nos. 16, 73, 80; Round, no. 1175; Revue catholique de 
Normandie, vii. 432; Stapleton, i, p. clxxxi. 

2" Round, nos. 1169, 1175; Cartulaire de la TrinitS, nos. 7, 28, 47, 49, 51, 64, 79; 
Le Prfivost, £«re, i. 286, 562; Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 37; M. G. H., Scriptures, 
viii. 401; Revue catholique de Normandie, x. 47. 



48 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

already extensive and important, and are subject to the special 
jurisdiction which goes back to the Prankish forest ban ^^^ and wiU 
develop into the forest code of the Anglo-Norman kings. We hear 
of pleas of the forest,^!* though we do not know by whom they 
were held; such assaults as are lawful elsewhere are forbidden in 
the forests,"" and for offenses against the forest law even priests 
cannot claim their exemption.'"* 

Of municipal institutions before 1066 the surviving evidence is 
exceedingly scanty and imsatisfactory. ' The conspiracy which is 
called a commune ' came no nearer Normandy than Le Mans,^'* 
and the smaU beginnings of less independent forms of urban life 
have left few traces indeed. The men of Rouen traded with Lon- 
don as early as the reign of Ethelred II,""" and had their own 
wharf at Dowgate imder Edward the Confessor; ''"' but we know 
nothing of their form of government before the days of Henry II. 
Caen is an important ducal town under Richard II, and in the 
following half-century lurgi spring up in various parts of the 
duchy ,"='" foreshadowing " the grand scheme of burghal coloniza- 
tion initiated by the Conqueror's tenants-in-chief " in England.^' 

"' Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte, ii. 2, p. 316, iv. 128 ff.; Liebermann, 
UeberPseudo-CnutsConstiiutionesdeForesta,pp. 17, 19; Th.iEaine,Forestis,mArcMv 
fOr Urkundenforschung, ii. 114 ff. (1908); and the searching criticism of C. Petit- 
Dutaillis, in B. 6. C, Ixxvi. 97-152 (1915). The view suggested in the text in 1909 
has been established and more fully developed byPetit-Dutaillis,i«i origines franco- 
normandes de la ' iartt ' anglaise, in Melanges Bimont (Paris, 1913), pp. 59-76; 
cf. his translation of Stubbs, ii. 757-849; and Prou in Journal des savants, 1915, 
pp. 24T-253, 310-320, 345-354- 

"'' Charters of Robert and William for Cerisy, Neustria Pia, p. 431 f. The 
count of Mortain also had forest courts: B. &. C, xi. 444. 

^" Consuettidiries et iusticie, c. 7. 

*'* Council of Lillebonne, c. 8. 

^" Luchaire, Les communes fransaises {igii), pp. 225, 228 f., 252; R. Latouche, 
Hisioire du comte du Maine pendant le X' et le XI' sUcle (Paris, 1910), pp. 88-95. 

^'' Liebermann, Gesetze, i. 232. 

'^' E. de Frfiville, Mimoire sur le commerce maritime de Rouen (Rouen, 1857), 
i. 90, ii. 12; Round, Calendar, no. 109. 

^* See in general G^nestal, La tenure en bourgage (Paris, 1900), especially p. 
233 ff.; and for Caen, the excellent study of H. Legtas, Le bourgage de Caen (Paris, 
1911), p. 39. Robert I is said to have granted at Caen 'unum burgarium ad 
pontum': Appendix B, no. 10 (B). Cf. the ' burgarii Rotomagenses,' ca. 1040, 
in Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. i&bis. 

"" Bateson, E. H. R., xv. 74. 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 49 

Already Conneilles has its leges with such definiteness that they 
can be granted to the new bourg of Auffai,^''* and the laws of 
Breteuil, whatever they may have been at this period, were stiffen- 
ing into form for their triimiphal progress through England to the 
Welsh border and to Ireland.'^* The privileged area of a league 
about a town or castle, the leugata or banletwa, of which we find 
traces in Norman England,^^^ is also found in early Normandy. 
Robert I grants this privilege at Argences: leuvam iuxta morem 
patriae nostrae propter mercatum ipsius Tdllae.^'' Other early ex- 
amples are at Cambremer,^^ Cond^,^^* Conches,^^'' and Lisieux."" 
The league of Brionne is even said to have been measured out at 
Tunbridge with the same rope.'''^ 

The organization of the ducal household can be sketched only 
in provisional fashion until the whole body of contemporary 
charters has been collected and their witnesses critically sifted. 
In general the history of the Norman curia is parallel to that of 
the contemporary Capetian establishment, in which the great 
oflScers emerge during the reign of Henry I and become firmly 
placed under Philip I.'''' Barely known under Richard II and 

^* Ordericus, iii. 42. 

^' Mary Bateson, The Laws of Breteuil, in E. H. R., xv-xvi. Her reconstruction 
of the laws has been criticized by Hemmeon, Burgage Tenure in Mediaeval England 
(Harvard Historical Studies, xx), pp. 166-172. 

'''' Domesday, i. sh-g (Kent), 303b (York); charter for Battle Abbey, new 
Rjrmer, i. 1, p. 4; cf . Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 281 ; Pollock and 
Maitland, i. 583; C. Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 30; Ramsey Chronicle, pp. 214, 224. 

™' Appendix B, no. 10. 

"' Livre noir, no. 21 (1036); cf. nos. 39, 43, 44. 

"' Neustria Pia, p. 42s. ''" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 128. 

^^ Ibid., p. 203; Neustria Pia, p. 385- For later examples see Delisle, ^ude sur 
I' agriculture, p. 40 f.; Round, no. 124; Legras, Caen, p. 38. 

2S2 Robert of Torigni in William of JumiSges, ed. Marx, p. 289. The leuca Brionie 
is mentioned in the Conqueror's charter for Jumieges (Neustria Pia, p. 324; Vernier, 
i. 99) and in a grant to Bee (Porfe, Eistoire du Bee, i. 647). 

'^ See Luchaire, Institutions monarchigues, i. 160 ff.; and particularly the care- 
ful lists in Prou, Actes de Philippe I, pp. cxxxvi-cli; and the discussion in A. Fliche, 
Philippe I", pp. 1 1 2-1 20. The preeminence of the four chief officers is not so 
clear in Normandy, but L. W. Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward (London, 
1907), p. 6, tends to exaggerate the difference between the two courts. Valin, 
pp. 141-151, does not treat this subject in any detail. Round, The King's Serjeants 
(London, igii); is concerned almost wholly with the later period. 



50 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Robert I,^'^ the principal officers of the Norman household are 
already established in the early part of the Conqueror's reign, but 
they are not yet clearly distinguished from lesser dignitaries of the 
same title,^'^ and further study is needed to determine their suc- 
cession, fimctions, and relative importance. Ralph of Tancar- 
ville the chamberlain,^'* Gerald the seneschal,^" and Hugh of Ivry 
the butler ^^^ are familiar figures at William's court; the constable, 

'" ' Rotselinus camberarius,' in original of Richard 11 for Saint-Ouen, before 
1024 {Musie des archives dlpartementales, no. 2 1) ; ' Roztelinus cubicularius,' Lot, 5.- 
Wandrille, no. 12; ' Odo constabularius ' of Richard II, in charter for Jumi^ges in 
Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure (Vernier, i. 40); ' Turoldus comitisse Gunnoiis 
camerarius,' Cartulaire de la Trinity, no. 4. For the rare indications of household 
officers under Robert I, see infra, Appendix C. The mcomtes are more prominent 
than the household officers in the charters of these dukes, e. g., Le Pr6vost, Eure, 
i. 285. 

^" Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 373, note i ; and Schubert's study of the 
imperial household, Mitteilungen des Instituts, xxxiv. 427-501 (1913). 

'^^ Round, nos. 73, ig6, 711, 1165-1167; Le Provost, Eure, iii. 468; Denis, 
ChartesdeS.-Julien, no. 24; Livre noir de Bayeux, nos. 1,5; Cartulaire de la Trinite, 
nos. 7, 38, 39; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 60 f., 68 f., 72, 201, 328; A. Deville, 
Essai historique sur S .-Georges-de-Bocherville (Rouen, 1827), p. 62 (' Radulfus 
autem meus magister auleque et camere mee princeps ') ; cf . Lot, S.-Wandrille, 
no. 14. He appears as late as 1079 according to the Cartulary of Jumieges, no. 22, 
f. 22(cf. Vernier, i. 108), and the office passed to his descendants. 

For other chamberlains see Davis, Regesta, pp. xxiv-xxvi; and the mention of 
Corbuzzo (Cartulaire de la Trinite, no. 75); Robert (Round, no. 87; Gallia Chris- 
tiana, xi. instr. 71); and William (jhid., 67, 71). 

*" For the various seneschals of this period see Vernon Harcourt, pp. 7-21; 
Davis, p. xxiii f.; neither of whom mentions Robert the seneschal, witness to the 
foundation charter of Sigy before 1047 (original in Archives of the Seine-Infgrieure, 
fonds Saint-Ouen; d'Achery, Spicilegium, iii. 400; Pommeraye, Histoire de S.- 
Ouen, p. 460). Examples of two holders of the title in the same document are 
Osbem and Ansfred in Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 13; William Fitz Osbem and Gerald 
in cartulary of Saint-Ouen (286^), no. 338. 

2'' Before 1066: Round, nos. 73, 81, 1167; charter for Jumieges, Vernier, no. 25; 
Pommeraye, S.-Amand, pp. 77, 79; Le Prevost, EAtre, i. 149, 562; La Roque, iii. 
26; Cartulaire de la Trinity, nos. 38, 39. For later instances, see Davis, p. xxvii; 
Round, nos. 91, 93, 421; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 71 f., 329; Sauvage, Troarn, 
p. 456; Collection Moreau, xxx. 190V (1071); Cartulaire de la Trinite, no. 47; 
Archives of the Seine-Inf&ieure, G. 8739 (1075, issued by the Queen during Wil- 
liam's absence in England). Roger of Ivry also was butler: Davis, I. c. Before 
1066 we likewise find ' Giraldus pincema ' in a charter of Fficamp (Collection 
Moreau, xxii. ro9v); ' Girardus comitis botellarius ' (Prfiaux cartulary, no. 438); 
' Gerardus pincemarum magister comitis Willelmi ' {Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 
12; Cartulaire de S.-Pke de Chartres, i. 176). 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 5 1 

though mentioned under Robert I, is apparently of less impor- 
tance,^'' and the marshal is just traceable.^^" Of lesser men of the 
palace the hostiarius is noteworthy.^^i The mention of the cham- 
berlain in fiscal matters ^^^ indicates at least one of his functions; 
whether the seneschalship of Osbem and his son William had any 
connection with their titles of procurator principalis domus, comes 
palatii, and magister militum, is an open question.^*' Whatever 
the duties of the household officers, they do not seem to have had 
any fixed place or order in the ducal charters, where they appear, 
if at all, scattered among the other witnesses who sign these none 
too regular documents.^** 

The clerical element in the household naturally centered in the 
duke's chapel, which was the point of departure for the develop- 
ment of the secretarial and fiscal sides of the central administra- 
tion; but while we have the names of several of William's early 
chaplains,^*^ some of whom became bishops in Normandy or in 

^" Under Robert I the office was held by Turold, under William by Hugh da 
Montfort: infra, p. 275; Davis, p. xxvi. 

^^ Davis, p. xxvi f.; Round, in Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 430. Ilbert 
the Marshal (Cartzdaire de la Trinite, no. 2) may also have been a ducal officer. 

^*i 'Rotgerius hostiarius ' before 1024 (Musee des archives departementales, no. 2 1) ; 
' Turoldus hostiarius ' in 1053 (Cartulaire de la Triniti, no. 37) ; ' Theodericus hos- 
tiarius' before 1060 (Pigeon, Le diocese d'Awanches, ii. 668) ; ' Rogerius hostiarius ' 
(Delisle, S.-Sauveur, no. 41). 

"^ Supra, note 172. 

"^ Vernon Harcourt, pp. ii-is, who, however, argues vainly against William's 
having been seneschal. See below, note 289. To say, as this author says (p. 9), 
that Osbem " was a mere household officer, procurator and dapifer, not an officer 
of state," is to misunderstand the nature of the development. 

^** See however a charter of 1066 in Cartulaire de la Trinite, no. 39, attested by 
WilUam Fitz Osbem, Gerald the seneschal, Ralph the chamberlain, and Hugh the 
butler. Cf. no. 38; Pommeraye, S.-Amand, p. 82; and Mabillon, Annates, v. 593 
(1070). See also Round, no. 1167, printed in Bertrand de BroussUlon, La maison 
de Laval (Paris, 1895), i. 35, a charter of 1055 which is somewhat suspicious. 

2* Theobald, Baldwin (bishop of fivreux in 1066), and Herfast (chancellor after 
1068) witness as chaplains an early charter in Round, Calendar, no. 1165; Delisle, 
S.-Sauveur, no. 19. Other chaplains before 1066 are Robert {Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 327); Stephen (at Mont-Saint-Michel, in 1054, cartulary of Mont-Saint- 
Michel, f. 65? cf. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 159); Gilbert Maminot, later bishop 
of Lisieux (Ordericus, ii. 122); and the Bayeux group mentioned in the following 
note. Isembert had been chaplain of Robert I before he became abbot of La 
Trinitfi: William of JumiSges, ed. Marx, p. 108. For William's later years see 
Davis, Regesta, pp. xviii-xxi; and the long list in no. 22 of his calendar (1068). 



52 ■ NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

England, very little is known of their secular duties. Certain 
churches seem to have been constituted chapelries for the chap- 
lains' support,^** so that the office had some degree of continuity, 
and the ducal clerks of these days show something of the skill in 
acquiring desirable houses and lands which is characteristic of 
their successors in the twelfth century.^^' If the Norman dukes 
had a chancery, it was doubtless closely connected with the 
chapel, so that the absence, save for two charters of Richard 11,''^' 
of any mention of a chancellor before 1066 does not preclude the 
existence of some sort of a chancery. Chancery and chapel were 
not completely differentiated in Frankish days,^*' and at the court 
of Philip I the chancellor sometimes attested simply as chap- 
lain; ^"' while it should be remembered that the Conqueror's first 
chancellor in England, Herfast, had long been his chaplain in 

'*' ' Temporibus Ricardi comitis Normaimie et Rotberti.eius filii et Willdmi filii 
predicti Rotberti fuit quidam eorum capellanus Baiocis Emaldus nomine, potens 
in prediis et domibus infra civitatem et extra civitatem que emerat suo auro atque 
suo argento. Quo mortuo tempore WUlelmi Normannorum duds Stephanus nepos 
predicti Ernaldi iure hereditario successit in hereditatem sui avunculi dono WiUelmi 
Normannorum ducis.' After Stephen's death and a smt in the king's court the 
king ■ accepit in suum dominium possessionem Stephani et dedit earn regine, et 
regina dedit michi concessu regis domes et duodecim acras terre que iam predixi et 
ortos et omnia que habuerat Stephanus de suo alodio, nam alias res eiusdem Stephani 
que pertinebant ad ecclesiam Sancti lohannis que erat capella regis dederat iam rex 
Thome suo clerico nondum archiepiscopo.' Notice of Rainald the chaplain, MS. 
Lat. n. a. 1243, f . 80; MS. Fr. 4899, p. 292; printed in Arckaeologia, xxvii. 26. This 
capellaria was later held by Samson (Livre noir, no. 4), doubtless the royal chaplain 
of that name who became bishop of Worcester in 1096. Both Samson and his 
brother Thomas were canons and treasurers of Bayeux. For other possessions of 
Rainald see Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 69, 328 f .; for his later history, Davis, p. xx, 
and attestations in Collection Moreau, xxix. 89. 

"' Cf. Round, Bernard the King's Scribe, E. H. R., xiv. 417-430. 

'*' ' Hugo cancellarius scripsit et subscripsit ': charter for Fficamp, Musfie de la 
Benedictine, no. 2 ter; Neustria Pia, p. 215; Appendix B, no. 5. ' Odo cancellarius 
scripsit et subscripsit ': charter for Dudo of Saint-Quentin, Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 284; NowieoM traiU de diplomatique, iv. 225, v. 760. The charter of ion for 
Saint-Ouen (Pommeraye, Histoire de S.-Ouen, p. 422) which contains the words 
' Dudo capellanus composui et scripsi ' is an evident forgery; but an authentic 
charter of 1006 for Fecamp (Mus6e, no. i ; Appendix B, no. 2) has ' ego Wide 
notarius iussu domni Richardi illustrissimi ducis . . . hoc testamentum scrips!.' 

'*' On the whole subject of the Frankish chapel see Liiders, Capella, in Archit 
fUr Urkundenforschung, ii. i-ioo; Bresslau, Urkundenlehre^, i. 406 £F. 

»"• Prou, Actes de Philippe I, p, Iv, 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 53 

Nonnandy,'" where he is called chaplain as late as 1069, appar- 
ently after his entrance upon the English chancellorship.''^^ On 
the whole, however, under William as under his father, a chancery 
seems to have been lacking in fact as well as in name before 1066. 
Few of his charters bear a chaplain's, attestation, and only one 
mentions its author, a certain * Frater Robertus ' who seems to 
have been a monk of Saint-Wandrille.*^' Something remains to be 
done in the palaeographical study of the few extant originals, but 
in general there is no regularity of type, and local authorship is 
indicated by the style of the duke's documents and by the fre- 
quency with which he is content to aflSx his signature to the char- 
ters of others.^'* There is no trace or mention of a ducal seal.^^^ 
After the Conquest, the existence of a chancery is well established, 
and it seems plain that the English tradition, such as it was,"' 

sH Davis, p. xvi. 

'^ Round, no. 77, dated 1069, whereas, if we accept the authenticity of no. 22 
in Davis, he is chancellor in 1068. So Osmund, chaplain in 1074 (Davis, no. 76), 
may have borne the title of chancellor in the preceding year {ibid., no. 70). Davis, 
p. xvii, seems to me too rigid in denying the impossibility of such an alternation of 
title, which meets us two generations later under Geoffrey Plantagenet (infra, 
Chapter IV, p. 137). 

'^ ' Ego frater Rodbertusscripsietsubsctipsi': original in MS. Lat. 16738, no. 4; 
Lot, S.-WandrUle, no. 20 (1037-1055). Cf. ' Robertus scriptor ' in a charter for 
Saint-Amand (Pommeraye, Histoire de S.-Amand, p. 78) ; ' Rodbertus clericus ' in 
an early charter for Jumifiges (Vernier, no. 20); 'Godbertus clericus' in Le Prfivost, 
Emtc, i. 562 (1063).' 

2" For a convincing illustration, see Lot, S.-Wandrille, nos. 30 and 31 (1051), 
and the editor's notes. Another example, also an original, is in M. A. N., xxx. 670 
(Round, no. nog). On the absence of clear evidence for a Norman chancery be- 
fore the Conquest, see Stevenson, in E. H. R., xi. 733, note 5; and compare the 
interesting observations of Pirenne on the documents of the counts of Flanders, 
M&anges Julien Havet, pp. 733-748. 

266 The mention of William's seal in the notice of the foundation of Cherbourg 
{Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 229; Revue catholique, a. 47) must be taken with cau- 
tion. In any case the date is long after 1035, the year indicated by Stevenson, 
E. E. R., xxvii. 4, note, who remarks the absence of any Norman seals anterior to 
1066 save the one of Richard II described by the authors of the Nouveau traits, 
iv. 226. 

^' For the external history of the Anglo-Saxon chancery, see Davis, pp. xi- 
xv; for the conditions under which documents were drawn up, Hubert Hall, 
Studies in English Official Historical Documents, p. 163 ff. See also Stevenson, in 
E. H. R., xi. 731-744. The subject is far from being exhausted; one of the necessary 
topics of investigation is the private charters of the period, studied region by region 
and monastery by monastery, 



54 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

strongly asserted itself. There is no reason for assuming more 
than one such bureau for William's dominions, indeed the hy- 
pothesis of a ' Norman chancery ' ^*' runs counter to all that we 
know of the essentially personal relation of king and chancellor 
at this time and for long thereafter; and writs fly in either direc- 
tion across the Channel.^^ A regular succession of chancellors can 
now be traced,^^' but their documents have yet to be subjected to 
the close diplomatic examination which alone can determine the 
influence of Anglo-Saxon precedents, the survival of local author- 
ship, and the actual processes of the chancery. Until the more 
abundant English evidence has been more adequately utilized, 
Norman investigation must perforce wait. 

Of the curia in the wider sense before 1066 it is likewise impos-' 
sible to speak with the definiteness which it deserves as ajn ante- 
cedent of the EngKsh curia regis. A comparison of the names of 
the witnesses to William's charters does not show any great degree 
of fixity in his entourage. The bishops, when present, sign after 
the members of the ducal family. Then comes a smaU group of 
counts and men of high rank — the coimts of fivreux and Mor- 
tain, Roger of Beaumont, Roger of Montgomery, William Fitz 
Osbem — followed by household officers, vicomtes, and others.^" 
These are the elements which constitute the curia, but their func- 
tion is attestation rather than assent, and, except for the few 
cases where the charter is expressly declared to be issued in such a 
gathering,^*^ it is impossible to say when the primates or proceres 

26? Davis uses this ill-advised phrase, p. xviii f. Note the presence of the king's 
chancellor Osmund af Bonneville in Davis, no. 70, and, still on the Continent, in 
nos. 76 and 114. 

^ ' Rex WiUelmus . . . mandavit de Normannia in Angliam episcopo Con- 
stantiarum et R. de Oilli per breves suos ': Round, Feudal England, p. 157; cf. 
Textus Rofensis, ed. Heame, p. 145. For an example o£ such a writ see Davis, no. 
98. A letter from WilUam in England to Matilda in Normandy is assumed in 
Delisle, S.-Sauveur, no. 35 (Round, no. 11 70), and one is printed in Revue catholigue, 
X. 348 (Round, no. 117s; Davis, no. 161). The writ of summons is mentioned in 
Normandy, ca. 1077: 'per me vel per brevem meum abbatem summoneam' 
{Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 66; Davis, no. 105). 

"" Davis, pp. xvi-xviii. 

'" On the curia under Robert I see the analysis of the charters in Appendix C. 
On resemblances to the Prankish conventus, Tardif, Stude sur les sources, i. 6. 

'" Hariulf, ed. Lot, p. 185; MartSne and Durand, Thesaurus, i. 252; Ordericus, 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 55 

have met as an assembly. Beyond the old custom of holding an 

assembly at Fecamp at Eastertide,^^^ our knowledge of the duke's 

itinerary is too fragmentary to show any such regularity in the 

court's meetings as we find in England after the Conquest.^^' The 

curia was brought together for purposes of counsel on matters 

which ranged from a transfer of relics ^^^ to the invasion of Eng- 

land,^^^ and for judicial business. As a judicial body the charters 

reveal its activity chiefly in cases concerning a monastery's title 

to land 2*^ — for the duke's protection naturally carried with it 

access to his court — but it plainly has wider functions growing 

out of the judicial supremacy of the duke. It may try barons for 

high crimes.^" Disputes respecting the limits of ecclesiastical 

and baronial jurisdiction must be brought before it,^^* and it is the 

ii. 40. Cf . what Maitland has to say of the ' consent ' of the witan, Domesday Book 
and Beyond, pp. 247-252. 

262 WiUiam of Jumieges, ed. Marx, p. 340; Lot, Fideles ouvassaux?, p. 262. We 
find an Easter court at Fecamp in 1032 (Ordericus, iii. 223) ; 1028 or 1034 (Appendix 
B, no. 7); ca. 1056 (Round, no. 1109); 1066 (Le Prfivost, Eure, i. 149); 1067 
(Duchesne, Scriptores, p. 211); 1075 (Ordericus, ii. 303); 1083 (MS. Rouen 1193, 
f . 3ov) . No place is mentioned in Cartulaire de la TriniU de Rotien, no. 82, issued at 
the Easter court of 1080. The great privileges of Richard II for the Norman mon- 
asteries were granted at a curia held at Fficamp in August (Neustria Pia, pp. 215, 
398; Le Prevost, Eure, i. 285; Appendix B, no. s), and Robert I held a curia there 
in January, 1035 (Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 327). 

26* The scanty list in CoviEe, Les Etats de Normandie (Paris, 1894), p. 250 f ., is 
based solely on the chroniclers. William's itinerary after 1066 (Davis, p. xxif.) 
shows how little Norman evidence there is for Valin's assertion (p. 103) that the 
three assemblies were held regularly each year. Now and then there is evidence 
of the duke's presence at Rouen at or near Christmas: 1032 (Migne, Patrologia, 
cbdi. 1165 f .) ; IOS4 (Round, no. 710) ; 1070 (? Davis, no. 56) ; 1074 (ibid., no. 75). 
Liebermann, The National Assembly (HaUe, 1913), p. 82, considers the three assem- 
bUes in England as ' a French novelty ' of the Conqueror. See, however, L. M. 
Larson, The King's Household (Madison, 1904), p. 200 f. 

2** Acta Sanctorum, February, i. 193 (Richard I). 

266 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii. (1875) 290 ft. 

266 ' Si per illam calumniam damnum aJiquod ipsi monachi habuerint, duas 
reclamationes in mea corte vel curia faciant:' Robert I for Fecamp, Appendix B, 
no. 7. See Delisle, S.Sauveur, nos. 35, 36, 42; HariuU, ed. Lot, p. 224; Cartulaire 
de la Trinite, no. 82; Ordericus, ii. 310; DeviUe, Analyse, p. 20; Round, Calendar, 
nos. 78, 116, 165, 711, 712, 1114, 1170-1172, 1190, I2I2. On certain of these cases 
cf. Davis, p. xxix. 

26' Ordericus, ii. 433. Cf . the case of the abbot of Saint-fivroul, ibid., ii. 81 ; and 
Round, no. 713. 

»68 Council of Lillebonne, end. 



56 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

obvious place for the settlement of other difficulties between the 
greater tenants, so that it may even be agreed that a case shall be 
respited until it can come before the duke.^^' The curia is a place 
of record for agreements,^'" and may itself order a sworn record to 
be made and attested.^'! It may send officers to partition land.^'* 
Evidence is secured by oath,^" ordeal,^'* and the wager of bat- 
tle,"^ and it is altogether probable that the sworn inquest was 
employed.^'^ Where the accoimt is at all explicit, we usually find 
certain members rendering the decision of the court, sometimes 
merely as Urteilfinder after the case has been heard before the 
whole curia,^'' sometimes as a separate body before which the 
proceedings are conducted."* This does not necessarily involve 
any stability of organization or specialization of fimction, but 
there are indications that more of a beginning had been made in 
this direction in Normandy than, for example, in the neighboring 
coimty of Anjou."' Among the men who act as judges we reg- 
ularly find one or more bishops and a vicomte,"^" members of the 

'^' ' Est in respectu donee coram rege,' 1070-1081, supra, p. 22. The passage is 
somewhat obscure (cf. Round, Calendar, no. 714), but the meaning of coram rege is 
plain. 

'"' Round, nos. 713, 1171 (of 1063, printed in BertranddeBroussillon,i<j maison 
de Laval, i. 38), and the charter cited in the preceding note. Cf . the following, from 
a charter of William as duke: ' Me petierunt canonid precepique ut coram Geraldo 
dapifero meo firmaretur eorum conventio, quod factum est.' A. Deville, Essai 
historique sur S .-Georges-de-Bocherville, p. 71. 

''"■ Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65 (Davis, no. 117). 

272 Valin, piSces, no. i (= Archaeological Journal, iii. 6), xmder Richard 11; Le 
Provost, Ewre, iii. 184 (1066). 

™ Liwe noir, no. 21; M. A. N., xv. ig6, xxx. 681. 

2" Bertrand de Broussillon, La maison de Laval, i. 39 (Round, no. 1172); Or- 
deiicus, ii. 433; Mimoires de la SociitS d' Agriculture de Bayeux (1845), iii. 125; 
Archaeologia, xxvii. 26; Lot. S.-WandriUe, no. 39. 

2" Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 37 (Round, no. 165). 

"' Brunner, Schwurgerichte, p. 270; Pollock and Maitland, i. 143; Valin, p. 200. 
The existence of the sworn inquest has mainly to be inferred from its appearance in 
England shortly after the Conquest and in Normandy in the twelfth century. See 
infra, Chapter VI. 

"' Round, no. 1190. On this practice see G. B. Adams, in Columbia Law Review, 
April, 1913, note 30. 

"" Delisle, S.-Sauveur, nos. 36, 42; Round, no. 11 14; Pigeon, Le diocise d'Av- 
ranches, ii. 673. 

'" For Anjou see Halphen, in Revue historique, Ixxvii. 282. 

!»» Delisle, S.-Sauveur, nos. 13, 35, 36, 42; Round, no. 1190. The bishops are 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 57 

two classes which had most occasion to become acquainted with 
the law, and while we do not yet hear of a body of justices and a 
chief justiciar, it is not impossible that something of the sort may 
have existed. At the very begioning of William's reign the bishop 
of Bayeux makes complaint before the archbishop of Rouen, 
Count Odo of Brittany, Neal the vicomte, aliique seniores iusticiam 
regni obtinentes ;^^^ in a case between 1055 and 1066 the judges are 
Robert, count of Mortain, the archbishop, the bishops of Evreux 
and Lisieux, and the abbot of Fecamp; 2*2 in three other cases 
the archbishop of Rouen and Roger of Beaumont appear among 
the judges.^*' In 1077 Lanfranc, who had attended the dedication 
of Saint-Etienne a fortnight earlier, heard a plea between Osbem 
Giffard and Abbot Wimam,^^* doubtless by special order of the 
duke. Bishop Geoffrey of Coutances, described by his biographer 
as immersed in the business of the king and the curia,^^^ is found 
in three of the small niunber of charters where the names of the 
judges are given,^*' and it would not be surprisigig if he served a 
Norman apprenticeship for his work as judge and Domesday 
commissioner in England.^*' It is clear that, contrary to Free- 
man's view of the exclusion of ecclesiastics from the Norman 

prominent in Rovind, no. 78; in no. 1114 the bishops and abbots are the judges; 
in no. 116, two abbots and five laymen. The curiae in which the vicomte appears 
may in some cases have been local. Cf. note 201. 

2" Liwre noir, no. 21; Delisle, S.Sauveur, no. 13. Delisle, p. 3, considers these 
men to have been regents; Stapleton, i, p. xxiv, note o, calls them justiciars. Cf. 
G. B. Adams, in Yale Law Journal, April, 1914, note 39. 

282 Pigeon, Le diocdse d'Awanches, ii. 673. 

'8* Roimd, nos. 78, 1190; Archaeologia, xxvii. 26. Cf. Mabillon, Annates, v. 

593- 

28* Deville, Analyse, p. 20. We have no record of the writ xmder which he 
acted, but we have (Davis, no. 98) one of the same year addressed to him in Eng- 
land. 

286 Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 219. 

286 Delisle, S.Sauveur, nos. 36, 42: Round, no. 78 (Davis, nos. 92, 123, 132); all 
subsequent to 1066. In the first two instances he is at the head of the body. The 
writ in Round, no. 464 (Davis, no. 97), evidently relates to England and not to 
Normandy, for an examination of the original in the Archives of the Calvados 
shows that the archbishop's initial is not J but L (i. e., Lanfranc). 

287 On his work in England see Round, Feudal England, pp. 133-134, 138, 157, 
460; Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 375; Adams, The Local King's Court in the 
Reign 0} William I, in Yale Law Journal, April, 1914, 



58 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

curia,^^^ the bishops took an active part in its proceedings, and it 
is probably among them, rather than in the office of seneschal, 
that we should seek the origin of the English justiciarship.^*' So, 
while there is not much evidence for the sending of special justices 
to hold a local court, the Norman origin of this practice " is not 
likely to be questioned." ^^^ 

In this sketch of Norman institutions under the Conqueror it 
has been necessary here and there, especially in studjdng the 
curia and the judicial supremacy of the duke, to use evidence later 
than 1066, and just to that extent the possibihty exists that the 
result is vitiated by influences from England or by the changed 
conditions of the Conqueror's later years. Wilham reigned fifty- 
two years in Normandy, and this long period must have seen 
notable changes in the institutions of the duchy, changes which 
we are no longer in a position to trace as a whole, even to the 
extent of contrasting the earlier and the later years of the reign. 
All that is now possible is to seek to indicate at each point the 
dates of the individual bits of evidence used. But while there was 
development imder William, we do not know to what extent 
there was innovation ; and, scanty as are the earUer sources, they 
indicate that much of the account would hold true of the reign of 

288 Norman Conquest, i (1877). 174, iii (1875). 290. 

^*' Stubbs's view of the derivation of the justiciarship from the seneschalship 
Q. c, i. 37s) has also been criticized by Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward, pp. 
11-18, but on the untenable ground that William Fitz Osbem " was never dapifer 
to William." In addition to the statements of the chroniclers, which Harcourt 
seeks to explain away, Fitz Osbem witnesses as dapifer, along with the dapifer 
Gerald, in a charter for Saint-Ouen (Collection Moreau, xxii. iiov, from the original; 
Cartulary of Saint-Ouen, in Archives of the Seine-Inf&ieure, 2&bis, no. 338), and 
issues a charter for Saint-Denis in which he styles himself ' ego WUlelmus Osbemi 
filius consul at dapifer Willelmi Anglorum regis ' (Archives Nationales, LL. 1158, 
p. SQo). For the genealogy of the family see Revue catholique de Normandie, xix. 
261. A William Fitz Osbem, apparently a canon of Rouen, attests in 1075 (Archives 
of the Seine-Infgrieure, G. 8739). On the English justiciars in this reign see Davis, 
p. xxviii. 

^»<' Adams, in Yale Law Journal, April, 1914, p. 18. The clearest cases are the 
inquest held at Caen 'iuxta preceptum regis' by Richard, vicomte of Avranches, 
1070-1079 (Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65; Davis, no. 117), and the ordeal held 
at Bayeux ' precepto regis ' and reported to the king 1067-1079 {Archaeologia, 
xxvii. 26). 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 59 

Robert I and even of that of Richard H.^'^ Under Robert there 
was feudal tenure; probably also military service had been 
assessed, at least upon the monasteries. Under his father, besides 
the survivals of the older phrases of immunity, there are specific 
grants of ducal Jurisdiction. Already the duke has a camera and 
distinguishes between his regular and irregular sources of income, 
already he makes permanent grants from the revenue of his 
toUs and vicomtes. He has certain household officers, even in 
two instances a so-called chancellor who disappeared with him, 

'" For the sources concerning Robert I, see Appendix C. The principal charters 
of Richard II, few of which throw light on the institutions of the period, are as 
follows: 

Doiaiicium ludithe: MartSne and Durand, Thesaurus, i. 122. Cf. Dotalicium 
Adele: d'Achery, Spicilegmm (Paris, 1723), iii. 390. 

Bemai, foundation, August, 1025 (1027). Neustria Pia, p. 398; Le Provost, 
Eure, i. 284. On the date see Appendix B, no. 5. 

Chartres cathedral. D'Achery, iii. 386; Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de Chartres, 
ed. Lepinois and Merlet, i. 85. 

Saint-Pfere de Chartres. Three charters: Cartulaire, ed. GuSrard, i. 92, 93, 106; 
the original of the third is in MS. Lat. 9221, no. 4. 

Fecamp. Three charters, all original. See Appendix B, nos. 2, 3, S- 

Jumieges. (i) General confirmation: cartulary 22 in Archives of the Seine- 
Inf^rieure, f. 7; vidimus of 1499 and 1529 in the same archives; copy in MS. Lat. 
n. a. 1245, f. 16s; substance in confirmation of Henry II, Neustria Pia, p. 323; 
Monasticon, vii. 1087; Delisle-Berger, no. 527; on the date see Appendix B, no. 5. 
(2) Attests exchange with Saint- Vaast: Pfister, Robert le Pieux, no. 72. (3) Attests 
grant of Albert, abbot of Micy: original in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure; Ma- 
biUon, Vetera Analecta, p. 431; Bry, Histoire du Perche, p. 51. (4) Confirms priory 
of Longueville, 1012: Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 283. These four charters are now 
pubhshed by Vernier, nos. 12 (cf. in), 10, 9, 7. 

Lisieux cathedral. M. A. N., xiii. 9; H. de Formeville, Histoire de l'Svich6-comt6 
de Lisieux, i, p. ccccxlii; V. Hunger, Histoire de Verson, pieces, no. 2. 

Marmoutier. Delisle, S.-Sawveur, no. 3; Reime catholigue, vii. 423; the original 
is noted in B. S. C, xvii. 405. 

Mont-Saint-Michel, (i) Appointment of HUdebert as abbot, 1009: original in 
Archives of the Manche, H. 14982; Martfene and Durand, Thesaurus, i. 124. (2) 
Grant of Verson, etc.: cartulary, f. 22v; Archives Nationales, JJ. 66, no. 1494; 
M.A. N., xii. 108; Round, no. 701. (3) Grant of Saint-Pair, etc.: cartulary, f. 20; 
JJ. 66, no. 1493; MabiUon, Annales (1739), iv. 651; Round, no. 702; Neustria Pia, 
p. 378; jlf. j4.iV., xii. 109. (4) Attests charter of his mother Gonnor: M.A.N.,-m. 
108; 'DeMsle,S.Sauveur, no. 2; Round, no. 703. 2-4inHunger, Verson, nos. 1, 3, 4. 

Saint-Ouen. Various originab in Archives of the Seine-InfWeure and copies 
in Collection Moreau, xviii, and MS. Lat. 5423 (many of the early documents are 
false). See, in part, MusSe des archives dipartemenMes, no. 21; Chevreux and 



6o NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

and he holds his court at Fecamp at Easter and other great 
occasions.^'^ 

If, in conclusion, we try to summarize the constitution of Nor- 
mandy on the eve of the invasion of England, certain features 
stand out with reasonable clearness. The organization of Norman 
society is feudal, with the accompaniments of feudal tenure of 
land, feudal military organization, and private justice, but it is a 
feudalism which is held in check by a strong ducal power. The mil- 
itary service owing to the duke has been systematically assessed 
and is regularly enforced. Castles can be built only by the duke's 
license and must be handed over to him on demand. Private war 
and the blood feud are carefuUy restricted, and private jurisdic- 
tions are restrained by the reserved jurisdiction of the duke and 
by the maintenance of a public local administration. The duke 
keeps a firm hand on the Norman church, in the matter both of 
appointments and of jurisdiction. He holds the monopoly of 
coinage, and is able to collect a considerable part of his income in 
money. The administrative machinery, though in many respects 
still primitive, has kept pace with the duke's authority. His local 
representative, the vicomte, is a public officer and not a domanial 
agent; his revenues are regularly collected; and something has 
been done toward creating organs of fiscal control and of judicial 
administration. The system shows strength, and it shows or- 
ganizing power. In some directions, as in the fixing of military 
obligations, this organizing force may have been at work before 
the Conqueror's time, but much must have been due to his efforts. 

Vernier, Les archives de Normandie, no. i; Mart^ne and Durand, i. 121; Le Prfi- 
vost, Eure, ii. 164, 413; Pommeraye, Histoire de S.-Ouen, p. 403 ff. 

Saint-Quentin, 1015. H6m6r6, Augusta Viromandorum, p. 107; Gallia Chris- 
tiana, xi. instr. 284; Nouveau traiU de diplomatique, iv. 226 f. 

Saint-Riquier. D'Achery, Spicilegium (1723), ii. 332; Haritilf, ed. Lot, p. 185. 

Saint-Wandrille. Lot, S.-Wandrille, nos. 9-12. 

Sfiez cathedral. Attests charter of William of Bellfime: library of Alenson, MS. 
177, f. 28; MS. Lat. 11058, f. 2. 

Grants are cited for Montivilliers {Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 326) and Saint- 
B6nigne of Dijon (Le Provost, Eure, ii. 323; Analecta Divionensia, ix. 175; Deville, 
Analyse, p. 34). 

2« Note particularly the large number of witnesses to the charter for Bernai, 
among others all the bishops of the province and thirteen vicomtes: Le Prfivost, 
Eure, i, 284, 



WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 6l 

Stark and stern and wrathful, whether we read of him in the 
classic phrases of William of Poitiers or in the simple speech of the 
Old English Chronicle, the personahty of WiUiam the Conqueror 
stands out preeminent in the midst of a conquering race, but it 
does not stand alone. .The Norman barons shared the high- 
handed and masterful character of their leader, and the history of 
Norman rule in southern Italy and Sicily shows that the Norman 
genius for pohtical organization was not confined to the dukes of 
Rouen.^'^ It was in England, however, that this constructive 
talent found its chief opportunity, and there, as in Normandy, 
the directing hand was that of the sovereign, who, like his fol- 
lowers, fovmd a wider field for qualities of state-building which 
he had already shown at home. 

The organization of England by the Normans and the problem 
of the extent of Norman influence upon its government form no 
part of our subject, but must be left, after this attempt to fill in 
the Norman background, to the historian of English institutions. 
Of him we may, however, ask that he proceed with due regard to 
the interaction of Normandy and England during the union 
which continued, with scarcely an interruption, for nearly a 
century and a half after 1066, and to the parallel constitutional 
development of the duchy which it is the purpose of the following 
chapters to examine. 

"" The Norman kingdom of Sicily lies beyond the limits of the present volume. 
I have tried to sketch its European position in my Normans in European History, 
chapters 7 and 8; and I have discussed certain of its institutions in E.H.R., xxvi. 
433-447, 641-665. See also my paper at the Millenary Congress, Quelques prob- 
lemes de I'hisioire des institutions anglo-normandes (Rouen, 1911), pp. 7-10; and infra, 
Chapter III, p. in f., Chapter VI, pp. 232-234. 



CHAPTER II 

NORMANDY UNDER ROBERT CURTHOSE AND 
WILLIAM RUFUS 

The strength of the Conqueror's system of government in Nor- 
mandy was to be severely tested during the reign of his son Robert 
Curthose.i Whatever amiable and knightly qualities contem- 
poraries were willing to ascribe to Robert, no one appears to have 
considered him a strong or even a prudent ruler, and his indo- 
lence, instability, and easy-going irresponsibihty soon earned for 
him such epithets as the soft duke, the lazy duke, and the sleepy 
duke. Lack of governance was writ large over his reign, and its 
results are set forth in the gloomy picture of the state of Nor- 
mandy drawn by the fullest of contemporary narratives, that of 
Ordericus Vitalis.^ It is a dreary tale of private war, murder, and 
pillage, of perjury, disloyalty, and revolt, for which the good 
monk finds a parallel only in the worst days of Israel. Destruction 
fell especially upon the peasants and upon the possessions of the 
church: " that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm 
eaten, and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the cater- 
pillar eaten." ' And when the nuns of Holy Trinity at Caen came 
to reckon up their losses year after year in land and cattle and 
produce and rents and men, their matter-of-fact summary is more 

' There is no modem account of this period of Norman history. The sketch of 
Robert Curthose by G. LeHardy, in the BtUletin de la Social des Antiquaires de 
Normandie, x. 1-184 (1882), is partisan and quite inadequate; at my suggestion 
a critical biography is being prepared by Charles W. David, of the University of 
Washington. Freeman's William Rufus is useful for the narrative history of the 
period. 

' Ed. Le Provost, iii. 261, 289-291, 351, 357, 412, 463. 473. 47S f-, iv. 98 f., loi, 
106, 163, 172, 178-182, 192, 199 f., 206, 219-221, 227 f.; and his verses in Annuaire- 
Bulletin de la SociStS de I'histoire de France, 1863, ii. 1-7. See also William of 
Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, pp. 460, 462, 473 f.; and cf. Freeman, William Rufus, 
i. 190, 19s, ii. 367 f., 394; and Sauvage, Troarn, pp. 21 f., 71. 

' Ordericus, iii. 357. 

62 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 63 

eloquent of the Norman anarchy than are many pages of the 
chronicler: * 

Willelmus comes Ebroicensis ex quo rex Willelmus finivit aufer[t] Sanct§ 
Trinitati et abbatissg et dominabus .vii. agripennos vineg et duos equos et 
.XX. solidos Rotomagensium nummorum et salinas de Escrenevilla et uno- 
quoque anno .xx. libras de Gauceio et de Bavent. Ricardus filius Herluini 
duas villas, Tassilei et Montboen. Willelmus camerarius filius Rogeri de 
Candos decimam de Hainovilla. Willelmus Baivel .xx. boves quos sumpsit 
apud Osbernivillam. Robertus de Bonesboz eandem viUam depredavit. 
Robertus de Uz terram de .iiii. puteis et de Cierneio. Willelmus Bertrannus 
duos vavasores et eorum decimam et .v. solidos quoque anno apud Colum- 
bellas. Ricardus de Corceio .iui"'. libras et .xx. oves. NigeUusde OUIei .ii. 
boves. Rogerus de Avesnes in equis et in denariis et in aliis rebus .viui. 
libras. Robertus PantoK in denariis et in aJiis rebus .vi. libras. WUlelmus 
ludas .XX. soKdos. Rogerus dispensator et Rogerus de Scutella .xi. boves et 
.ii?' equos et predam de Folebec, et homines vxUneravenmt et verberaverunt 
in pace. Robertus de Molbrai .Ixviii. libras quoque anno post mortem regis. 
Eudo vicecomes .xx. boves. Adelofdus camerarius episcopi Baiocensis ter- 
ram de Anglicivilla. Ranulfus vicecomes Ricardus de Corceio .xv. Kbras 
de terra de Grandicampo, et Ranulfus idem et iii. boves et .ii. equos de 
Duxeio et de Aneriis et .v. acros annone in Aneriis et decimam de BoiviUa. 
Ingelrannus prata de Grai. Comes Henricus pedagium accepit de Chetel- 
hulmo et de omni Constantino et super hoc facit operari homines Sanctg 
Trinitatis de eadem viUa et patria ad casteUa suorum hominum. Alveredus 
de Ludreio aufert Sanct§ Trinitati tres boves apud Teuvillam et terram de 
eadem villa devastat. Et WiUehnus de Veteri ponto prata de predicta viUa. 
Et Huhnum aufertur Sanctf Trinitati iniuste. Adeloldus predictus cam- 
erarius episcopi aufert annonam de Grandicampo et quamplures ahas. Hugo 
de Redeveris aufert .v. modios vini et vineam quoque anno ad Vernun. 
Fulco de Aneriis .i. equum et viii. solidos et iii. minas de favis et omnem 
terram devastat ita quod nullus ibi lucrari potest. Willelmus Bertrannus 
accepit de OsbertiviUa duos boves et postea viros misit in carcerem. Willel- 
mus de Rupieres accepit boves et porcos domne abbatissg et homines super 
terram eius interfecit. Idem Willelmus pecuniam metatoris abbatissg de 
Ruwres accepit et annonam fecit inde ferri et apud Ranvillam duos viro[s] 
interfecit et complures vulneravit; et item Robertus de Guz aufert ei unum 
equum apud Monboen. Hugo Paganus aufert abbatissg silvam de Salan et 
sacerdotem verberavit in pace, et Willelmus Gernun silwam incidit et evellit 
quantimi potest. Ranulfus f rater Igeri saisiavit terram abbatissg super hoc 
quod ipsa sibi terminum respondendi dederat et inquirendi si deberet ei inde 
rectum facere. Brenagium autem interrogant et Rainaldus Landun et alii 
ministri abbatisse et monent eam placitare. Inde Robertus de Genz aufert ei 

* Cartulary, MS. Lat. 565°) f- 39V-40V. The list of excommunicates in the 
Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, ed. H. A. Wilson (London, 1903), p. 166, which 
seems to belong to this period, may be connected with depredations on ecclesiastical 
lands. 



64 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

terram de Donmaisnil et annonam inde tulit et oves et boves et alia miilta, et 
vi adhuc detinet. Et Radulfus de Cortlandun ponit terrain abbatissg in 
gravatoria' et vi vult ibi earn tenere, quod nunquam fuit amplius. 

Such a record shows the weakness of the duke as well as the 
sufferings of the duchy. Many of the barons were in more or less 
constant revolt, others were easily bought away from him. Many 
of his own castles were denied him, and adulterine strongholds 
sprang up.^ Even on these conditions Robert held but a part of 
Normandy. Prince Henry ruled Domfront and the Cotentin 
during a good part of this reign; King William won over the lands 
east of the Seine and proved a serious menace elsewhere.' Even 
the nominal unity of the duchy was lost. 

Amidst these narratives of confusion and revolt there is small 
place for the machinery of govermnent, and we are not surprised 
that the chroniclers are almost silent on the subject. Robert's 
reliance on mercenaries * shows the breakdown of the feudal ser- 
vice, which may also be illustrated by an apparent example of 
popular levies; * his constant financial necessities i" point to the 
demoralization of the revenue. The rare mention of his cwria" 
implies that it met but rarely. Still, these inferences are negative 
and to that extent inconclusive, and even the detailed account of 
Ordericus is largely local and episodic, being chiefly devoted to 
events in the notoriously troubled region of the south, and is also 
colored by the sufferings and losses of the church. Only from 
documentary evidence shall we get a wholly impersonal view of 
the ducal government. 

First of all, there is something to be leanled from the statement 
of ducal rights under the Conqueror, the so-called Consueltidines 
et iusticie, drawn up under the joint auspices of Robert and Wil- 
liam Rufus in the summer of 1091.1' Just as the coronation char- 

' Du Cange, s. v., cites only this passage. 
" Cf. the Fficamp charter, Appendix E, no. 4c. 

' Note also the cession of Gisors to Philip I as the price of his aid against William : 
Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 18; Fliche, Le r^gne de Philippe I", p. 293. 
' Ordericus, iii. 266 f.; cf. William of Malmesbury, Gesla Regum, p. 468. 
' Ordericus, iii. 415. 

"I Ibid., iii. 267, iv. 105; cf. Wace, lines 10927 ft. 
"■ Ordericus, iii. 297, 303, 381. 
" Appendix D. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 65 

ter of Henry I offers the best picture of the abuses of the Red 
King's reign in England, so this inquest reflects the history of the 
preceding four years in Normandy. But whereas the English 
record shows the strength of government, the Norman shows its 
weakness: Henry I promises to refrain from abuses of royal 
authority, the Norman prince seeks by appeal to ancient prece- 
dent to recover power that has slipped from his hands. Of the 
ducal rights which the Conqueror upheld maxime et mriliter, only 
a portion is here recorded, but these are evidently chosen with 
reference to the existing situation — quia magis necessaria sunt. 
They point to the usual evils of a weak rule in this period, private 
war, private castles, and private coinage; emphasizing the body 
of restrictions upon private war which had been_ so carefully 
built up under Robert's predecessors with respect to the duke's 
court, army, and forests, and the actual conduct of hostilities 
'between his barons, and asserting the right of the duke to take 
over his vassals' castles and prevent the building of new ones. 
The whole reads like a legal commentary on the narrative of 
Ordericus. 

Another commentary, this time ecclesiastical, can be read in 
the canons of the council held at Rouen in February 1096, as a 
preliminary to the First Crusade.^' These are concerned chiefly 
with the enforcement of the Truce of God, aheady established in 
Normandy and recently reenacted by the council of Clermont, 
but requiring amplification because of the weakness of the lay 
power." AU men from the age of twelve upward were required to 
take an oath to observe its provisions and to give military aid 
for their enforcement; and anathema was pronounced against 
counterfeiters and brigands and aU who might give them aid or 
comfort. The protection of the farmer at his plow, a bit of old 
Scandinavian custom, received ecclesiastical sanction.!^ All 
churches were to hold their property as they had held it under the 
Conqueror. Excellent decrees, says Ordericus,'^ but of little profit 
to the peace of the church because of the failure of the duke's 
justice. At best, however, the council of Rouen was but a pale 

1* Ordericus, iii. 470-4^3. ^^ Cf. Chapter I, note 106. 

" Cf. supra, Chapter I, note 147. " iii. 473. 



66 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

reflection of that of Clermont: it left untouched the problem of 
celibacy and the lay investiture of bishops and abbots, and placed 
no obstacle in the way of the shameless simony and corruption of 
Robert's dealings with ecclesiastical oflftces. The case of the bish- 
opric of Lisieux, taken over by Ranulf Flambard for his own 
minor son, and later sold to William of Pad, is a particularly 
flagrant instance.'' 

Best of all, however, if we can but read it aright, is Robert's 
own conmientary as written in the ducal charters of his reign. As 
the only surviving acts of sovereign power, these show us the 
ducal government in action and tell their own tale of localism and 
weakness. Those of which we have knowledge are the following, 
which are here arranged by the ecclesiastical establishments for 
whose benefit they were issued: '* 

1. Bayeux cathedral. 24 April 1089, at Vernon. Various specific 
grants. Lime noir, no. 4; extract in Delisle, Saint-Sauveur, pieces, no. 44; 
Roimd, no. 1433 ; Davis, no. 308. Trigan, Hisioire eccUsiasUque, m. 402, cites 
the original. 

2. Bayeux, Saint-Vigor. 1089, at Eu. Confirms the restoration of the 
monastery, its possessions, and the rights of the bishop over it. Livre noir, 
no. 6; Livre rouge, nos. 104, 105, where ' Guillebnus camerarius ' is added to 
the witnesses; J.-F. Faucon, Essai historique sur le prieur6 de Saint-Vigor-le- 
Grand (Bayeux, 1861), p. 213; Round, no. 1434; Davis, no. 310. 

3. Bayeux, Saint- Vigor. 24 May 1096, at Bayeux. Attests charter of 
Bishop Odo granting Saint-Vigor to Saint-B6mgne of Dijon. Apparent 
original (A) and early copy containing additional material (B) in Ardiives of 

" See Bohmer's account of the Norman church under Robert, Kirche und Stoat, 
pp. 142-146; and his study of Serlo of Bayeux, in Neues Archiv, xxii. 701-738. 
The case of Turold, bishop of Bayeux, deposed for irregularities by Paschal 11 in 
1 107, should be added. See Dom G. Morin in Revue d'histoire ecclisiastigue, v. 
284-289; and W. Tavemier's biographical investigations in Zeitschrift fiir fran- 
zosische Sprache und Litteratur, xxxvi-xlii. For Odo of Bayeux, see further Bour- 
rienne, in Revue cathoUque de Normandie, vii-x. On the investiture question, see 
further the bull of Paschal II published by Levison, in Neues Archiv, xxxv. 427-431 ; 
B. &. C, kxi. 465. 

*' For Robert's attestation to a charter of William Rufus for Durham during 
his visit to England in 1091, see Davis, Regesta, no. 318. For a charter of iioo- 
1106 confirming his brothers' grants to Bath Priory, see Two Chartularies of the 
Priory of St. Peter at Bath, ed. Hunt (Somerset Record Society, 1893), i. 47, no. 
44. It must be remembered that the mention of 'Robertus comes' in a notice 
may refer also to the period before his father's death; e. g., Lot, S.-Wandrille, 
pp. 98-100, where I am inclined to see Robert Curthose rather than, with Lot, 
Robert coimt of Eu. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 67 

the C6te-d'0r, where a cartulary copy (no. 43) of B has inserted a confirma- 
tion by Bishop Phihp d'Harcourt at the end. Printed in E. P6rard, Recueil 
de prices servant d, I'histoire de Bourgogne, p. 206 (B) ; U. Plancher, Histoire de 
Bourgogne, i, preuves, xxxii (B); Migne, Patrologia, civ. 475 (B); GalUa 
Christiana, xi. instr. 76 (B); Faucon, Saint-Vigor-le-Grand, p. 216 (A); 
Reme catholique de Normandie, x. 280 (translation from A, with some variants 
from B). Cf. Analecta Divionensia, ix. 200-202. 

4. Bayedx, Saint-Vigor. 24 May 1096, at Bayeux. Confirms Odo's 
grant of the same date." Original in Bibhotheque municipale at Bayeux, 
litres scell6s, no. 9, with fragments of applied seal; copy of the twelfth cen- 
tury in cartulary in Archives of the Cote-d'Or, no. 44. Revue catholique, x. 
283 f. ( = V. Bourrienne, Odon de Contemlle, p. 132), from original; date only 
in Ordericus, ed. Le Prdvost, iii. 265, thence in Davis, no. 376. 

5. Beauvais, Saint-Lucien. 14 July 1096, at Rouen ' in capitulo.' 
Assents to charter of Stephen, count of Ainnale, granting Saint-Martin d' 
Auchy. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 19, apparently from lost original. Ac- 
cording to the Inventaire sommaire, the Archives of the Oise possess only a 
late mention of this document in H. 1302. 

" As the inaccurate reproduction of the dates of these charters has given rise to 
lumecessary confusion, it may be worth while to print them exactly: 

Odo A: 'Anno ab incamatione domini .m.xc.vi? indictione .iiii* concurrente 
.vii° epacta .xxriii? xviiii? anno prindpatus domni Roberti VuiUemi regis Anglorum 
filii ducis Normannie hgc cartha confirmata est et sigillo suo signata. Actum 
publice Baiocas mense maio die xx iiii. viiii kal. iunii luna .xxvii.' 

Odo B : ' Anno ab incamatione domini .mxcvi. indictione .iiii? concurrente .ii? 
xviiii. anno piincipatus domni Roberti WiUelmi regis Anglorum fiKi ducis Norman- 
nie hec carta confirmata est et sigiOo suo signata. Actum publice Baiocas mense 
maio die .xxiiii? eiusdem mensis .viiii kal. iunii luna .xxvii? feria septima bissextili 
anno.' 

Robert: ' Aimo ab incamatione domini .m°xc?vi° indictione .iiii? concurrente 
.vii? epacta .xx^^iiif .x°viiii? anno principatus Rotberti Guillelmi regis Anglorum 
filii ducis Normannis hjc carta firmata est et sigillo suo signata. Actum publice 
Baiocas mense maio die .xx iiii. viiii. kal. iunii luna .xx*vii? ciclo decennovennali 
.x°iiii? EGO HUGO DIVIONENSIS gCCLESIE MONACHUS lUSSU EIUS- 
DEM ROBERTI DUCIS NORMANNIE SCRIPSI ET SUBSCRIPSI VICE 
CANCELLARII RODULFI.' 

The different elements in the date are in agreement throughout save in the case 
of the concurrent, which is wrongly given as seven in Robert's charter and the first 
version of Odo's, but is corrected to two in the second form of Odo's charter. It is 
noteworthy that all agree in dating Robert's reign from 1077-1078. In Robert's 
charter the x of the year of the incarnation has been almost entirely rubbed out, 
either by time or by some one who attempted to bring it into agreement with the 
generally known date of Robert's accession, and this has misled some writers into 
assigning the document to 1106 (B. jS, C, xlviii. 175 f.; Remie catholiqiie de Nor- 
mandie, X. 282-285). The original at Bayeux, however, still shows traces of the x, 
which is required not only by the remaining elements of the date but also by the 
witnesses. The epact in Odo A may have been corrected at the time, as the v is 
faint. 



68 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

6. Bec. [1087-1089.] Attests charter of Roger of Beaumont for the 
priory of Beaumont-le-Roger. Cartulary in Bibliotheque Mazarine, MS. 
1212, no. i; MS. Lat. 13905, f. 6v; Collection du Vexin, iv. 165, xi. 256 
(with a fuller list of witnesses than the cartulary). E. DeviUe, Le cartulaire 
de Beaumont-le-Roger (Paris, 1912), no. i; Le Prdvost, Ekire, i. 205; Round, 
no. 368. 

7. Bec. February 1092. Confirms the grants of his father and mother on 
behalf of the church of fimendreviUe (Saint-Sever, seat of the priory of 
Notre-Dame-du-Pre) and adds the tithe of the hay of his park at Rouen. 
Original, in poor condition, with crosses and evidently never sealed, in 
Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, /owrfi Bonne-NouveUe; copy in MS. Lat. n. 
a. 124s, f. 34; extracts in MS. Lat. 12884, ff- 79V, 85. Neustria Pia, p. 613, 
from a copy; La Roque, iv. 1328; translated in Farin, Histoire de la mile de 
Rouen (1731), ii*. 151*. The witnesses, incompletely given in the editions, 
are: 'Willelmi Rotomagensis archiepiscopi, Rodberti comitis Nonnannorum, 
Eustachii comitis Boloniensis, WiUekni episcopi Dunehnensis, Willelmi de 
Wativilla, Roberti de Monteforti, Roberti comitis Mellentensis, Willelmi 
Bertranni, Ba[lduini?] filii Ans[chetilli] de BeUomonte, Simonis dapiferi, 
Eu[do]nis filii Turstini de Constantino, Gisleberti filii Bernardi, Roberti filii 
Alwardi.' 

8. Bec. [1091-1092.]'"' Attests grant of privileges and jurisdiction by 
Archbishop William. Lanfranci Opera (Paris, 1648), p. 332; Migne, Patro- 
logia, cl. 552; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 17. Dom Jouvelin-Thibaut, in MS. 
Lat. 13905, f. 52, corrects the printed text and adds the important list of wit- 
nesses: ' Rotberti comitis Normannie, Willelmi archiepiscopi Rothomagensis, 
Gisleberti Ebroicensis episcopi, Gaufridi episcopi Constantiensis, Willelmi 
episcopi Dimelmensis, Odonis episcopi Baiocensis, Serlonis episcopi Sagien- 
sis, Benedicti archidiaconi, Fulberti archidiaconi, Girardi archidiaconi, Gisle- 
berti scolastici, Rogeri secretarii, Ricardi filii Willelmi, Rogeri fratris abbatis 
Cadumensis, Giraldi abbatis S. Wandregisili, Hugonis abbatis Cerasiensis, 
Nicholai abbatis S. Audoeni, Willelmi abbatis CormeUensis, Gisleberti 
abbatis Cadumensis, Fulconis abbatis de supra Diva, Willelmi Ebroicensis 
comitis, Gisleberti Crispini, Rotberti de Monteforti, Rotberti comitis de 
Mellent, Guillelmi Crispini, Radulfi de Conchis.' 

9. Bec. [1087-1096.] Attests various gifts of Gerard de Gournay. 
Poree, Bec, i. 338 f. 

10. Bec. [1087-1096.] Present at grant of freedom of toll and customs by 
William of Breteuil, attested by Robert, count of Meulan, and Eustace, coimt 
of Boulogne. Fragment of cartulary. Archives of the Eure, H. 91, f. 75. 

11. Bec. Confirms foundation of priory of Envermeu. "La premiere 
charte d' Henry P' n' est qu' une confirmation de ceUe de Robert, sous qui la 
fondation du prieur6 a d<i 6tre faite ": Dom Jouvelin-Thibault in MS. Lat. 
13905, f. 8ov; cf. Por6e, Bec, i. 427, note 3. 

12. Bec. Grants to Bec one-half of Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle and the 
church of Saint-fitienne-l'AUier. Mention in charter of Henry II: Delisle- 
Berger, no. 624. 

2° The fatal illness of Geoffrey of Coutances dates from August 1092, in which 
year also Fulk of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive seems to have been deposed. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 69 

13. Caen, Saint-fitienne. tShortlyafter 1087.] Grant of Vains(Manche). 
Appendix E, no. i. 

14. Caen, Saint-fitienne. [1091, probably.] Confirms exchange between 
Abbot Gilbert and William de Tornebu. Mention in Deville, Analyse, p. 3 1 ; 
cf. p. 27. 

15. Caen, Saint-fitienne. [1091, probably.] Joins with William Ruf us in 
confirming this exchange. Modern copy, evidently incomplete, in MS. Lat. 
1713s, P- 12; MS. Lat. n. a. 1428, f. 3V. Mention in Deville, p. 31. 

16. Caen, Saint-fitienne. [1089-1091.] Witnesses, with William of Saint- 
Calais, bishop of Durham, and others, a charter of Hugh Painel granting to 
Saint-fitienne two-thirds of the tithe of Fontenay-le-Pesnel. MS. Lat. 17135, 
p. 23, from the original, now lost; MS. Caen 108, f. lov, from lost cartidary; 
modern copy in Archives du Calvados. 'De-vi\le, Analyse, p. 32 ; cf . C. Hippeau, 
L'abbaye de Saint-£tienne de Caen (M. A. N., xxi, and Caen, 1855), p. 41. 

17. Caen, Saint-fitienne. [1096.] Attests exchange with Dijon. Appen- 
dix E, no. 2, from original. 

18. Caen, Saint-fitienne. [1101-1104.] Grant of market at Cheux (Calva- 
dos). Appendix E, no. 3, from original. 

19. Caen, La Trinite. [1087-1091.] Grant, with the consent of his brother 
Henry, of lands and rights near Caen and a market at Ouistreham (Calvados) . 
MS. Lat. 5650, f . 34V. Printed by Stapleton in Archaeological Journal, iii. 26 ; 
Round, no. 423, omitting some of the witnesses; Davis, no. 324. 

20. Fecamp. 7 July 1088. Restores various lands, with approval of his 
brother Henry. Appendix E, no. 4a, from original. 

21. Fecamp. [After 7 July 1088.] Grant of fair at Fecamp. Appendix E, 
no. 4b, from original. 

22. Fecamp. [1089-iogi] at F6camp. Renewal of preceding grants and 
seisin by ' hoc hgniun.' Appendix E, no. 4c, from original. 

23. Fecamp. [Before 1091.] Grant of land of Hugh Mursard. Appendix 
E, no. 5. 

24. Jumieges. 30 March 1088. Attests with his brother Henry charter of 
Ralph Fitz Anser6 granting Beaunay and its appurtenances and the tithe 
of AnneviUe-svur-Seine (? Seine-Inf6rieure). Appendix E, no. 6, from 
original. 

25. Jumieges. [1091-1095] at Lisieux. Attests grant of'fitables (Seine-In- 
flrieure) by Ralph Fitz Anser6 and invests therewith 'per h'gnimi.' Appen- 
dix E, no. 7, from original. 

26. Le Mans, Saint- Vincent. Grants tithe of his revenues in the castle of 
Fresnay-sur-Sarthe. Martene and Durand, Veterum Scriptorum Amplis- 
sima Collectio, i. 568; Cartidaire de Saint-Vinceni-du-Mans, ed. Charles and 
Menjot d'Elbenne, no. 532. 

27. Makmoutier. 1091. Grant of Ertald in Guernsey, ' procurante 
Rotlaerto comite Normannie.' MS. Lat. 5441, part 1, p. 199. Roimd, no. 
1179; extract in Dupont, Histoire du Cotentin, i. 466, no. 6. 

28. Mont-Saint-Michel. 1088. Grant of a fair at Ardevon (Manche) 
and a house lot at Rouen. Original in MS. Lat. n. a. 1674, no. 2; cartulary at 
Avranches, MS. 210, f. 8ov; MS. Lat. 5430A, p. 256. Published, with fac- 
simile, by Delisle, La commimoration du Domesday-Book d Londres (Paris, 



70 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

1886); text in Annuaire-Bulletin de la Sociite de I' histoire de France, 1886, 
pp. 177-184; Round, no. 717; Davis, no. zgg. 

29. Preaux. [1087-1095.] Attests grant in Saint-Cyr-de-Salerne (Eure) 
by Roger de Beaumont. Cartulary in Archives of the Eure, H. 711, no. 388. 
Le Prevost, EMre, iii. 97. 

30. Pbjeaux. [1087-1096.] Consents to grant of church and tithe of Le 
Bosgouet (Eure) by Robert of Meulan. Cartulary, f. 130V. Le Prevost, 
Eure, i. 378; cf. Delisle-Berger, no. 675. 

31. RoTiEN cathedral. 15 August 1095 at Rouen. Grants his right of ier- 
nagium in Pierreval (Seine-Inf6rieure) . Cartulary, in Bibliotheque de Rouen, 
MS. 1193, ff. 47, iisv; copy therefrom in MS. Lat. n. a. 1246, f. 66; vidimus 
of 1422 in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieuie, G. 3680. La Roque, iii. 34, from 
the original now lost; [Pommeraye], Histoire de I'iglise cathedrale de Rouen 
(Rouen, 1686), p. 57° (mention); Round, no. 2; Davis, no. 384. Round, 
followed by Davis, omits the year from the date. 

32. Rouen cathedral. 1096. Grants to the church and its canon William 
Fitz Ogier the possessions of Osbert the priest and his sons in Neaufles-Saint- 
Martin (Eure). Pretended original in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, G. 
4069; vidimus oi 1422, ibid., G. 3680; copy in cartulary, f. 47. Printed, with 
a slight omission, in Inventaire sommaire, imder G. 4069. 

33. Rotten, La Trinit6. 1091. Attests agreement between Abbot Walter 
and Ralph of Bee concerning the tithe of Amfreville-la-Mi-Voie (Seine- 
Inferiemre). A. Deville, Chartularium Monasterii Sanctae Trinitatis, no. 83; 
Davis, no. 317. 

34. RotTEN, Saint-Ouen. [Before 1092.] Present at exchange temp. 
Abbot Nicholas. Cartulary 2&bis in Archives of. the Seine-Inferieure, p. 487, 
no. 597. Robert was also present at the translation of relics 29 April 1090: 
Normanniae Nova Chronica (M. A.N., xviii), p. 8. 

35. SAiNT-fivROUL. [1087-1102.] Confirms grant of Walter, son of Gou- 
bert of Auffai, and grants a fair at Notre-Dame-du-Parc (Seine-Inf6rieure). 
Mentioned by Ordericus, iii. 40. 

36. Saumtir, Saint-Florent. [1093] at Bonneville. Notice of suit in 
Robert's curia between Lonlai and Saint-Florent, followed by sealed char- 
ter of protection addressed to Serlo, bishop of S6ez. Livre blanc of Saint- 
Florent, in Archives of the Maine-et-Loire, f. 116. Ed. Marchegay, ui 
M.A.N., XXX. 682; Roimd, no. 1115; Davis, no. 342. 

37. Sfez, Saint-Martin. Confirms and attests grant of tithe of rents in 
Argentan by Arnulf, son of Roger of Montgomery. Livre blanc, copy in MS. 
Alengon 190, f. 73V; MS. Fr. 18953, P- 27. 

38. Vend6me. 1094. Attests charter of Ivo TaiUebois granting Cristot 
(Calvados). C. M6tais, CarUdaire de la Triniti de Venddme, ii. 90, no. 351; 
cf. iii. 42. 

39. Vend6me. 1094. Attests gifts in Audrieu (Calvados). Ibid., ii. 90, 
no. 352. 

Before subjecting this material to diplomatic study, we may 
note certain general facts of significance. First of aU, the total is 
small, only thirty-nine charters, notices, and attestations for a 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 7 1 

reign of fifteen years (1087-1096, 1100-1106), only seven more 
than can be identified from the hand of Robert's grandfather, 
Robert the Magmficent,^! who reigned less than eight years and 
at an epoch when the documentary habit was much less well 
established. It may be that later times were indifferent to pre- 
serving charters of Robert Curthose, but it is even more likely 
that his own age was not eager to secure them. As confirmation 
at his hands counted for little, none of these charters consist of 
general liberties or comprehensive enumerations of past grants; 
they are all specific and immediate. Furthermore, so far as can 
now be seen, the surviving documents are aU authentic; privi- 
leges of the Conqueror, Henry I, or Henry H were worth fabricat- 
ing, but no one seems to have thought it worth while to invent a 
charter of Robert. Chronologically, Robert's charters fall, with 
only one certain exception, in the period before his departure for 
the Crusade, and within this period almost wholly either in the 
first years of his reign, when there were late grants of his father to 
confirm or new matters to settle, or in the year of his departure, 
when certain final dispositions received his sanction; the lack of 
documents after his return from the East is suggestive of his polit- 
ical impotence. Geographically considered, the charters concern 
chiefly central Normandy, where Robert was strongest; at the 
beginning of the reign they reach as far as Mont-Saint-Michel on 
the one hand and Fecamp and Jumieges on the other, but for the 
most part they concern Bee, Preaux, and the region of Caen 
and Bayeux which was Ms last refuge. The southern border 
is represented by single grants for Saint-Evroul and Saint- 
Martin of Seez, but it is noteworthy that in the detailed list 
of Saint-fivroul's acquisitions in this period no mention is 
made of the duke's confirmation or consent.^'' Likewise sig- 
nificant is the absence of any evidence of the duke's supremacy 
in Henry's region of the Cotentin.^^ The fact that five of these 

'1 See the list in Appendix C. 

^ See the roll of ca. 1090-1098 printed in the appendix to Ordericus, v. 182- 
195. His consent, however, is mentioned by William de la Fert4-Mac6 in a 
giant of 1093: Denis, Les chartes de S.-Julien de Tours, no. 45. 

^ See, however, for the bishop of Coutances, Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 221. A 
charter of Ranulfus de Podiis for HfiauviUe, Mid-Lent 1093, is granted ' tempore 



72 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

charters''* contain grants of markets or fairs is also symptomatic 
of Robert's careless disregard of valuable rights. 

Of the thirty-nine documents only seventeen, less than one- 
half, are issued in Robert's name, the others being either notices 
of his acts or documents of his barons attested by him. Of the 
whole number ten at least are preserved in originals, three, that is, 
of the attested documents (nos. 3, 24, 25) and seven (nos. 4, 7, 18, 
20, 21, 22, 28), possibly eight (no. 32), of Robert's own charters. 
The material is not abundant, yet it is sufficient to permit of 
drawing certain conclusions respecting his chancery and his gov- 
ernment. The documents which are presented to him for attesta- 
tion were naturally drawn up by the interested parties, but in the 
case of the duke's own charters it is natural to look for something 
of the regularity and system which we find in the chancery of the 
Conqueror's later years or of their contemporary Philip I.^' If we 
fail to discover this, we shall have convincing evidence of the 
weakness of the administrative organization. 

Externally, the originals of Robert's charters present no uni- 
formity in size, handwriting, or mode of authentication. Each of 
the seven is in a different hand; only one (no. 28) has the fij-st line 
in capitals. Five of the duke's charters announce the apposition of 
his seal (nos. i, 2, 22, 31, 32), which is mentioned in two of the 
other documents (nos. 3, 36) ; but only two of the surviving orig- 
inals preserve traces of the seal, no. 4, to which it was applied, 
and nos. 20-22, the three charters for Feaunp, which were tied 
together by a strip of white leather, secured by a large seal of 
grayish wax. On neither of these seals can anything be distin- 

Roberti Normannorum comitis ' (BibliothSque de Grenoble, MS. 1402, f. 233; cf. 
Reime catholique de Normandie, vii. 438), but a bare reference of this sort is quite 
different from a recognition of Robert's authority such as is involved in his attes- 
tation. For such references elsewhere see the charter of William, son of William 
Fitz Osbem, for Lire, in Le Pr6vost, Eure, i. 356; a grant to Marmoutier ' tempore 
Philippi regis et Rotberti comitis Normannorum,' MS. Lat. 5441, part 2, p. 87; 
and a grant to Prdaux, Round, no. 321. 

" Nos. 18, 19, 21, 28, 35. 

"^ No thorough study has been made of the diplomatics of William I; cf . supra, 
Chapter I, p. 53 f.; and the Facsimiles of Royal and other Charters in the British 
Museum, ed. Warner and Ellis. For Philip I, see the introduction to M. Prou, 
Recueil des actes de Philippe I". 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 73 

guished, nor has any loose seal survived. No. 18 has a long tag 
projecting from the parchment of the charter, but no seal is 
aimoimced nor is there now evidence that one was attached. 
No. 28 shows incisions such as were later made for a double queue, 
but there is no evidence that these were contemporary, no seal 
being announced in the document, and the crosses being evidently 
regarded as sufficient. Nos. 20 and 21 were evidently sealed only 
after no. 22 was issued and attached to them; nos. 7 and 32 were 
never sealed. In every case the signatures of the duke and the 
principal witnesses are accompanied with crosses, and it is clear 
that this was considered the regular and essential form of valida- 
tion. Another indication of the small weight attached to Robert's 
seal is seen in the importance assigned to the accompanjdng in- 
vestiture ' per lignum ' in the text of two of his charters (nos. 22, 
25) and ' per unum cultellum ' in another (no. 31), forms which 
suggest that the ducal charter did not differ fundamentally from a 
private agreement. 

The style of the charters shows the greatest variety. The duke 
entitles himself dux Normannorum (nos. 4, 18, 31), dux Norman- 
norum et comes Cenomannensium (nos. 1,2), dux Normannorum ei 
princeps Cenomannorum (no. 13), Normannorum atque Cenoman- 
norum princeps (no. 19), Normannie princeps et Cenomannorum 
comes (no. 26), gratia Dei princeps Normannorum (no. 7), Dei 
gratia dux et princeps Normannorum (nos. 20, 21), Dei gratia Nor- 
mannorum dux (no. 28), Normannorum comes (no. 32). In no. 7 
he is also filius Willelmi gloriosi regis Anglorum, in no. 28 filius 
Willelmi gloriosissimi Anglorum regis, in nos. 19, 31, and 32, filius 
Willelmi regis Anglorum. He witnesses as comes simply in nos. 
20, 22, 25; as comes Normanniq, in nos. 3, 8, 18, 24, 28; as comes 
Normannorum in nos. 7 and 17 (here also filius Willelmi regis 
Anglorum); and as dux Normannorum in nos. 4 and 16. Nos. 4, 
13, 18, 20, 28, 32 begin with an invocation to the Trinity; nos. 7, 
19, 21, 22, 31 omit it. The date is often left out and, when given, 
usually appears somewhere in the text. Only the charters for 
Bayeux (nos. i, 2, 4) have a full dating clause at the end; only 
these have a well developed preamble.^^ The resemblances of 
'* But cf . also no. 26, which has a preamble and is incomplete at the end. 



74 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

style in this group of charters and the similarities between nos. 
13 and 18 for Saint-fitienne point directly to local authorship, 
while in general the range of variation in style and form precludes 
the existence of an effective chancery and indicates that the 
duke's charters were ordinarily drawn up by the recipients. 

This conclusion is not invalidated by the occasional mention of 
a ducal chancellor or chaplain; it might even be argued that a 
government which pretends to have a chancery and yet makes no 
regular or efifective use of it is in a weaker position than one which 
frankly depends on others for its secretarial work. The charter of 
1088 for Mont-Saint-Michel (no. 28), one of the most formal and 
regular of Robert's charters, has at the end of the list of witnesses 
' Signum R. capellani R. comitis,' in the same hand as the names 
of eight other witnesses, not including the duke, but in a different 
hand from that of the body of the charter. Apparently this was 
drawn up by the monks, the attestations being left to the duke's 
secretary. Unfortunately for purposes of comparison, we have not 
the originals of the other documents in which this chaplain takes 
part. In one of these, the charter for La TrinitS of Caen, 1087- 
1091 (no. 19), we find ' Radulfus capeUanus de Airi ' in the body 
of the document, and ' Signum Radulfi capellani ' among the 
attestations along with other officials of the ducal household. By 
15 August 109s in a charter for Rouen he has become ' Radulfus 
cancellarius ' (no. 31), a dignity which he still holds in 1096, when 
he so attests in another charter for Rouen (no. 32) and when Hugh 
of Flavigny signs ' vice cancellarii Rodulfi ' " (no. 4). Another 
chaplain-chancellor is found at the same time, Arnulf of Choques, 
ranking below Ralph, since he appears as chaplain in the charter 
of 109s in which Ralph is chancellor,^' but called chancellor in 
1093 and 1094 by a monk of Bee who mentions him as the duke's 
messenger and intermediary.^' It is Arnulf, formerly tutor of the 

^' See the date, above, note 19. His name suggests the clerks under Henry II, 
infra. Chapter V, note 133. 

28 Presentibus . . . Radulpho cancellario meo Einulfo de Cioches capellano 
meo' (no. 31). 

2° Deliberlate Beccensis ecdesie, in Mabillon, Annates (Lucca, i74o),v.6o3; Vita 
Wilklmi teriii abbatis, in Migne, cl. 718; Porfie, Bee, i. 243-245. ' Turgisus capel- 
lanus regis ', who became bishop of Avranches in 1094, attests no. 38 in that year. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 75 

duke's sister Cecily, who accompanies Robert as chaplain on the 
Crusade and rises to fame as patriarch of Jerusalem.^" 

Speqal interest attaches to the signature of Hugh of Flavigny 
in the charter of 24 May 1096, confirming as it does Hugh's 
chronicle and throwing light on the mission of Gerento, abbot of 
Saint-Benigne of Dijon, to England and Normandy. Freeman,'^ 
it is true, relates this episode " not without a certain misgiving " 
because of the silence of " our own writers," especially Eadmer; 
but there is nothing save insular prejudice to throw doubt on the 
narrative of Hugh, who, having accompanied his abbot on the 
journey, tells of the mission to England, toward the close of 1095, 
for the purpose of arranging peace between William Rufus and 
Robert and securing reforms in the English church, and of the 
sojourn in Normandy until the autumn of 1096, when they 
journeyed with the crusaders as far as Pontarlier. There is, more- 
over, excellent charter evidence for Gerento's presence in Nor- 
mandy in the interval, for he arranges and attests (no. 17) an 
exchange of possessions with Gilbert, abbot of Caen, completed 
in the presence of Duke Robert, and also attests the duke's char- 
ter of 1096 for Rouen cathedral (no. 32), probably issued at 
Rouen. His name appears here in company with that of Bishop 
Odo of Bayeux,*^ and it was doubtless during Gerento's visit to 
Normandy that preparations were made for the grant of Saint- 
Vigor to Saint-Benigne, as accomplished by the charters of the 
bishop and duke (nos. 3 and 4) issued at Bayeux 24 May 1096. 
As for Hugh, his chronicle refers repeatedly to his visit to Nor- 
mandy, and specifically to Rouen and Bayeux, where he spent 
some time,'' while the documents show him attesting as ' Hugo 
capellanus ' the exchange between the abbeys of Dijon and Caen, 
and subscribing Robert's charter confirming the grant of Saint- 

2° Historiens occidentaux des Croisades, iii. 281, 302, 604, 665, iv. 232; Gesla 
Francorum, ed. Hagenmeyer, p. 481 f . ; Moeller, in M&anges Paul Fredericq (Brussels, 

1904), PP- 194-196- 

^ William Rufus, ii. 588 f . See, however, F. Liebermann, Anselm von Canterbury 
und Bugo von. Lyon (Hanover, 1886), p. 16. On Hugh's life and writings, see the 
preface to the edition of his Chronicle in M. G. H., Scriptores, viii. 

82 On Odo's visit to Dijon, see the chronicle of Saint-B6mgne, d'Achery, Spicile- 
gium, ii. 39s; Analecta Divionensia, ix. 200-202. 

35 viii. 393, 47S (general); 369, 399, 407 (Rouen); 394, 482 (Bayeux). 



76 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Vigor to Saint-B^nigne. Written in a more formal hand than the 
autograph of Hugh's Chronicle,"^ this ducal charter shows many 
points of difference from its Norman contemporaries. It takes 
over, it is true, certain phrases from Robert's earlier charter for 
Saint- Vigor, but the foreign authorship appears in the penal 
clause, the elaborate date, and the pretentious signature of Hugh, 
' vice canceUarii Rodulfi,' in elongated capitals. As Ralph him- 
self never claims a share in drafting the documents which he wit- 
nesses, this form of subscription is simply a further illustration of 
the preparation of Robert's documents by the parties interested 
in the transaction rather than by his own officers. 

The disintegration of the chancery is accompanied by a corre- 
sponding decline in the ducal curia. The lists of witnesses do not 
show any great amount of continuity in the duke's entourage, stiU 
less any clearly marked official element. The archbishop of 
Rouen and the bishops of fivreux, Bayeux, and Lisieux appear 
fairly often, those of Coutances and S6ez rarely, the bishop of 
Avranches not at all. William of Saint-Calais, bishop of Dur- 
ham, who is said to have been intrusted by Robert with the 
administration of all Normandy,'^ attests six times (nos. i, 2, 7, 8, 
16, 38) during his Norman sojourns (io8'9-'io94), and his succes- 
sor Ranulf once in the latter part of the reign (no. 18). Of lay- 
men, the most frequent witnesses are Robert, count of Meulan, 
William, count of fivreux, Robert of Montfort, William of Bre- 
teuil, Wilham Bertran, Enguerran Fitz Ilbert, faithful to Robert 
to the end, when the men of Caen drove him forth in 1105,'' and 
William of Arques, a monk of Mol^me whom Ordericus places 

** See the facsimile, from the MS., now MS. Phillipps 142 in Berlin, in Scrip- 
tores, viii. 284; a modem reproduction would yield clearer results for purposes of 
comparison. It would also be interesting to compare this charter with contempo- 
rary documents for Dijon and other monasteries with which Hugh was connected. 
The handwriting of the exchange with Caen resembles closely that of the chronicle 
and the Saint-Vigor charter; if not the work of Hugh, it must have been written by 
one of the other monks of Dijon, two of whom sign here with Hugh and the abbot. 

»' ' A Roberto fratre regis, comite Normannorum, honorifice susceptus, totius 
Normannie curam suscepit ': De iniusta vexatione Willelmi, in Simeon of Durham, 
ed. Arnold, i. 194. Cf. Simeon, ii. 216, where, as C. W. David has shown (£. H. R., 
xxxii. 384), this statement is carried over to Odo of Bayeux. 

" Ordericus, iv. 219. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE yy 

among the chief counselors of Robert's earlier years as duke.'' 
Of household ofl&cials '* we have only the merest mention of Roger 
of Ivry, butler of the Conqueror and still bearing this title in 1089 
(no.i); William (of Tancarville) the chamberlain, (nos. 2, 18, 19); 
Roger Mau-Couronne 'dispensator' (no. 19) ''; Simon 'dapifer' 
(no. 7); and Turold ' hostiarius ' (no. 19). The bare mention of 
one or two mcomtes ^'' is the only evidence of the persistence of the 
local administration, while respecting the fiscal system the sources 
are entirely silent.*^ Once, and once only, do the charters mention 
a meeting of the ducal curia, namely in a narration of the demeles 
of the abbot of Lonlai and the monks of Saint-Florent, Saumur, 
respecting the priory of Briouze.*^ A term was fixed at the duke's 
court at BonneviUe-sur-Touques toward the close of December 
1093, 2^^ °^ ^^ appointed day Robert ordered his bishops and 
nobles to do right in the case. Upon the abbot of Lonlai and his 
monks making default, the duke sent a mandate of protection 
under seal to the bishop of Seez, in whose diocese the priory lay, 
and through him also ordered the abbot to respect the rights of the 
monks of Saint-Florent. If the original documents in this suit had 
been preserved, they would supply one of the noteworthy gaps in 
the documentary materials of the reign, the absence of any writs 
or mandata, whether executive or judicial. The mention of some- 
thing of the sort in this instance saves us from the hasty inference 
that nothing of the kind then existed, an argument from silence 
which could in any event hardly be justified in view of the 
chances against the preservation of these smaller and more fugi- 
tive bits of parchment. Nevertheless, it cannot be without signi- 

'' Ordericus, iii. 322, 354. Cf. Delisle's note in Anmuaire-Bulletin, 1886, p. 182; 
Bulletin de la SocUti d'histoire de Normandie, a. 5. 

'' Roger de Lassi, ' magister militum,' is known to us from Ordericus, iii. 411, 
iv. 180. Cf. Sauvage, Troarn, p. 88 f. 

'* Cf. Round, nos. 424, 666; supra, p. 63. 

*° Nos. I, 28. Note, however, no. 13 and the siurvival of bemagium, infra, p. 82. 

" Sauvage has suggested {Troarn, p. 226, note) that the mortgage of the duchy 
to William Rufus for five years for 10,000 marks may serve as a basis for estimat- 
ing the annual revenue in this period. There is, however, disagreement as to the 
term of the pledge; see below, note 50. 

** No. 36. Cf . the condemnation to debilitatio membrorum by the ctiria in Orderi- 
cus, iii. 297. 



78 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

ficance that documents of this type have come down to us from 
the Norman administration of WilKam Rufus and Henry I; and 
the least that can be said is that the administrative weakness of 
Robert's reign cannot produce on its behalf this most convincing 
evidence of the normal vigor and precision of Anglo-Norman 
government. 

A survey of the government of Normandy under Robert Curt- 
hose must also take account of the rule of William Rufus, from 
1091 to 1096 in possession of the eastern portion of the duchy and 
at times cooperating with Robert elsewhere, from 1096 to iioo 
sole ruler during Robert's absence. Crossing early in 1091,^' the 
Red King quickly established himself in the lands east of the 
Seine, where several of the leading barons had already espoused 
his cause, and he soon compelled Robert to sign a treaty relin- 
quishing to him the counties of Eu and Aimiale, the possessions of 
the lords of Goumay and Conches, the abbey of Fecamp, and, 
apparently, at the other extremity of the duchy, Cherbourg and 
the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, then in the hands of his brother 
Henry.'** Until William's return to England in August of this 
year he and Robert seem to have exercised a kind of joint rule in 
Normandy. They conduct a joint expedition against Henry, 
whom they besiege in the Mount,* ^ they appear together in a con- 
firmation for Saint-fitienne of Caen issued probably at this time,*^ 
and they unite, 18 July, in holding the inquest concerning their 
rights and privileges which formulated the Consuetudines et 

** Ordericus (iii. 365, 377) places the crossing in the week of 23 January; Flor- 
ence of Worcester (ii. 27) gives February; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Candlemas. 
In any case it was subsequent to 27 January, when William was at Dover (Davis, 
Regesta, no. 315). 

" On the provisions of this agreement, see Freeman, William Rufus, i. 275, ii. 
522-528, who calls it the ' Treaty of Caen ' on the basis of a statement by Robert 
of Torigni (William of Jumifeges, ed. Marx, p. 270) that it was concluded there. 
Ordericus, however, places it at Rouen, which is geographically more probable; 
Robert of Torigni may have confused this with the Caen inquest of July. In any 
case the brothers came to terms quickly, for the siege of Henry in Mont-Saint- 
Michel began at Mid-Lent (Ordericus, iii. 378). In the enumeration of lands 
granted Cherbourg is mentioned only by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Florence 
of Worcester, who adds Mont-Saint-Michel. 

« Freeman, i. 284-293, ii. S28-S3S. " Supra, no. 15. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 79 

iusticie." The harmony of all three brothers is shown later in the 
same year by the attestation of Robert and Henry to a charter of 
the Red King for Durham.*^ This state of affairs was, however, 
of short duration. Robert formally accused William of violating 
the agreement of 109 1, and its sworn guarantors supported the 
charge. No reconcihation could be reached, and in 1094 William 
conducted hostile operations in Normandy from March until the 
end of December. Then, as before, his base lay in the region east 
of the Seine, but the history of the year is confused and tells us 
nothing of civil afifairs.** The reconciliation of the two brothers 
was a special object of the mission of the Abbot Gerento of Dijon 
in the winter of 1095-1096; the agreement handed over the duchy 
to William in pledge for the ten thousand marks which he ad- 
vanced to Robert for the expenses of his crusade. The terms of 
the transaction are known only through the chroniclers, who 
differ as to the period. Eadmer and Hugh of Flavigny give three 
years, Ordericus has five, while Robert of Torigni says William 
was to have Normandy until Robert's return and the repayment 
of the money.'" 

William Rufus entered into possession of Normandy in Septem- 
ber 1096.^1 It is not clear whether he arrived before the crusaders 
had started; at least there is no evidence of a conference between 
the brothers on this occasion.'^ Of the four years of rule which 

*' Appendix D. 

*' Davis, Regesta, no. 318; W. Farrers, Early Yorkshire Charters, no. 928. 

*' Freeman, i. 460-470; Fliche, Le regne de Philippe I"', pp. 298-301, who 
seeks to explain away the siege of Eu in this year on the ground of confusion with 
the campaign of 1091. The English chroniclers, however, are quite specific on this 
point. A precept of William Rufus to Bishop Robert of Lincoln dated at Eu belongs 
to this year or later: Davis, no. 350. 

'» See the passages collected in Freeman, i. 555. 

^' Ordericus, iv. 16. Cf. Davis, no. 377, the date of which is given as follows in 
the Winchester cartulary (Add. MS. 29436, f. 12) : ' Hec confirmatio facta est 
apud Hastinges anno dominice incamationis M°.XCVI° quando perrexi Nor- 
manniam pro concordia fratris mei Roberti euntis Jerusalem.' 

^ There is no reason for placing in this year the letter of Ives of Chartres {Ep. 
28) upon which Freeman relies (i. 559) to prove that a conference was held under 
the auspices of the French king; Fliche, p. 299, places it in 1094. Apparently the 
Norman crusaders started after 9 September (Delisle, LiMrature latine el histoire 
du moyen dge, Paris, 1890, p. 28) but before the end of the month (Ordericus, iii. 
483). 



8o NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

remained to the Red King, the greater portion was spent in Nor- 
mandy, but they were years of war, in Maine and on the perennial 
battle-ground of the Vexin,*' and we hear little of the state of the 
duchy under him. Ordericus tells us that the new master re- 
covered portions of the ducal domain which Robert had given 
away, and that he exercised to the full his ecclesiastical suprem- 
acy, but that under his iron heel Normandy at least enjoyed a 
brief period of order and rigorous justice to which it looked back 
with longing after Robert's return." 

It is not surprising that the documentary sources of these years 
should be meager; the remarkable thing is that, few as they are, 
the Norman charters of William Rufus tell us more of the work- 
ings of administration than do the more mmierous acts of Robert 
Curthose. We may begin by eliminating the documents issued in 
England or at unknown places for the English lands of Norman 
rehgious estabhshments, but for convenience we may include three 
or four other charters which probably belong to the period before 
1096. There results the following list of documents issued in or 
concerning Normandy,^* which are here numbered with Roman 
numerals in order to avoid confusion with the preceding catalogue 
of acts of Robert: 

I. Bec. At Rouen. Release of Surcy (Eure) from hernagium. Davis, 
Regesta, nos. 425, Ixxiii; printed below, p. 82. 

II. Caen, Saint-fitieime [probably in 1091]. Confirms exchange with 
WiUiam da Tomebu. Supra imder Robert, no. 15. 

^ On these campaigns, see Freeman, ii. 165-256, 274-296; Fliche, pp. 301-305; 
R. Latouche, Eistoire du comUdu Maine pendant le X' et le XI' siecle (Paris, 1910), 

PP- 4S-SI- 

" iv. 16-19, 98. A returning crusader, Wigo de Marra, makes a grant to Saint- 
Julien of Tours in 1099, ' regnante Willelmo rege Anglorum et duce Normannorum,' 
and agrees 'si possum volente domino Normannie conficere et congregare feriam, 
quod ipsi monachi habebunt totius ferie omnium rerum dedmam.' This is the 
latest recognition of William's dominion that I have found: Denis, Charles de S.- 
Julien de Tows, no. 51. 

'' I have not included the following writ for Montebourg, which may be of 
WiUiam I or II : ' Willelmus rex Anglorum omnibus suis ministris tocius Normannie 
salutem. Precipio vobis ut res Sancte Marie de Monteborc quiete sint ab omni 
consuetudine et sine theloneo transeant quocunque venerint.' MS. Lat. 10087, 
no. 6. The chapter of Chartres addressed a letter of congratulation to the Red 
King at his accession (jB. £. C, xvi. 453), but he does not appear in the list of its 
royal benefactors (£. H. R., xvi. 498). 



ROBERT CURTEOSE 8 1 

III. Caen, Saint-fitienne [in England, 1096-1097]. Grant of Creech in ex- 
change for his father's crown and regalia, and general confirmation. Vidimus 
of 1424, in Neustria Pia, p. 638; La Roque, iv. 1334; MS. Lat. n. a. 1428, 
f. 4. Davis, no. 397; cf. Delisle-Berger, i. 263, note. 

IV. DuspAM. At Pont de I'Arche [1096-1100]. Writ of freedom from 
gelds. Davis, nos. 480, xci. 

V. Fecamp. [1094-1099.] Notice of suit between F6camp and Saint- 
Florent. Davis, nos. 423, badv. 

VI. Fecamp. Writ to justiciars mentioned in the foregoing notice. 
Davis, nos. 424, badv. 

VII. FECAMP. At Lillebonne [1099]. Writ issued in pursuance of the same 
judgment to Ranulf of Durham and others. Original in Archives of the Seine- 
Inf6rieure; copy in MS. Rouen 1207, f. 16; MS. Lat. n. a. 2412, no. 46. 
Edited by me from the original, E. H. R. xxvii. 103. Round, no. 119, where 
it is wrongly given as of Henry I; Davis, no. 416. 

VIII. Le Mans cathedral. At Saint-Sever (fimendreviUe) [1096-1099]. 
Writ confirming grants of his father. Liber albus, no. 2; Davis, no. 440. 

IX. Lincoln. At Pont de I'Arche [1094-1100]. Confirming grant in Bin- 
brook. Davis, no. 473. 

X. LONGTJEVILLE. Grant at Bosc-Lehard (Seine-Inferieure). Mentioned 
in confirmations of Henry I and Henry II in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure ; 
Round, nos. 219, 225. For the charters of Henry II see Chevreux and 
Vernier, Ixs archives de Normandie et de la Seine-Infirieure, plate 13; De- 
lisle-Berger, nos. 7, 768. 

XI. Saint-£vroxil. At Windsor, late in 1091. General confirmation. 
Mentioned by Ordericus, iii. 381, cf. 41. 

XII. Saumur, Saint-Florent. 1092. Confirms his father's grant of Ceaux. 
Davis, no. 158. 

XIII. Stow. At Eu, perhaps in 1094. Writ to bishop of Lincoln. Davis, 
no. 350. 

XIV. Thoitney. At Rosay^^ [1094-1099]. Writ to bishop of Lincoln and 
others respecting the abbey's assessment. Davis, nos. 422, Ixxii. 

XV. Troarn. Confirms the abbey's possessions in Normandy and Eng- 
land as granted by his father. Sauvage, Troarn, p. 363.*' 

^' There are two places of this name in the department of the Seine-Inf^rfeure, 
one in canton Bellencombre, the other in canton Mfoerval. The compiler of the 
index to Davis unaccountably identifies Roseium with Rozoy-en-Brie, far out of 
William's territory; cf. Round, in E. H. R., xxix. 349. 

" There are also two spurious documents of this reign. One, dated in 1089 but 
written in a later style, recites that ' tres regis Willelmi pinceme nomine Gerardus 
Radulfus Malgerius ' have granted ' Deo et Petro et S. Audoeno infra Chatomen- 
sium fines terram quandam ' (cartulary of Saint-Ouen in Archives of the Seine- 
Infgrieure, no.' zSJir, p. 277, no. 340). The other (cf. E. H. R., xxiv. 213, note 16), 
quite possibly meant for William's father, is a general charter for the abbey of 
Montebourg, for which the substance and most of the witnesses have been bor- 
rowed from a charter of Henry I which is printed in Delisle, Carttdaire normand, 
no. 737. The false charter (Gallia Christiana, xi. instr, 229; Neustria Pia, p. 672) 



82 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

It is dear, first of all, that William Rufus brought with him to 
Normandy his chancellor, William Giffard,^^ who attests charters 
at Rouen (no. i), Pont de I'Arche (no. iv), Saint-Sever (Emendre- 
ville, no. viii), Eu (no. xiii), and Rosay (no. xiv), and who had 
sufficient association with Rouen cathedral to lead the canons to 
secure from him later a formal declaration that no chancellor or 
chaplain had any rights in its choir.*' With the Enghsh chan- 
cellor naturally came the writ. There are seven writs, a goodly 
number under the circumstances, and one (no. vii) is preserved in 
the original. Five are addressed to the king's officers in England 
(nos. iv, vi, vii, xiii, xiv), one to officers in Maine (no. viii),"" and 
one to officers in Normandy (no. i). The Norman writ runs as 
follows: 

Willermus rex Anglorum F. veltrario et Isenbardo bernario " et onmibvis 
servientibus banc consuetudinem requirentibus salutem. Sciatis quia clamo 
terrain Sancte Marie de Surceio omnino quietam de bemagio donee ego 
inquiram quomodo fuit tempore patris mei. Teste Willelmo cancellario apud 
Rothomagum.*^ 

Here we have a document parallel in every way to its English con- 
temporaries in its sharp, crisp form and in its assumption of regu- 
lar execution as a matter of course. The question is a purely 
Norman one, the ancient contribution to the maintenance of the 
duke's hunting dogs,*' and the officers addressed show by their 
titles that they are concerned with this branch of the ducal 

is not found in the Montebouig cartulary (MS. Lat. 10087) but appears in tlie 
Livre blanc, Archives of the Manche, H. 8391, f. i; in the cartulary of Loders, Add. 
MS. 15605, f. 20V, from a vidimus of Philip III; and in Archives of the Manche, 
H. 8409; MS. Lat. 12885, f- 160; MS. Fr. 5200, f. 107; and MS. Grenoble 1395, 

f.3. 

'^ On whom see Davis, in E. H. R., xxvi. 86. 

5" MS. Rouen 1193, ff. 49, 141V; Archives of the Seine-Inf^rieure, G. 3623; 
printed in Valin, p. 258, no. 3; Round, no. 4. 

'" Robert Doisnel, one of the officers here addressed, appears later in a charter 
of Robert Curthose (no. 18). 

•* The text has ' brevario;' clearly a copyist's error for ' bemario.' Of. Round, 
in E. H. R., xxix. 354; and on the bemer and the velterer, his King's Serjeants, 
p. 271 f. 

»2 Fragment of Bee cartulary in Archives of the Eure, H. 91, f. 39V. Indicated 
in A. H. R., jdv. 464, note 69; printed in Valin, p. 200, note 2. Bemagium is also 
mentioned under Robert (no. 31). 

^ Supra, Chapter I, note 164. 



ROBERT CURTHOSE 83 

administration; but the single example suffices to show the reg- 
ular mechanism of Anglo-Norman administration at work. It 
should be noted that the norm taken for inquiry is the practice of 
the Conqueror's time, not of Robert's; and it is probable that the 
method to be employed by the king was the sworn inquest." 
Other Norman writs would be more than welcome as illustrating 
procedure, especially in judicial matters, but so far as the general 
character of the government is concerned their value would be 
essentially confirmatory. In such a case a single" instance estab- 
lishes the whole. Moreover, in respect to the duke's justice 
another set of documents bears witness to the workings of the 
curia in this period and enables us to foUow the course of a suit 
much as in the Conqueror's time. The monks of Saint-Florent 
and those of Fecamp have a dispute respecting their rights at 
Steyning and Beeding, in Sussex, which they bring before the 
court of William the Younger at Foucarmont. Five act as judges 
on the king's part, Robert of Meulan, Eudo the seneschal, Wil- 
ham the chancellor, WUHam Werelwast, the king's chaplain, and 
WiUiam Fitz Ogier. When the decision has been reached, the king 
sends sealed letters on behalf of the abbey of Fecamp to his justi- 
ciars in England, supplemented by a later writ which has reached 
us in the original (nos. v-vii). Evidently royal justice ran the 
same course wherever the king was; Normandy and England 
were a part of the same system. 

These faint glimpses of the government of Normandy under 
William Rufus are all that we have to bridge the gap between the 
Conqueror and Henry I. They show us what happened when, as 
again under Henry I, Normandy was subject to the ruler of Eng- 
land and could be treated as part of the same organization; and 
if we knew nothing of the independent history of Norman institu- 
tions, we might be led to suppose that they had no vitality of their 
own and were in some degree a reflection of the larger state across 
the Channel. We have seen, however, the strength and vigor of 
the Norman system before the Conquest of 1066, and we shall see 
under Henry I the survival of the institutions of the Conqueror's 
time, which was the standard to which all matters were then re- 
«* Valin, p. 200; infra, Chapter VI, note 103. 



84 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

ferred. When we find the Exchequer of Henry I and Henry II 
carefully keeping up the fiscal arrangements of the Conqueror, we 
get some measure of the persistence of the ancient organization in 
Normandy, and we are Justified in inferring that, in local matters 
at least, it was in some measure maintained even during the 
disorder and weakness of Robert's reign. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ADMINISTRATION OF NORMANDY UNDER 
HENRY II 

The reign of Henry I, which Round has declared perhaps the most 
tantalizing in English history, is equally tantalizing to the stu- 
dent of the history and institutions of Normandy, where the 
paucity of documents is even greater than in England for the same 
period. There is nothing in Normandy which corresponds to the 
Pipe Roll of 1 130; the only local survey is the Bayeux inquest of 
1133, examined above as a source for the feudal conditions of the 
eleventh century; " the only piece of legislation is the ordinance of 
1 135 which divides between the king and the bishops the fines for 
violating the Truce of God; * the destruction of the records of 
cathedrals and religious houses has been far greater than in Eng- 
land. Nevertheless the number of charters issued in Normandy or 
for Norman beneficiaries is still considerable and quite exceeds the 
possibility of such a catalogue as has been attempted for the 
scanty documentary remains of Robert Curthose and Geoffrey 
Plantagenet> Until the Regesta of Davis shall have created a 
documentary and chronological basis for the study of this reign in 
England, it is premature to undertake a systematic treatment of 
its annals in Normandy.* For the present we must content our- 
selves with an exploration of the significant points in the admin- 
istrative system, having regard on the one hand to the restoration 
of stable government after the overthrow of Robert, and on the 
other to such institutions of later Normandy as can be traced 
back to Henry's reign. Parallels and connections with England 
will inevitably suggest themselves. 

1 Revised and expanded from E. H. R., xxiv. 209-231 (1909). 

^ Supra, Chapter I. 

' Trbs Ancien Coutumier, ed. Tardif, c. 71; Round, Calendar, no. 290. 

* See Chapters II and IV. 

' See, however, the contributions to Henry's Norman itinerary in Appendix G. 



86 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

When the victory of Tinchebrai, 28 September 1106, gave 
Henry complete control of the duchy, it found him already estab- 
lished at Bayeux, Caen, and fivreux.* Proceeding to Rouen, he 
renewed his father's privileges to the city: paternas leges renmavit 
pristinasque urbis dignitates restiUdt, phrases which also point to 
a general restoration of the Conqueror's system of government 
throughout the duchy.' Such was also the purpose of a council of 
barons and clergy held in mid-October at Lisieux, where, accord- 
ing to Ordericus,* Henry revoked all Robert's grants from the 
ducal domain and restored the possessions of the church as they 
had stood at the time of his father's death. General peace was 
reestablished by the repression of acts of robbery and violence, 
and we are told that special penalties were enacted against rape 
and counterfeiting.' The destruction of adulterine castles was 
also systematically begun.^" Assemblies were held at Falaise in 
January and at Lisieux in March of 1 107, but no record of their 
legislation has reached us," and by Easter Henry was back in 

' Besides the narratives of the events of 1105-1106 to be found in the chroniclers 
— Ordericus, Henry of Huntingdon, the Peterborough chronicle, Florence of Wor- 
cester, WiUiam of Mahnesbxuy, and Wace, who preserves certain local details — 
there are three contemporary pieces of importance: (i) Serlo, De capta Baiocensi 
civitate, H. F., xix, p. xci; Wright, Anglo-Latin Poets, ii. 241; see Bohmer, Serlo 
lion Bayeux, in Neues Archiv, jcdi. 701-738. (2) Henry's letter to Anselm after 
Tinchebrai, in Eadmer, Eistoria Novorum, p. 184. (3) The account of this battle 
by a priest of F&amp, first printed by Delisle, Robert of Torigni, i. 129; reprinted, 
E. H. R., xxiv. 728, and, more correctly, xxv. 295. 

' Ordericus, iv. 233; cf. Tardif, Etude sur les sources, i. 43. That paternas leges 
applies to the whole duchy is clear from the repetition of the phrase in the speech 
which Ordericus puts in Henry's mouth in r 119 (iv. 402). Cf. the use of laga 
Edwardi in England. 

8 iv. 233. 

» According to a statement of uncertain origin in Bessin, ConcUia, i. 79; cf. Le 
Provost's note to Ordericus, iv. 233; Tardif, £tude, p. 46. The penalties are similar 
to those proclaimed in England in 1108 and enforced severely in ir2s: Florence of 
Worcester, ii. 57, 79; William of Mahnesbury, Cesta Regum, p. 476; Eadmer, 
Historia Novorum, p. T93; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 246; Simeon of Durham, ii. 
281; Robert of Torigni, in William of JumiSges, ed. Marx, p. 297; Suger, Louis le 
Gros, ed. Molinier, p. 47. In a charter issued at Easter 1108 Henry describes this 
English legislation as ' nova statuta mea de iudiciis sive de placitis latronum et 
falsorum monetariorum ': Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1338-1340, p. 166; Historians 
of the Church of York, iii. 22. 

" Ordericus, iv. 236; Suger, p. 47. u Ordericus, iv. 239, 269. 



HENRY I 87 

England.!" Ordericus tells us, under this same year, that the 
magistraius populi were often called to the curia and admonished 
to conform themselves to the new conditions of peace and stricter 
responsibility." The only meeting of the curia of which we have 
formal record at this time was held at Rouen, 7 November 1106, 
in the archbishop's camera, to decide a dispute between the 
monasteries of Fecamp and Saint-Taurin of fivreux, which had 
been subjected to Fecamp by charter of Robert the Magnificent; 
the decision was given by the * counsel and judgment of the 
bishops, abbots, and barons,' among whom appear the archbishop 
of Rouen, the bishops of Bayeux, fivreux, Winchester, and Dur- 
ham, the abbots of Saint-Ouen, La Trinite, Jumieges, and Troarn, 
the archdeacons of Rouen and Evreux, Robert de Meulan, 
Richard de Revers, William d'Aubigny, and the king's chancellor 
Waldric." Another suit of this same winter was decided in favor 
of the abbey of Bee in the presence of the archbishop and the 
bishops and barons of Normandy, the charter which records the 
result being approved by King Henry, the bishops of Bayeux and 
Avranches, Robert of BeUeme, Robert of Meulan, Eustace of 
Boulogne, Henry, coimt of Eu, and the archdeacons of Rouen.^^ 
What means were provided for maintaining the government 
during the king's absence is a question which we caimot answer 
from the chroniclers, who are quite fragmentary on events in Nor- 
mandy between 1107 and 1112. The charters, however, teU us 
before 1108 of ducal justices in the Cotentin, and before 1109 of a 
chief justiciar; and, as we shall see, the curia meets to decide an 
important case in the king's absence in 1 1 1 1 .'' It can hardly be an 
accident that before his departure in 1107 Henry gave the see of 
Lisieux to John, who appears at the head of the Norman curia in 

"2 Henry of Huntingdon, p. 236. 

'' iv. 269. 

" Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 127; a fuller list of witnesses in Collection Moreau, 
xlii. 88. Henry's presence at Rouen is also attested for 30 November of this year 
by a charter witnessed by his chancellor Waldric (Calendar of Charier Rolls, v. 56, 
no. 7; Monasticon, iii. 384), who was about this time sought out at Rouen by the 
canons of Laon: Davis, in E. H. R., xxvi. 88. 

'' Appendix F, no. i. 

" See the charters for Montebourg, Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, and JumiSges cited 
below, p. 93 f. 



88 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

the later years of the reign, and who had ahready served a long 
apprenticeship as judge in ecclesiastical causes in Normandy and 
as one of Henry's principal chaplains in England." It is probable 
that Bishop John was, if not the head, at least an important mem- 
ber of the government of the duchy in these early years; but there 
is no definite evidence for this period, and little enough for any 
period, and we are compelled to study the administration of 
Normandy topically rather than chronologically throughout the 
reign. Only toward the end do the long sojourns of Henry on the 
Norman side of the Channel and a somewhat greater variety of 
evidence give us a rather more connected view. 

The starting-point for any study of the govermnent of Nor- 
mandy imder Henry I is the plea, published by Round in 1899, 
which established for the first time the existence of the Norman 
Exchequer eo nomine in this reign.^* In this document the great 

" Ordericus, iv. 273-275 : ' A prefatis itaque magistris, quia ratione et eloquentia 
satis enituit, ad archidiaconatus ofiScium promotus, ad examen rectitudinis iure 
proferendum inter primos resedit et ecclesiastica negotia rationabiliter diu 
disseruit.' Driven out of the archdeaconry of S6ez by Robert of BellSme he fled 
to England, where ' inter precipuos regis capellanos computatus est, atque ad 
regalia inter familiares consiHa sepe accitus est.' Note that Bishop John was not 
only a contemporary of Ordericus but also his diocesan. 

'* ' Isti simt homines qui fuerunt [presentes] ubi Bemardus disrationavit versus 
Serlonem surdum virgultum et terram iuxta virgultum de Maton ad dominium 
suum, sciUcet Robertus de Curci dapifer et Willelmus filius Odonis et Henricus de 
Pomerai et Willelmus Glastonie et Wiganus Marescallus et Robertus capellanus 
episcopi Luxoviensis et Robertus Ebroicensis et Martin scriba de capella. Et ibi 
positiis fuit Serlo in misericordia regis per indicium baronum de scaccario quia 
excoluerat terram illam super saisinam Bemardi, quam ante placitum istud dis- 
racionaverat per indicium episcopi Luxoviensis et Roberti de Haia et multorum 
aliorum ad scaccarium. Et hoc idem testificati fuerunt per brevia sua ad hoc 
placitum ubi non interfuerunt quia ambo tunc infirmi fuerunt. Et cum Serlone 
fuerunt ibi Ricardus frater suus et [blank] qui hoc viderunt et audierunt et per de- 
precationem Bemardi Serlo admensuratus fuit de misericordia regis ad x solidos.' 
E. H. R., xiv. 426. 

Valin, pp. 125-132, labors hard to explain away this document, which upsets his 
whole theory of the origin and functions of the Exchequer, on the ground that it 
was drawn up, probably later, by a canon of Merton who introduced English 
terminology. Taken apart from any preconceived theory, however, it is strictly 
parallel to the other notices concerning the lands of Bernard the scribe which 
Round has printed (/. c, 417-430), all of which are plainly contemporaneous records 
of transactions of the reign of Henry I and show no trace of tampering, The form 



HENRY I 89 

officers of the household — Robert de Courcy seneschal, Henry 
de la Pommeraie and WilUam Fitz Odo constables, William of 
Glastonbury chamberlain,^* and Wigan the marshal — together 
with Robert the treasurer ^^ and two other clerks, sit in judgment 
as ' barons of the Exchequer ' to determine the ownership of a 
piece of land, as well as to protect possession previously estab- 
lished at the Exchequer before John, bishop of Lisieux, Robert de 
la Haie seneschal, and. others. With this clue in our hands, we 
shall have little difficulty in recognizing the same body in the fol- 
lowing charter, in which, this time under the name of the king's 
curia, it sustains the appeal of the abbot of Fecamp against an 
infringement of the abbey's haute justice ^^ by the king's justices. 
It is not stated that the witnesses to the charter are the members 
of the court who rendered the decision, but such is doubtless the 
case. The bishop of Lisieux, the two seneschals, and WiUiam of 
Glastonbury are known to us as barons of the Exchequer from 
the document already mentioned, while William d'Aubigny the 

can also be found in St. Paul's charters of the same period: 9 Bistorical MSS. Com- 
mission, p. 61 f. Valin's main argument, the statement that there was no such 
thing as a Norman Exchequer before 1176, will be disposed of in Chapter V. As 
Powicke points out (Loss of Normandy, p. 85), the name is of subordinate impor- 
tance; the existence of the court under Henry I is abundantly established by 
the documents printed in Chapter III. 

" The office inherited by William from his uncle Walchelin was a chamberlain- 
ship {MonasHcon, vii. 1000). He also appears in two other docimients relating to 
the administration of justice in Normandy: E. H. R., xiv. 424; Liwe noir, no. 8. 

'■" For proof that Robert of fivremc was treasurer, see below, p. 108 f. As the 
charter there quoted shows that he was chaplain to Stephen, he cannot be the man 
of this name whose son appears as a claimant for his father's land in Cornwall in 
1 130, so that Round's reason for dating his plea before 1130 fells. 

^^ Miurder and arson were pleas of the crown in Normandy, but had been con- 
ferred on certain immunists by ducal grant. See supra, Chapter I; and Appendix 
D. For the reign of Henry I the clearest statement is found in his charter of 1134 
for Bee: ' Concedimus etiam eisdem monachis ut habeant in tota parochia Becci 
omnes regias Ubertates: murdrum, mortem hominis, plagam, mehaim, sanguinem, 
aquam, et ignem, sed et latronem in Becci parochia captum undecumque .fuerit, et 
omnes alias regias Ubertates quocumque nomine vocentur, excepto solummodo 
rapto, de quo honestius existimavimus seculares quam monachos iudicare: ' MS. 
Lat. 13905, f. 9v; MS. Lat. 1S97B, f. i66v; Archives Nationales, JJ. 92, f. 17, no. 
58; Round, Calendar, no. 375; Por6e, Bee, i. 658 f. From a comparison of this 
with the F&amp charter printed in the text, E. Perrot, Les cos roywux, p. 315, ' 
argues that the theory of pleas of the crown had not yet become permanently fixed. 



90 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

butler and Geoffrey de Clinton chamberlain and treasurer '^^ are 

well-known ofl&cers of Henry's household. 

(i) H. rex Angl[orum] iustic[iis] et omnibus baronibus et vic[ecomitibus] 
et ministris et omnibus fidelibus suis totius terre sue salutem. Sciatis quia 
iuditio et consideratione curie mee per privilegium ecclesie de Fiscann[o] 
ex dono et concessione predecessorum meonim remanserunt Rogero abbati 
Fiscann[ensi] et conventui Fiscann[ensi] .xxi.^ libre de placit[o] de quadam 
combustione et .xx. libre de plac[ito] de quodam homiddio factis in terra 
Sancte Trinitatis Fiscamip], unde iusticia mea placitaverat et duellum 
tenuerat de combustione in curia mea. Ideoque precipio et vole quod amodo 
teneat predicta abbatia Sancte Trinitatis de Fiscann[o] omnes dignitates 
suas et rectitudines et consuetudines tarn in placitis quam in omnibus aliis 
rebus, sicut umquam prefata abbatia melius et quietius et honorificentius 
tenuit tempore predecessorum meorum et sicut carta ecclesie testatur et 
sicut per breve meum precipio. T[estibus] lohanne Lexov[iensi] episcopo et 
Roberto de Haia et Roberto de Curceio et Willelmo de Albany et Galfr[edo] 
de Clinton[ia] et Willelmo de Glestingeberia. Apud Rothom[agum]." 

It will be observed that the word curia in this charter is used 
of two different bodies, the household officials, probably sitting 
at Rouen, where the charter is issued, and the king's justices 
(iusticia), from whose jurisdiction in holding pleas of the crown 
the abbot claims exemption. In the following docimients we see 
the king and his curia determining questions of title to land, but 
nothing is said of the composition of the court: 

(2) H. rex Angl[orum] Ric[ardo] episcopo Baioc[ensi] et omnibus baro- 
nibus et fidelibus suis deOismeis salutem. Sciatis meconcessisseDeo et Sancte 
Martino et monachis de Troarz amodo in peipetumn totimi mariscum imde 
placitvun fuit in curia mea inter monachos predictos et Robertum de Usseio. 
Ipse enim Robertus predictus recognovit rectum eorum quod iniuste earn 
(sic) clamabat et illam calumpniam marisci quam habebat in eo Deo et 
Sancto Martino clamavit quietam coram me. Et volo et concede et firmiter 
precipio ut amodo in pace et honorifice et quiete et perpetualiter teneat 
ecclesia supradicta totum iEud mariscum absque calumpnia et teneat et 
habeat sicut melius et honorabilius et quietius tenet suas alias res. T[estibus] 
Roberto com[ite] de Mellent et Nig[eUo] de Albinni. Apud Rothomagum.''^ 

^ Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 37; Monasticon, vi. 220; Calendar of CItarter Rolls, 
iii. 27s. 

" The cartulary has '.xx.' 

'* Public Record Office, Cartae Antiquae, S. 3; cartulary of Fficamp in the 
library at Rouen, MS. 1207, no. 7, where only the first of the witnesses is given. 
Valin, p. 25g, prints from the cartulary. 

" Original, formerly sealed sur simple queue, in Archives of the Calvados, /omJf 
Troam (Marais, liasse 2, no. 776*5); copy by La Rue in the Collection Mancel at 



HENRY I 91 

(3) Notum sit domino Normannig et omnibus hgredibus meis, baronibus, 
prepositis, et ministris quod ego Guillelmus comes de Pontivo cum essem 
apud Falesiam ante dominum meimi Henricum regem Anglorum habui ver- 
bum cum Rogerio de Gratapanchia patre et filio de maresco quod calumnia- 
bantui contra Sanctum Martinum et monachos eius, et rem gestam et tanto 
tempore a meis antecessoribus possessam et quomodo liberam et communem 
regi prgfato ostendi. Diiudicavit autem rex et eius curia per verba mea et 
illorum Sancto Martino et monachis remanere marescum quietum et liberum 
et amplius non debere fieri inde contra eos calumniam. Quapropter prgcipio 
omnibus hgredibus meis ut hgc firmiter in perpetuum teneant. Huius finis 
testes mei sunt Hugo vicecomes et Robertus frater eius, Paganus filius 
Hugonis de Mesdavid, Guillelmus de CorceUa, Ascelinus et Serlo capel- 
lani. Hgc autem facta sunt anno ab incamatione Domini .M.C.XXIX. in 
Pentecosten.^^ 

In the following plea " of the year iiii, the judges are named, 
but they are styled optimates and appear to have been taken from 
the great men of the duchy rather than exclusively from the royal 
household. Apparently the king was not present. The final agree- 
ment, dated 18 December 1138, is interesting for its reference to 
the justiciarship of William of Roimiare, created by Stephen on 
his departure from Normandy toward the close of 1137,^* and for 
the list of barons witnessing. The civil strife at Rouen is evidently 
that of 1090.^' 

(4) In nomine domini nostri lesu Christi ad noticiam presentium et me- 
moriam futurorum, ad evitandam in posterum rerum oblivionem et adverse 
partis controversiam, litteris amiotamus et apicibus subsequentibus non 
abolendis temporibus commendamus qualiter pontificante papa Paschali 
anno ab incamatione Domini .M°.C°.XI°. sub rege Henrico abbas Ursus et 
postea ecclesig Romane presidente papa Innocentio regnante rege Stephano 
abbas WiUelmus anno ab incamatione Domini .M°.C°.XXX°.VIII°. ca- 
lumpniam quam heredes Clari, Balduinus videlicet et Clams frater eius, de 

Caen, MS. 159, f . x. Now also printed in Sauvage, Tfoam, p. 265, n. 3. Anterior to 
1118, the year of the death of the coimt of Meulan. 

"* Original, with seal of red wax in parchment cover, attached sur double queue. 
Now also printed in Sauvage, p. 368; Valin, p. 262. This and a charter of Wil- 
liam's son John are found, in original and copy, with the preceding. 

"' Original notice, with no sign of having been sealed, in Archives of the Seine- 
Infgrieure, fonds Jiunifiges; copy by Bigot in MS. Lat. 10055, f- 84. Now also 
printed in Valin, p. 260; Vernier, no. 6r. The personnel of the coiui; is analyzed by 
R. de Freville, in Nouvelle revue historigue de droit, 1912, pp. 687-696. 

'' ' Neustrie vero iusticiarios Guillelmum de Roknara et Rogerium vicecomitem 
aliosque nonnullos constituerat: ' Ordericus, v. 91. See infra, Chapter IV, note 15. 

2' Ordericus, iii. 351 ff. A Claras de Rothomago appears as tenant of the bishop 
of Bayeux in 1133: H. F., xxiii. 701. 



92 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

mansione qug est apud Rothomagum txirris Rainerii cognominata et a beato 
Audoeno Sancto Philiberto et ecclesig Gemmeticensi iure perpetuo possi- 
denda donata, sicut prmcipali comitis Ricardi auctoritate karta teste robora- 
tum est, diffinierunt. Que res se ita habet: Dominante in Normannia 
Rotberto comite in urbe Rothomagensi gravis dissensio inter partes Pila- 
tensium scilicet et Calloensium exorta est que multa civitatem strage 
vexavit et multos nobilium utriusque partis gladio prostravit. Inter quos 
partis Pilatensium erat quidam rebus et nomine quern supra diximus valde 
Clarus qui abbati et monachis Gemmeticensibus pro suo actu et merito pliui- 
mum erat cams. Hie ergo, quia domus prefata in munitioii loco consistit, 
rerum metuens eventurti, ut ibi hospes degeret expetiit et pro sua probitate et 
bonitate ad tempus impetravit. Quo decedente et rege Henrico principante 
filius ipsius Balduinus hereditario iure mansionem ibidem violenter voluit 
optinere, sed abbate Ursone gquitatem iudicii reposcente in causam vocatus 
et nichil rationis dicere visus, iudicio optimatum eadem domo exire et dein- 
ceps carere iussus est. Qui videlicet iudices hi fuerunt: Gaufridus Rotho- 
magensis archiepiscopus, lohannes Luxoviensis episcopus, Rotbertus comes 
Mellenti, WUIelmus comes Warenne, Gislebertus de Aquila, WiUelmus 
camerarius de TancardiviUa, Willehnus de Ferrariis. 

NonnuUis postea evolutis annis cum Balduinus obisset in primordio excel- 
lentissimi regis Stephani, Clarus eiusdem frater super eodem negocio regias 
aures pulsare et abbatem WiUehnum cepit vexare. Que causa multis locis et 
temporibus varie tractata est et multismodis ut penitus finiretiu: a nobiUbus 
et prudentibus viris utrinque amicis elaboratum est. Tandem in hoc rei 
summa devenit ut idem Clarus ab abbate uii""'. marchas argenti acceperit et 
fide data quod nee ipse nee quisquis suorum pro se vel per se de predicta 
domo ulterius calumpniam moveret abiuravit et filios suos qui tunc non 
aderant infra .xl. dies adventus eorum ab abbate conventus ad id se 

inclinaturum sub eadem fide promisit. Itaque Willelmo de Roumara ius- 
ticiam regis in Normannia conservante, dominica natale Domini proxima 
precedente quando(?) idem natale mortalibus cunctis honorandimi subse- 
quente proxima dominica erat celebrandmn,apud Rothomagum in domo que 
fuerat Audoeni PosteUi ista pactio a Godoboldo de Sancto Victore recitata ac 
perorata est et pecunia Claro tradita est, sub principibus baronibus et testi- 
bus his: Ludovico abbate Sancti Georgii, Gualeranno comite Mellenti, Wil- 
lelmo comite Warenne fratre eius, Hugone de Gomaco, Rotberto de Novo 
Burgo, lohanne de Lunda, Rogerio de Pavihaco, Radulfo de Bosco Rohardi, 
Rotberto Wesnevallis, Osberno de Kailliaco, Ingelranno de Wascolio, 
Walterio de Cantelou, Waleranno de Mellente et Willelmo de Pinu, luhel 
consanguineo Clari, Luca pincema, Godoboldo de Sancto Victore, Alveredo 
fratre eius, Stephano filio Radulfi, Radulfo filio Rotberti, UrseUno de Wan- 
teria, Radulfo de Bellomonte, lohanne fratre eius, Radulfo filio Rainboldi. 
Ex parte abbatis: Gisleberto de Mara fidei susceptore, Geroldus ad barbam, 
Rainaldo Vulpe, Willelmo Clarello, Rotberti Filiolo, Waltero de Eudonisvilla, 
Radulfo Calcaterram fratre eius, Rabello fiho Goscelini. 

So far the evidence respecting judicial organization has been of 
a rather general character, but when we come to investigate the 



HENRY I 



93 



ducal justices we are on firmer ground. The existence of a regular 
body of Norman justices under Henry I is plain, first of all, from 
their enumeration with the other ducal ofl&cers in the addresses of 
his general charters, and is clearly seen from the writs directed 
iusticiis suis Normannie '" and from the clause, perpetuated under 
Geoffrey and Henry II, nisifeceris iusticia mea facial?^ The duke's 
justices are mentioned as early as 1108 in a charter for Monte- 
bourg,52 and about the same time — in any case not later than the 
following year — we find a chief justiciar, meus proprius iusti- 
tiarius . . . qui super omnes alios vice mea iustitiam tenet,^^ or, 

'" Livre noir, no. 8; Round, Calendar, nos. 107, 875. Cf. Round, no. 479; Delisle, 
Cartulaire normand, no. 737, and nos. 15, 17, and 18, printed below. The following 
writ, from a vidimus of the mcomte of Pontaudemer in 1338, is imprinted: ' H. rex 
Angl[oruni] iusticiar[iis] Norm[anme] salutem. Mando vobis quod faciatis habere 
abbati de Fiscampo terram et prata de mariscis de Aisi ita bene et plenarie et iuste 
sicut comes de Mellent ea tenuit de eo tempore suo, ne super hoc inde amplius 
clamorem audiam. T[este] canc[ellario] apud Bonam ViUam.' Archives of the 
Seine-Inf6rieure,/o«(fi Fecamp, box A (Aizier). 

^ See no. 13 below, and the Livre noir, no. 37. A vidimus of Philip the Fair of 
1313 offers another example: ' H. rex Angl[orum] W[illelmo] de Roumara salutem. 
Sicut . . abbatissa Sancti Amandi Maeelina et ecclesia sua saisite fuerunt de 
ecclesia sua de Roumara et de hiis que ad ecclesiam pertinent anno et die qua pater 
meus fuit vivus et mortuus et postea eam tenuit tempore patris et fratris mei et meo 
et Enuna abbatissa post eam hucusque, sic precipio quod inde amodo versus nemi- 
nem ponatur in placito, quia hoc est statutvun terre mee. Sed bene et in pace teneat 
sicut ecclesia sua in retro tentiit hucusque. Et nisi feceris archiepiscopus et iusticia 
mea facient. T[este] R[oberto] de Ver apud Rothomagum.' Archives of the Seine- 
Inf6rieure, fonds Saint-Amand; Archives Nationales, JJ. 49, no. 48; copy in MS. 
Lat. 17131, f. 100. 

^ ' Volo autem et districte precipio ne iusticie mee manum mittant pro iusticia 
facienda in villa Montisbiu^gi diebus mercati sive nimdinarum ' : Delisle, Cartulaire 
normand, no. 737; Calendar of Charter Rolls, iv. 157. The charter is witnessed by 
Anselm, and Henry was absent from England from the summer of 1108 until after 
Ansehn's death. The same phrase appears in a charter for Montebourg piuporting 
to emanate from William Rufus {Liwe blanc, in Archives of the Manche, H. 8391,, 
f. i; Gailia Christiana,:d. instr. 229; Neustria Pia, p. 672), but it is evident from the 
witnesses that this has been forged on the basis of the charter of Henry I; see supra, 
Chapter H, note 57. 

^ Charters for Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 156-160. The 
first of these, witnessed by William, archbishop of Rouen, who died in February 
mo, is anterior to Henry's departure for England in the preceding May; it may 
have suffered some alterations, but the original of the other charter is still pre- 
served in the Archive of the Calvados, 



94 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

more succinctly, iusticia mea capitalis.^^ Ordinarily, as in the 
Fecamp charter printed above (no. i) and in nos. 5 and 6 below, 
the word iustitia denotes the body of justices.'' 

What is perhaps our clearest bit of evidence respecting the 
justices of Heniy I is contained in the ' Emptiones Eudonis,' a 
document of 1 1 29-1 131'^ which comprises a series of notices of the 
acquisitions made by Saint-fitienne of Caen under the adminis- 
tration of AbbotEudo (i 107-1 140) . Of the suits here recorded the 
first came before the king and the whole curia at Arganchy; 
besides the bishop of Lisieux, two of the barons who attest are 
household officers, namely Robert de Courcy seneschal, and 
WiUiam of Tancarville chamberlain (d. 1129''). In the second 
case, which is prior to 112 2, we find a full court {tocius iusticie) of 
five justices sitting in the castle at Caen, where the Exchequer of 

"* This phrase occurs in a charter for Beaubec which has come down to us with 
the style of Henry II, but has the witnesses of a charter of Henry I and is apparently 
cited in a charter of Stephen which accompanies it in the cartulary: ' Prohibeo ne 
de aliqua possessione sua trahantur in causam nisi coram me vel coram iusticia mea 
capitalL Et nichil retineo in aliquo predictorum preter oraciones monachorum. 
T[estibus] episcopo Bem[ardo] de Sancto David, W[illelmo] de Tanc[ardiviUa] cam- 
[erario], R[ogero ?] filio Ricardi, apud Clarendonam.' Vidimus of 13 11 (badly 
faded) , and Coutumier de Dieppe (G. 85 1 , f . s 7v) , in Archives of the Seine-Inffirieure; 
Archives Nationales, JJ. 46, f . 37V; Delisle-Berger, no. 314, as a charter of Henry II. 
In England the same phrase is found in a charter of Henry for Holy Trinity, Lon- 
don: original in Public Record Office, Ancient Deeds, AS. 317 (before 1123). 

'' Other examples are the assistance given Rabel of Tancarville by the canons of 
Sainte-Barbe 'erga iusticiam regis Henrici' (Round, Calendar, no. 568); 'per 
manus iusticie mee ' {J'res Ancien Coutumier, c. 71) ; a transaction under Henry II 
'in castello Cadomi coram iustitia regis' (DeviUe, Analyse, p. 52); and the follow- 
ing notice in a cartulary of Troarn: ' Willelmus rex et Rogerius comes dederunt 
nobis decimam de crasso pisce Retisville, quam Robertus de Turpo nobis voluit 
auferre sed reddidit coactus iusticia regis Henrici' (MS. Lat. 10086, f. sv; Sauvage, 
Troarn, p. 359). 

'^ It falls between the release of Galeran de Meulan in 11 29 (Simeon of Durham, 
ii. 283; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Ordericus, iv. 463) and the death of Richard of 
Coutances, 18 November ri3i (fiailia Christiana, xi. 874; H. F., xxiii. 475). Henry 
was absent in England from 15 July 1129 to September 1130, and again begiiming 
with the summer of 1131; see Appendix G. 

" Annals of Saint-Wandrille, Histoire liiUraire de la France, xxxii. 204. In the 
Pipe Roll of 1130 we find, not William, but Rabel of Tancarville. If, as seems likely, 
the order of notices in the ' Emptiones ' is chronological, the judgment at Arganchy 
was rendered before 1118, the year of the death of William, count of fivreux, who 
makes the grant which follows next but one. 



HENRY I 95 

the later twelfth century regularly held its sessions; John of 
Lisieux, Robert de la Haie, and Hugh de Montfort constable/^ 
are among the judges, but we are hardly justified in assuming that 
this was a meeting of the Exchequer. The action of the justices in 
deputing one of their number to take surety from the disturber 
of the monks should be noted. The proceedings in the third case 
took place likewise in the castle at Caen, before the king and 
three justices. Here the justices are sharply distinguished from 
the barons,'* and Roger Marmion, who acted as justice in the 
preceding case, attests simply as a baron.*" 

(s) Emit Eudo abbas a Willelmo de capella molendinum de Drocione 
iuxta Divam viginti duabus libris in prima emptione, de quo molendino 
desaisitus per Robertum Frellam dedit prefatus abbas predicto Willelmo 
alias .xxii^. libras ut ipsum molendinum contra predictum Robertimi dis- 
rationaret et Sancto Stephano adquietaret. Que disratiocinatio at adquie- 
tatio facta fuit apud Argenteium ante regem Henricum ibique in presentia 
ipsius regis et tocius cmie recognitum fuit ipsum molendinum esse de fedio 
regis. Cuius rei testis est rex ipse et barones ipsius, lohannes scilicet Lexo- 
viensis episcopus, Robertus de Curceio, WOlelmus de TancardiviUa, Willel- 
mus PevreUus, Rainaldus de Argenteio. Testes utriusque emptionis et tocius 
consumnaationis ex parte Sancti Stephani: Robertus de Grainvilla, Warinus 
de Diva, WiQelmus Rabodus et fratres eius. Ex parte WiUelmi: WiUelmus 
frater eius, Robertus de Hotot, Radulphus filius Ansfride, Malgerius de Bosa- 
vaUe, Rainaldus filius Ase. Dedit etiam predictus abbas uxori eiusdem Wil- 
lelmi pro concessione huius venditionis, quia ipsum molendinum de eius 
maritagio erat, xl. solidos Rotomagensiimi. Testes: Robertus portarius, 
Rogerius camerarius, Warinus Cepellus, WiUelmus cocus et alii plures. . . . 

Rogerius filius Petri de Fontaneto in castello Cadomi in presentia tocius 
iusticie reddidit Sancto Stephano terram iUam et omnes decimas illas quas 
ipse sanctus a Godefrido avo Ulius et a patre suo habuerat easque eidem 
sancto deinceps firmiter in perpetuum tenendas concessit. Et qxiia idem 
Rogerius abbatem et monachos pro eisdem decimis sepius vexaverat, ex con- 
sideratione iusticie Gaufrido de Sublis fidem suam affidavit quod nunquam 
amplius damnum contrarium ac laborem inde Sancto Stephano faceret sed 
manuteneret et bene adquietaret. Et ut hec omnia firmissimo et indissolubili 
vinculo Sancto Stephano teneret, abbas et monachi societatem quam pre- 
decessores iUius in monasterio habuerant iUi concesserunt et insuper de 
caritate .xl. solidos et unum equum ei dederunt. Testes ipsa iusticia, lohan- 

^' Round, Geofrey de Mandeville, p. 326. Hugh revolted in 11 22, and was kept 
in close confinement after his capture in 1124: Ordericus, iv. 441, 458, 463. 

" Cf. Delisle, in B. iS. C, x. 273; Fr6ville, in Nouvette revue historique de droit, 
1912, p. 70s f. 

•" Roger Marmion was dead in 11 30, when his son paid relief for his lands: Pipe 
Roll 31 Henry I, p. in. 



96 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

nes scilicet Luxoviensis episcopus, Robertus de Haia, Hugo de Monteforti, 
Gaufridus de Sublis, Rogerius Marmio. Ex parte Sancti Stephani: Ran- 
nulfus de Taissel et Ricardus filius eius, Radulfus de Hotot, Aigulfus de Mer- 
cato et nepotes illius. Ex parte Rogerii: Radulfus sororius eius, Anschitillus 
hares de Hotot, Radulfus de luvinneio. . . . 

Huius autem viUe" ecclesiam quam Sanctus Stephanus antiquitus in 
magna pace tenuerat Herbertus quidam clericus ei modis quibuscumque 
poterat auferre querens abbatem et monachos inde diu fortiter vexavit. 
Quorum vexation! Henricus rex finem imponere decernens utrisque ante se 
in casteUo Cadomi diem constituit placitandi. Die igitur constituto abbas 
et monachi cum omnibus que eis necessaria erant ipsi regi et iusticie placitvim 
suum obtulerunt. Herberto autem ibi in audientia regis et tocius iusticie 
necnon et baronum deficiente, de prefata ecclesia ipsius regis et iusticie 
iudicio Sanctus Stephanus saisitus remansit, nemini deinceps ampUus inde 
responsurus. Testes huius rei ipse rex Hemricus et iusticia, lohannes videlicet 
Luxoviensis episcopus, Robertus de Haia, Gaufridus de Sublis, et barones 
Radulfus Taisso, Rogerius Marmio, WiUelmus Patricus, Robertus Car- 
boneUus. Ex parte Sancti Stephani: Rannulfus de TaisseUo et fihi eius 
WiUehnus et Ricardus, Robertus de GrainviUa, Radulfus de Hotot, Warinus 
de Diva et filii eius. 

Has emptiones quas fecit predictus abbas et donationes quas fecerunt 
suprascripti barones ego Henricus rex Anglorum concedo et sigiUi mei as- 
sertione confirmo. Huius rei sunt testes cmh signis suis subscript! barones. 
Sigmun Henfrici regis. S. Ricardi f Baiocensis episcopi. S. lohannis f Luxo- 
viensis episcopi. S. Ricarfdi Constanpiensis episcopi. fS. Turfgisi Abrin- 
censis episcopi. S. Rofberti de sigillo. S. Roberjti Sagiensis episcopi. S. 
Roberfti comitis Gloecestrie. S. Waleranfm comitis de MeUent. S. Robertti 
de Haia, S. Rogefrii vicecomitis. S. Willelfmi de Albigneio. S. Roberfti filii 
Bernardi.'^ 

" Siccavilla (SecqueviUe-en-Bessin). 

*2 Original, endorsed ' Emptiones Eudonis,' in Archives of the Calvados, H. 1834, 
no. 13-56^. The charter, which measures S7 by 66 centimeters, is ruled in dry 
point and divided into four columns; there is a double queue but no trace of a seal. 
(Cf. JW. ^.AT., vii. 272, no. 13; a copy by Hippeau is in MS. Lat. n. a. 1406, ff. 76- 
8sv). The witnesses are printed by Dehsle, S.Sauveur, pieces, no. 47; the slip 
which makes John, bishop of Sfiez, appear as Robert between two other Roberts is 
not of the sort one expects in an original, and the crosses seem to have been made 
by the same hand, so that we may have only an early copy. There can be no doubt 
of the genuineness of the contents, as the substance of the notices is reproduced, 
without the names of justices or witnesses, in one of Henry I's great charters for 
Samt-fitienne in the same archives (H. 1833, no. 12-3; 63 by 52 centimeters). The 
witnesses of this are given by Delisle, Caritdaire normand, no. 828; they are identical 
with those of another charter for the same monastery, evidently issued at the same 
time (H. 1833, no. ixbis-sbis; 74 by 52 centimeters). The two are incorporated 
by Henry II into a single charter of extraordinary length: Delisle-Berger, no. 154. 
The 'Emptiones Eudones ' were transcribed into the lost cartulary of Saint- 



HENRY I 97 

The following document of May 1133 is of greater interest 
for the procedure than for the composition of the king's court; 
unfortunately it is known only through an extract from a lost car- 
tulary, and the omitted portions are plainly of importance. A cer- 
taiQ Fulk, vassal of the abbot of Troam in respect of a certain fief, 
also claims to hold of the abbot the entertainment of a man and a 
horse. The king commands the abbot to do the claimant right, 
and a duel is waged, doubtless in the abbot's court, and, in accord- 
ance with a practice abundantlyexemplified in the later Exchequer 
Rolls, recorded at Caen before the king's justices, who render a 
decision in favor of the abbot. Fulk, or rather, as before, his 
guardian for him, then brings forward another claim, this time to 
a church and twenty acres of land, and the justices again order 
the abbot to do him right; but the suit is abandoned at the 
instance of. the patron of the monastery, William, count of Pon- 
thieu. It should be noted that while the first plea is held per 
iussum regis Henrici, Henry had been absent from Normandy for 
nearly two years. There was nothing to prevent the plaintiff's 
securing his writ from England, but it was probably granted by 
the justices in Normandy, as in the ensuing complaint. A notice 
of this kind must not be pressed too hard, but there is no indica- 
tion that the procedure was exceptional, and there is interest in 
the suggestion which the accoxmt affords of the justices' issuing 
writs in the king's name and taking jurisdiction in disputes be- 
tween a lord and his vassal. Such writs of right indicate that Nor- 
mandy, as well as England, was already moving in the direction 
of the procedure found in Glanvill.^' The case also illustrates 
the procedure in the wager of battle as described by Glanvill: ** the 
plaintiff offers battle through a champion who still preserves the 
name, if not also the character, of a witness. The only justice 

fitienne, a full analysis of which is in the library of Sainte-Genevifive at Paris (MS. 
1656), whence it has been published by Deville, Analyse, pp. 44-49. The notices 
which mention the king's justices are quoted from Deville's text, which is incom- 
plete and very carelessly printed, by L. W. Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward, 
p. 26 f. VaUn strangely overlooks the whole document. 

'^ See G. B. Adams, Origin of the English Constitution, pp. 78-80, 94-105. Pro- 
fessor Adams has convinced me that in this case Fulk was the tenant, not the lord, 
of the abbot, as I was inclined to believe in 1909. 

« Bk. ii, c. 3. 



98 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

named besides the bishop of Lisieux is William Tanetin/* who 
appears to be acting individually when the suit is dismissed. 

(6) xxiiii" folio veteriscart[arii]. Notum sit omnibus quod anno millesimo 
centesimo tricesimo tercio in mense maio, per clamorem Fulconis filii Ful- 
conis et Rog[erii] Pelavillani vitrici eius qui custodiebat eum et terram illius 
et per iussum regis Henrici, tenuit doninus abbas Andreas placitum et recti- 
tudinem Ulis de procuratu unius hominis et unius equi quern dicebant ipsum 
filium Fulconis debere habere ab ipso abbate in feudo cum alio feudo suo. Et 
in ipso placito fuit inde dueUum iudicatum et captum inter Hugonem de 
Alimannia qui testis erat filii Fulconis et Rad[ulfiun] filium Fulberti. Deinde 
in eodem mense apud Cad[omvun] recordatimi est dueUum coram iusticia 
regis, scilicet coram lohanne episcopo Lex[oviensi] et WiUelmo Tanetin et 
aliis, et iudicavit curia regis quod habere non debebant quod requirebant, 
etc. Post finem huitis dueUi fecit clamorem Rog[erius] PelaviUanus coram 
iusticia regis quod abbas Troamensis toUebat fiho Fulconis ecclesiam de 
TurfrediviUa '^ et .xx. acras terre, et precepit iusticia regis ut abbas rectitu- 
dinem inde teneret ill[is]. Interea venit Troarnum WUlelmus comes Ponti- 
vorum dominus Troarnensis abbatie et interrogavit ipsum Rog[eriimi] si de 
hoc veUet placitare, et respondit Rog[erius] quod in pace dimittebat ex toto 
in finem comiti et abbati, etc., totimi id est et placitum et ecclesiam et terram, 
coram ipso comite et Willelmo Tanetin iusticiario regis. Plures stmt testes.*' 

The activity of the justices is also seen from writs like the fol- 
lowing, which should be compared with one in the Livre noir of 
Bayeux,** addressed to the bishop of Lisieux, Roger de Mande- 
ville, and William son of Ansger, and ordering them to do full 
justice to the bishop of Bayeux as regards any disturbance of his 
rights: 

(7) Henricus rex Anglorum lohanni episcopo Lexoviensi et Rogerio de 
Magn[aviUa] salutem. Precipio vobis ut facialis tenere plenvmi rectum abbati 
de Cadomo de aqua de Vei[m] desicuti ipsa iacebat ad manerium in tempore 
patris mei, ita ne inde clamorem audiam.*' 

*5 William Tanetin appears as dapifer (of the count of Ponthieu ?) in 11 27, and 
as tenant of the count in 113S (Round, Calendar, nos. 590, 970). He is frequently 
mentioned in the cartulary of Troam in documents ranging from 1117 to 1135: 
MS. Lat. 10086, ff. 30V, 31, iS2v; Sauvage, Troam, pp. xxxii, 152, 223 f. 

<6 Tou£fr6ville (Calvados), canton of Troam. Cf. Sauvage, pp. 23, 140. 

*' Troam cartulary, MS. Lat. 10086, f. 3sv; copy by the abb6 La Rue in MS. 
Caen 64, f. 46V. Now also printed in Valin, p. 263. 

*' No. 29; also in Livre rouge (MS. Lat. n. a. 1828), no. 29. Anterior to 1122, 
when William Fitz Ansger was dead (DeUsIe, Rouleaux des marts, p. 293). 

*» Library of Saint6-Genevi6ve, MS. 1656, f . 20; incorrectly printed by Deville, 
Analyse, p. 18. Vains (Manche) had been granted to Saint-fitienne by the Con- 
queror: Appendix E, no. i. 



HENRY I 99 

With respect to the personnel of the king's court the documents 
published above, taken with the order of precedence in the address 
of the king's charters/" fully substantiate Round's assertion that 
Bishop John of Lisieux was the head of the Norman Exchequer; 
and while the title is not given him in any document so far known, 
there can be no doubt that he held the office of chief justiciar. 
Next to the bishop, Robert de la Haie the seneschal appears as 
the principal member of the court, indeed the absence of these two 
on accoimt of iUness is the occasion of explanation. ^^ Robert 
seems to have been the chief lay officer of the Norman adminis- 
tration, for his name heads the list of laymen both in the address 
and in the testing clause of Henry's charters except when he is pre- 
ceded by some one of the rank of count. ^^ When Robert de la 
Haie is not one of the court, the other Norman seneschal, Robert 
de Courcy, is the first lay member. The justiciar and the seneschal 
would thus seem to have been the important elements in the court. 

In certain of Henry's writs we find a distinction drawn between 
his iusticia Normannie and other justices in a way which suggests 
at first sight the chief justiciar in contrast to his colleagues, but 
more probably has reference to justices who were local or were at 
least acting locally. Thus a writ in favor of the canons of Bayeux 
is addressed iusticiis suis Normannie et Willelmo Glast[oni^ ei 
Eudoni Baiocensi et G[aufrido] de Subles.^^ Another writ, evi- 

'" Round, Calendar, nos. 282, 569, 1436 (cf. no. 611); Ordericus, iv. 435. 

" E. H. R., xiv. 426; supra, note 18. 

'2 E. H. R., xiv. 424; supra, nos. i, 5; infra, nos. 9, 11, 12, 14; Ordericus, 
iv. 43s; Round, Calendar, nos. 107, 122, 123, 168, 197, 398, 724, 924, 998, 1191, 
1388, 1436 (where Round has Richard, but the Livre noir, no. 34, has simply R.) ; 
Calendar of Charter Rolls, ii. 137; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1330-1334, p. 334, 1334- 
1338, p. 249; JlfoMtoCMieCorto/ory (Somerset Record Society, 1894), no. 164; Appen- 
dix F, nos. 10, II. Such exceptions to the precedence of Robert in the testing 
clause as are foimd in Roimd, nos. 373, 375, 411, and Monasticon, vii. 1071, are 
not originals; but no. 1052 in Round (from a copy by Gaignifires) and no. 828 in 
the Cartulaire normand of Delisle seem to be real exceptions. The place of Robert 
de la Haie in the Norman administration shows the need of serious modification 
in Vernon Harcourt's view of the unimportance of the seneschal's office in this reign; 
indeed, in view of the ahnost uniform precedence of the seneschals in Hemy's 
charters, it is impossible to maintain that they show " no trace of preeminence 
over other household functionaries " {His Grace the Steward, p. 24). 

^ Livre noir, no. 8; U. Chevalier, Ordinaire et coutumier de Viglise de Bayeux, 
p. 419; Round, Calendar, no. 1437. 



lOO NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

dently issued in the vacancy of the see between 1133 and 113S, 
is directed iusticiis el custodibus episcopatus Baiocensis, who are 
ordered to execute a decision of the king's curia in a case between 
two of the bishop's vassals — et nisi feceritis iusticia Norm[annie] 
facial fieri.^* There are also writs addressed to local Justices in 
particular districts: iustilie et vicecomili Archarum,^^ iusliciariis et 
minislris de Sancto Marculfo el de Varrevilla,^ iusticiis Constatir- 
lini, iusticiis Constanlini et Valloniarum,^'' Algaro de S ancle 
Marie Ecclesia celerisque iusticiis Constanlini.^^ In the first of 
these instances the justice and vicecomes may be one and the same, 
as occurs in England at this period,^' and the same persons may be 
acting as justices and custodes in the Bayeux writ; but it is not 
likely that the justices and ministri of Saint-Marcouf were identi- 
cal, and the justices of the Cotentin have no other title and are 
evidently royal judges for the district, whether itinerant or acting 
imder local commissions it is impossible to say. In some instances, 
as when the bishop of Lisieux is associated with local magnates 
like Roger de Mandeville and William Tanetin, the court may 
have consisted of an itinerant justiciar and a local judge. In order 
to follow out questions connected with the local administration of 
justice, we should need to examine a considerable number of writs, 
or at least a considerable group of tl^ose relating to a particular 
district or religious establishment; and the Norman writs of 
Henry's reign are few and scattered.*" Not all of the following 
documents for the abbey of Montebourg relate to the administra- 
tion of justice, but they are printed here because they form an 
interesting group which has not as yet been pubhshed:*' 

" Livre noir, no. 37. ^^ No. 9, bdow. 

'* Round, Calendar, no. 398. " No. 11, below. 

'* Henry I for H^auville, a priory of Marmoutier: vidimus in Archives of the 
Manche; copy in MS. Grenoble 1402, f. 232; printed in Revue catholique de Nor- 
mandie, x. 350. 

" Stubbs, Constitutional History, 6th ed., i. 423; Roimd, Geoffrey de MandeciUe, 
p. 106 ff. 

*° The two most important sets of such writs are those in the Livre noir of 
Bayeux (nos. 8, 29, 34, 37, 38) and the charters and writs relating to Envermeu 
calendared by Round (Calendar, nos. 393-398). See also the writ for Saint-Pfere 
of Chartres printed below, Chapter VI, p. 223. 

»' The cartulary of Montebourg (MS. Lat. 10087) was unknown to Round, as 
were the valuable copies of documents relating to the Cotentin which were made by 



HENRY I lOI 

(8) H. rex Angl[orum] vicec[omitibus] et prepositis et ministris suis tocius 
Costantini salutem. Precipio vobis quod non capiatis hominem aliquem vel 
nampnum eius aliqua occasione in mercato de Monteborc die ipso quo mer- 
catum est, si eum alia die et alibi in terra mea eos capere poteritis. Quia nolo 
quod mercatum elemosine mee per occasionem destruatiu-. T[este] R[oberto] 
comite Gloec[estrie] apud Argent[onum ?] per WUlelmum Glastonie.'^ 

(9) H. rex Angl[oruni] iusticiariis et ministris de Sancto Malculpho et de 
VarreviUa*' et omnibus dominis de quibus abbatia de Monteborc tenet, 
salutem. Precipio quod abbatia de Montebxu-go teneat omnia sua ita bene et 
quiete et honorifice sicut liberior abbacia tocius Normannie, et nominatim 
elemosinam meam terram de FoucarviUa liberam et quietam de teloneo et de 
verec et de omnibus consuetudinibus et de omnibus querelis. Nolo enim ut 
habeant occasionem mittendi manum uUo modo super elemosinam meam. 
Quod si quid iniurie fecerint, videat iusticia mea ne perdam rectum meum; 
abbacia namque est propria mea capeUa et ideo precipio vobis ut eam 
custodiatis. T[este] R[oberto] de Haia. Apud Rotli[omagum]." 

(10) H. rex Anglie R[icardo] Constantiensi episcopo et vicec[omitibus] et 
omnibus baronibus et fideUbus suis de Costent[ino] salutem. Sciatis me con- 
cessisse abbatie Sancte Marie Montisburgi ecclesiam de MorfariviUa «' cum 
feria et terris et decLmis et omnibus rebus ipsi ecclesie pertinentibus, quam 
Sanson de ' Morfarvilla predicte abbatie dedit et concessit concessione 
Roberti de Novo Burgo domini sui et fratrum eius. Et volo et precipio 
finniter ut bene et in pace et quiete et honorifice teneat. T[estibus] Roberto 
de Novo Burgo et WiUelmo de Albinneio. Apud Rothomagum.^* 

Pierre Mangon at the end of the seventeenth century and are now preserved in the 
library of Grenoble (MSS. 1390-1402) . Cf . Dehsle, Les mimoires de Pierre Mangon, 
mcomte de Valognes, in Annuaire de la Manche, i8gi, pp. 11-42. Certain docu- 
ments concerning the Norman possessions of Montebourg are also copied in the 
cartulary of Loders in the British Museum, Add. MS. 15605, excerpted in Remte 
catholique de Nortnandie, jrvii-xix. 

^ MS. Lat. 10087, no. 8, where the writ is dated ' apud Dug.' The mdimus in the 
Archives of the Manche (H. 8426, 8527) and in the Archives Nationales (JJ. 52, f. 
62, JJ. 118, f. 258); MSS. Grenoble 1395, ff. 9, 58, and 1402, f. 64V; and Add. MS. 
15605 of the British Museum, ff . 13V, 14V, 26, all have ' Argent.' For the contents 
of the privileges of the market of Montebourg, see Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 
737; Remte caiholigue, xvii. 308; Calendar of Charter Rolls, iv. 157. 

^ Saint-Marcouf is in the canton of Montebourg. Varreville and FoucarviUe 
are in the canton of Sainte-MSre-£gUse (Manche). 

^ MS. Lat. 10087, no. 9; also in Liwe blanc (Archives of the Manche, H. 8391), 
f. 2; MS. Lat. 12885, f. r6i; Add. MS. 15605,6. 13V, 14V, 26. Vidimus in Archives 
of the Manche, H. 8426, 8427, 10881, and in Archives Nationales, JJ. 52, f. 62, JJ. 
118, f. 258. Copies in MSS. Grenoble 139S, f . 28V, and 1402, f . 35V, and in the Baluze 
MSS. of the BibliothSque Nationale, MS. 58, ff. 38, 39V. In MS. Grenoble 1395, 
f. 9, there is a copy of this writ (from a mdinms of 1315) addressed 'episcopo Con- 
st[antiensi] et iusticliis] Norm[annie] et omnibus . . .' 

°5 Montfarville (Manche), canton of Quettehou. *" MS. Lat. 10087, uo. 10. 



I02 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

(ii) H. rex Angl[orum] iustic[iis] Costentini et Willelmo de Bniis et 
forestariis suis salutem. Mando vobis atque precipio quod pennittatis 
habere monachos de Montisburg[o] tot arbores in Bruis " ad focmn suum 
quot ebdomade habentur in anno et materiem ad sua edificia et pasnagium 
suum quietum et omnes consuetudines suas liberas et quietas, et de tot 
arboribus sint quieti forestarii in placitis meis de quot garantizaverint eos 
monachi per suas taillias. T[este] R[oberto] comite Gloec[estrie] apud 
Roth[omaguni] per R[obertum] de Haia.»8 

(12) H. rex Angl[orum] Ric[ardo] episcopo de Constanc[iis] et W[i]leImo] 
de Alben[neio] salutem. Precipio ut Unfredus de Alben[neid] teneat terram 
suam in pace et quiete et decimam de Morsalines '' et molendinimi et quic- 
quid habet in eadem villa, et concedo ut ecclesia de Montebo[r]c post mortem 
Unfredi eamdem terram habeat in quiete et pace sicut Unfridus earn eidem 
ecclesie dedit. T[este] R[oberto] de Haia. Apud Roth[omagum]."' 

(13) H. rex Angl[orum] W[illelmo] de Albin[neio] salutem. Precipio quod 
ecclesia de Monteburgo de elemosina mea teneat terram suam de Morsalinis 
quam Unfridus de Adevilla ei dedit concessu patris tui ita bene et in pace et 
iuste et quiete sicut breve patris tui quod habet testatiu:. Et nisi feceris 
iusticia mea faciat, ne inde amplius clamorem audiam pro penuria plene 
iusticie vel recti. T[este] R[oberto] comite Gloec[estrie] apud Alg' per W. 
Filiastr[um]." 

(14) H. rex Angl[orum] Ric[ardo] de AnsgervUla, W. de Sancto Germano 
salutem. Precipio vobis quod faciatis ita iuste habere abbati de Montisburgo 
octavam partem ecclesie de HerreviUa " sicut habet octavam partem terre 
eiusdem viUe et desicut venit in curiam meam ut illam partem disrationaret 
versus monachos deHaivilla et homines suos et iUi defecerunt se iUucveniendi 
ad diem suum inde sumptum et datum; ita ne super hoc amplius clamorem 
inde audiam. T[este] R[oberto] de Haia per Thomam de Ponte Episcopi. 
Apud Rothomagum." 

(is) H. rex Anglie episcopo Constancpensi] et iustic[iis] Normannie et 
omnibus dominis de quibus abbatia de Montisburgo et ecclesia sua tenet, sa- 
lutem. Precipio quod abbas de Montisbiurgo et ecclesia sua teneant terras et 
homines et ecclesias et decimas et molendina et consuetudines et omnia sua 

" Brix (Manche), canton of Valognes. 

*' MS. Lat. 10087, no- II) Archives of the Manche, H. 8426, 8427; Archives 
Nationales, JJ. 52, f. 62, JJ. 118, f. 258; MS. Grenoble 1395, f. 9; Add. MS. 13605, 
ff. 13V, 14. In MSS. Grenoble 1395, f. 29, and 1402, f. 35V, the writ begins: ' H. 
r[ex] Angl[orum] iustpciis] Constantini et Vallon[iarum] et forestariis de Bruis.' 
Cf. Henry's general confirmation, Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 737. 

»' Morsalines (Manche), canton of Quettehou. 

'» MS. Lat. 10087, no. 12. 

" Ibid., no. 13. 

" Helleville (Manche), in the canton of Les Pieux, not far from the priory of 
Hfeuville. 

" MS. Lat. 10087, "lo- 14- 



HENRY I 103 

ita bene et in pace sicut abbatia Fiscan[m], quod enim ad me pertinet in ea 
onine concessi illi in elemosina. T[este] R[oberto] de Ver. Apud Rotho- 
m[agum]." 

The glimpse of the forest courts in no. 11 is interesting. Pleas 
of the forest are mentioned in Normandy as early as the reign of 
Robert I, and there is evidence of a special forest law under the 
Conqueror; '* this writ shows the foresters rendering periodic 
account before the king's justices and offering talKes as their 
justification for trees that have been taken by the monks. The 
regarders are also mentioned in Henry's reign," as are the fines 
and forfeitures of the forest pleas." 

William de Brix and Richard d'Angerville '^ are also found as 
royal judges in the Cotentin in a document relating to the abbey 
of Saint-Sauveur, where the king's justices are apparently sitting 
in the feudal court of Nigel the vicomte. That they might so sit 
appears from English practice, and there is also evidence that 
Henry's officers exercised judicial rights on the lands of the 
bishop of Bayeux.^' 

(16) Sciant etiam omnes quod monachi Sanctj Salvatoris omnes decimas 
et maxime medietatem campartorum, quod est decima pro qua inceptum 
fuit, totius terrg Nigelli vicecomitis et suorum omnium hominvun diracioci- 
navenmt in curia sua, quibusdam eius militibus et vavassoribus contradi- 
centibus, quibusdam concedentibus. Et ibi nemine resistente sed omnibus 
adquiescentibus iudicatum est atque diffinitum tam a regis quam a Nigelli 
iudicibus ut abbatig extunc et deinceps recta decima et maxime medietas 

" MS. Lat. 10087, no. 15 (where the witness appears as ' R. de Weu ') ; Livre blanc 
(H. 893i),f. iv; MS. Lat. 12885, f. 161; Add. MS. 15605, ff. 13V, 14V, 26;MS. 
Grenoble 139s, f • 28v; vidimus in Archives of the Manche, H. 8426, 8427, 8692, and 
in Archives Nationales, JJ. 52, f. 62, JJ. 118, f. 258. In MS. Grenoble 1402, f. 3sv, 
the witness is given as ' Ric. de Redvers.' 

" Supra, Chapter I, notes 215-218. 

'8 Infra, note 156. 

" Appendix F, no. 17. 

'" William de Brix witnesses charters of Henry I for Saint-fitienne (Round, Cal- 
endar, nos. 1411, 1412; Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 828). Richard d'Angerville 
appears as a witness in January iioi in the Troam cartulary (MS. Lat. 10086, f. 
149) and in 1 104 in Delisle, S.Sameur, pieces, no. 46. Roger Suhart was a promi- 
nent sub-tenant of the bishop of Bayeux in 1133, H. F., xxiii. 699 f. (cf. Tardif, 
Coutumiers de Normandie, i. i, p. 112). 

" Livre i:oir, no. 16. Cf. the presence of Henry I's judges in the court of the 
bishop of Exeter, E. H. R., xiv. 421. 



I04 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

campartorum a predictis sine caliunpnia reddereUir. Histestibus: Willelmo 
de Bruis, Ricardo de Ansgervilla, Rogero de Rufo Campo, Waltero de 
Hainou, Rogero Suhart.'" 

As regards ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Henry I seems to have 
adhered in general to the practice of his father, the principles of 
whose poKcy, as formulated in the canons of LiUebonne, he con- 
firmed by the apposition of his seal.*^ Barons as well as prelates 
sat in the curiae which decided the independence of Saint-Taurin 
from Fecamp and the rights of Bee over Notre-Dame-du-Pre.*^ 
If the court which establishes the right of Geoffrey the priest to 
the church of Saint-Sauveur at Caen is composed of bishops and 
clergy, it is still the king's court and the result is transmitted to 
the bishop and chapter of Bayeux by royal writ.*' For slaying in 
violation of the Truce of God the bishop now has a fixed fine of 
nine pounds; aU personal property beyond this is forfeited to the 
king, in whose court the duel must be held and whose justices 
collect the fine due the bishop.** 

The Norman evidence, like that for England in the same period, 
does not suffice to give a clear picture of the judicial system, yet it 
is plain that there is such a system and that it is creating a body of 
law. The justices issue writs, take sureties, try pleas of the crown, 
and hear possessory as well as petitory actions. If we may trust 
Henry I's charter for the town of Verneuil in the form in which it 
has reached us, the use of writs is already so common that they 
are granted by local officers, although the writ concerning land 
stands on a different footing from the others.*^ Very likely the 

*" In pancarte of Saint-Sauveur, British Museum, Add. Ch. 15281, formerly 
sealed (' sigillum Rogerii vicecomitis '). Printed by Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pieces, 
no. 48, from the cartulary of the abbey at Saint-L6, no. 13, where the words ' tam 
a regis quam a NigeUi iudicibus ' are omitted. 

*' Teulet, Layettes du TrSsor des Chartes, i. 25, no. 22. 

82 Qallia Christiana, Lx. instr. 127; Appendix F, no. i. See supra, notes 14, 15. 

^ ' In curia mea ante episcopos meos et ante clerum meum ': Livre noir, no. 38 
(1107-1123). 

^ Ordinance of 1135 in Trh Ancien Coutumiet, c. 71; Round, Calendar, no. 290; 
ct. Tardit, £,tnde, p. 48 f.; infra, p. 140. 

** ' Et si aliquis burgensium breve aUquod a prelato pecierit, illud habebit sine 
precio, preter terram: ' Ordonnances des Rois, iv. 639, c. 10. The text of these 
privileges is very corrupt; for prelato (of. DuCange, s. v.) we should probably read 
pretore or preposito. 



HENRY 1 105 

king's court administered some form of procedure by sworn 
inquest; such inquests were certainly held by Henry's command, 
and within ten years of his death they had developed into regular 
assizes.*^ 

Of the fiscal side of the Norman administration no records have 
survived anterior to the Exchequer Roll of 1 180, but a roll of 1 136 
is mentioned in the eighteenth century,*' and a careful study of 
the later rolls and of the incidental evidence of earlier sources 
shows that the essential features of the Exchequer of Henry II 
existed under Henry I and even earlier. As in England, there was 
no sharp separation between the Judicial and the financial duties 
of the king's officers: in 11 23 the iustiiiarii regis took possession 
of the county of fivreux and the lands of the rebels and added 
them to the king's demesne,** and after Robert of Belleme had 
been removed from office in 11 12 for failure to render account 
for the royal revenues in his vicomtes of Argentan, Exmes, and 
Falaise, we find Bishop John of Lisieux in charge of the royal 
stores at Argentan.*' The system of collection and account which 
appears in the later rolls, being based upon the vicomte and 
prevoti and not on the newer bailliage of the Angevin dukes, 
plainly goes back to the time when these were the important local 
areas; and the tithes and specific pa3Tnents charged against the 
farms can in many instances be traced back well into the eleventh 
century.'" Even the amount of the farm might long remain un- 
changed, in spite of such a general revision as was made in 1176; 
the forest of Roumare, for example, was let at the same amount in 
1 180 as in ii22.'i An excellent illustration of the continuity of 
the Exchequer arrangements is furnished by the following ex- 
tracts from a charter of Henry I for Seez cathedral, in which, as in 

86 See infra, Chapter VI. ** Ordericus, iv. 453. 

«> M.A. N., xvi. p. XXX. 8' Ibid., iv. 303, 305. 

^'' Supra, Chapter I. 

'1 ' Et in parco meo Rothomagi totam decimam feni et .c. solidos de foresta mea 
de Romare, scilicet decimam per annum: ' charter of Henry I in 11 22 for Notre- 
Dame-du-Pr6, early copy in Archives of the Seine-Inf^rieure,/o»Mfi Bonne-Nouvelle, 
box B; certified copy in MS. Lat. n. a. 1245, f. 37. In 1180 the tithe is still 100 solidi 
(Stapleton, i. 75). On the revision of 1176 see Powicke, E. H. R., xxii. 23, 



Io6 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

a charter for Bocherville,'^ the farm of the vicomte is shown to 

have existed under William the Conqueror: 

Ipsis quoque fratribus regularibus damus et confirmamus quindecim libras 
Rothomagensis monete quas dedi in dedicatione ipsius ecclesie in unoquoque 
anno habendas, scilicet septem libras et decern solidos in teloneo meo de 
Falesia et septem libras et decern solidos in teloneo meo de Oximis. . . . 
Preterea duodecim libras in firma nostra de Argentomo et viginti et imum 
solidos in teloneo eiusdem ville et sexaginta ioUdos et decern denarios de 
teloneo meo de Oximis que dederunt pater mens et mater mea ecclesie 
Sagiensi ad victum canoniconmi duorum, quod antiquitus in elemosina statu- 
tum fuerat.^' . . . 

Normandy also offers an interesting parallel to England in the 

matter of its treasury. Round has shown the significance, for the 

history of fiscal institutions in England, of Henry I's grants to the 

French monasteries of Cluny, Tiron, and Fontevrault, especially 

the grant to Tiron of fifteen marks receivable each year de thesauro 

meo in festo Sancti Michaelis Wintonie, which imder Henry II 

became payable from his treasury at the Exchequer.^* Now the 

first of these charters to Fontevrault also contains a charge 

against the Norman revenues, namely £ioo in the rent of the 

king's mint at Rouen,'^ while a still clearer piece of evidence is 

found in a charter for the leprosery of Le Grand-Beauheu at Char- 

tres. Issued originally between 1121 and 1131 and renewed in 

1 135, this runs as follows: ^ 

(17) H. rex Anglorum archiepiscopo Rothomagensi, episcopis, abbatibus, 
comitibus, iusticiariis Normannie et thesaurariis et omnibus fidelibus suis per 

"2 Romid, no. 198; Stapleton, i. 68. 

" See the charter in full in Appendix F, no. 11 (fromMS. Alenfon 177, f. 98; and 
MS. Lat. 11058, f. 8). These items are duly charged in the roUs (Stapleton, i. 
pp. Ixxxviii, xcvi, cxxxii, 39, 50, 103) , except the payment from the preposUura of 
Falaise, which is los. too small in 1180 but appears in full in 1198 (ibid., ii. 414). 

s* Calendar, pp. xliii-xlv, nos. 998-1003, 1052, 1053, 1387-1390, 1459, 1460; 
Commune 0} London, p. 81; Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, p. 40, note. 

" Round, nos. 1052, 1459. 

'" Cartulaire de la Uproserie du Grand-Beaulieu, ed. R. Merlet and M. Jusselin 
(Chartres, 1909, Collection de carttUaires chartrains, ii), no. i, from a vidimus of 
1469 in the Archives of the Eure-et-Loir. All the essential phrases are repeated in 
a charter of Stephen, issued at fivreux in 1136, of which the original is preserved 
in the same archives (ibid., no. 11; see infra, Chapter IV, notes s, 9, 13). Being 
witnessed by the earl of Gloucester and Robert 'de sigillo,' Henry's charter cannot 
be earlier than 11 21; in its original form it is anterior to the general confirmation 
of Innocent II, 13 September 1131 (Cartulaire, no. 6). 



HENRY I 107 

Nonnanniam constitutis salutem. Sciatis quia dedi et concessi in perpetuam 
elemosinam Deo et Sancte Marie Magdalene de Bello Loco et infirmis ibidem 
Deo servientibus, pro anima patrum et parentum meorum et pro remissione 
peccatorum meorum et statu et incolumitate regni mei Anglie et ducatus mei 
Normannle, omni anno X libras Rothomagensium de thesauro meo, et 
semper eas simul habent ad festum Sancti Michaelis quando firme et 
pecunia mea colligimtur, et ipsis thesaurariis meis precipio ut eas eis omni 
anno et termino prenominato sine distiurbacione omni et occasione liberent. 
Hoc itaque donum meum illi ecclesie et fratribus infiimis sine fine mansurum 
regia auctoritate statuo et adeo michi collata potestate inviolatmn permanere 
confirmo. 

Testibus lohanne episcopo Lexoviorum et Roberto de sigillo et Rogerio 
de Fiscanno et Roberto comite de Gloecestrie et Rpcardo] filio comitis et 
R[oberto] de Ver et Roberto de Cmrci, et Gaufrido filio Pagani et Gaufrido 
de Magnavilla et Roberto de Novo Biurgo et WiUelmo de Roumaro. Apud 
Rothomagum. Anno ab incamatione Domini M°C°XXX° quinto hec 
carta renovata fuit, quia prior igne combusta erat. 

Here we have a Norman treasury as well as Norman treasurers, 
one of whom can probably be identified in the witness Roger of 
Fecamp,'' and we learn that, as in England, Michaelmas was the 
term when the king's ' farms and money are collected.' No 
place is mentioned, but the later history of the endowment and 
the connection of a treasurership with a canonry in Rouen cathe- 
dral '* make it probable that the treasury here mentioned was at 
Rouen. Stephen repeats all the provisions of his uncle's grant, 
but Henry II makes it an annual charge, still at Michaelmas, 
against the mcomte of Rouen, where it appears in the Exchequer 
RoUs.*' Treasure was stored at other centers also, for at Henry's 
death we know that the bulk of his treasure was at Falaise,'"" 
and imder Henry II Caen and Argentan were used for the same 
purpose."^ The custom of keeping treasure in various royal 
castles is not, however, inconsistent with a single administration 
of the treasury of receipt and disbursement.^^ 

The English Pipe Roll of 1 130 shows the Norman treasury re- 
ceiving pa5Tnents on English accoimts and certifying credits by 

" See below, notes 119, 120. 
9* See the following paragraphs. 

" Cartulaire du Grand-Beatdieu, nos. 11, 28, 65; Delisle, Henri II, p. 126; 
Delisle-Berger, no. 434; Stapleton, i. 70. 

"» Ordericus, v. 50; Robert of Torigni, 1. 200 f. 

"1 Chapter V, note 115. 

i<B For England cf . Roimd, introduction to Pipe Roll 28 Henry II, p. xxiv. 



I08 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

royal writs,"" the officers who receive the money being Osbert de 

Pont de I'Arche and Nigel nephew of the bishop of Salisbury. 

Osbert held a ministerium camerq curiq}"* Nigel is styled treasurer 

in two documents which he witnessed at Rouen/"* but though he 

was with the king in Normandy through the early months of 

1 131, he accompanied him to England in the summer of that 

year/"^ and it does not appear that his duties or Osbert's were 

confined to Normandy."" Whatever the exact relation of Nigel 

' the treasurer ' to the Norman treasury, there was throughout 

the twelfth century a special treasurer for Normandy. In the 

Exchequer Rolls of 1180 and later the tithes of the Lieuvin, the 

pays d'Auge, and certain other districts are a fixed charge upon 

the farms for the benefit of the treasurer of Normandy,'"* a 

natural extension to one of the royal chaplains of the practice of 

assigning the tithe of a vicomte to a religious house. That this 

arrangement goes back to the reign of Henry I appears from the 

following passage in Stephen's confirmation of the possessions of 

Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge in 1137: '"' 

Confirmavi . . . decimam de vicecomitatu de Lesvin et Algia qug sunt 
de capellaria mea quas Gislebertus de Ebroicis et Robertus filius eius capellani 
regis Henrici et mei dederunt et concesserunt eidem gcclesig. 

It is not here stated that Gilbert of Evreux and his son were 
treasurers, but we know from other sources that they were. In the 

1" Pp. 7, 13, 37, 39> 54, 63- '" J^; P- 37- 

"' Round, Calendar, no. 1388; and the following conclusion of a charter of the 
chapter of Chartres, issued, as appears from the lists in R. Merlet, Dignitaires de 
I'Sglise Notre-Dame de Chartres, subsequently to 11 26: ' Postea vero Mauricius 
et Petrus, alii fratres, concesserunt hoc ipsum apud Rotomagiun et vadimonia sue 
concessionis transmiserunt per manus domni Henrici prepositi, videntibus et audi- 
entibus Andrea de Baldement, Willelmo de Fraxineto, Nigello thesaurario, Heinrico 
de Richeborc, Radulfo de Mercato, Ansoldo de Bellovidere canonico, Guillelmo de 
la Ventona, Roberto de la Haie ' (MS. Lat. 5185 I, p. 90, copied from the original). 

''" Round, Calendar, nos. 122-124, 287, 373, 1388; Sarum Documents, p. 7; Ap- 
pendix F, no. 10; Monasticon, iv. 538, vi. 240, viii. 1271; E. B. R., xxiii. 726. 

"" Cf. the document witnessed by them, E. H. R., xiv. 422, which was probably 
issued in England. Hubert Hall, Red Book of the Exchequer, p. ccc, seeks to identify 
them with the milites episcopi of the Conslilulio domus regis. 

"" Stapleton, i. pp. xciii, cxxi, 40, 77, go, 99, 100, 118, 146, 157, 167, 168, 246, 
ii. 461, S49, 560. Cf. infra. Chapter V, note 139. 

i<i» Original, or pretended original, in the Archives of the Calvados, /o«dj Sainte- 
Barbe; Round, Calendar, no. 570. 



HENRY I 109 

history of the foundation of Sainte-Barbe,"" written at the end of 
the twelfth century, we read: 

Fuit in diebus superioris Henrici regis Anglorum quidam clericus in nrbe 
Rothomagensi nomine Gillebertus, ex dericali et militari prosapia editus. 
Hie et Rothomagensis ecclesie precentor et prefati regis thesaurarius erat. 
Cum autem filios quinque haberet iuvenes egregios literis deditos et in curia 
regis nominates, primogenitum Willelmum sibi annis iam maturus in the- 
saiurarii ofiScio ex regis beneplacito subrogavit. In quo etiam officio reliqui 
fratres, quamdiu superstites fuerunt, ac si iure hereditario sibi invicem suc- 
cesserunt. Guillelmus igitur patris potitus officio, cum pro multiplici preclare 
indolis probitate regis et procerum gratiam et familiaritatem haberet, tan- 
dem spreta mimdi maleblandientis prosperitate, spreto iuventutis flore, 
spreto patre dulcique fratrum consorcio, spreto eciam latere regis Anglorum, 
regi militare disposuit angelorum. 

Here we have six successive treasurers. Gilbert "^ must have 
given up the office some years before 11 28, when his son William 
' the Treasurer,' having Uved as a hermit for a time after his re- 
tirement from the court, was made prior of the newly organized 
community of Sainte-Barbe by its patron Rabel of Tancarville. 
Gilbert died before 1137,"^ and his fief of Agy, near Bayeux, had 
been in possession of Sainte-Barbe since 1133 or earlier."' Wil- 
liam's successor as treasurer was Robert, secundus natus post 

"" MS. 1643 of the library of Sainte-Genevifive, f . 57, printed by R. N. Sauvage, 
La chronique de Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge (Caen, 1907), pp. 19-20. 

•" A strict interpretation of Stephen's charter might make Gilbert one of his 
chaplains, but that is out of the question. ' Gislebertus cantor ' witnesses a charter 
of Archbishop Geoffrey in 1 119 (MS. Lat. 17044, f. 19), but this may have been the 
Gislebertus cantor who witnesses Archbishop Hugh's charters for Saint-Georges de 
Bocherville in ii3r (MS. Rouen 1227, ff. 45, 46), for Bee in 1141 (MS. Lat. 13905, 
f. 90), for Beaubec in 1142 (Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, /(W<ii Beaubec), and 
for Lire in 1145 (Archives of the Eure, H. 438). As Gilbert the treasurer was of 
clerical descent, he may be that ' Gislebertus filius Rotberti archidiaconi Ebroicen- 
sis ' who offered his son Hugh to Jumieges in 1099 (Le Prdvost, Eure, iii. 46). He 
can hardly have been the ' Gislebertus filius Bemardi ' who was a canon of Rouen 
in 107s (Archives of the Seine-Inf&ieure, G. 8739). 

u^ ' In Baiocassino apud Ageium terram de patrimonio Gisleberti de Ebrois 
quam filii eius dederunt fcclesif S. Barbarg pro anima eiusdem Gisleberti qui ibi 
iacet: ' charter of Hugh, archbishop of Rouen, 1137, confirming the possessions of 
Sainte-Barbe; original in Archives of the Calvados, fonds Sainte-Barbe. The posses- 
sions at Agy are described more exactly in original charters of Henry II and Philip, 
bishop of Bayeux, preserved in the same' fonds; cf. Calendar of Charter Rolls, 
iii. 308; Sauvage, in Memoires de I'Academie de Caen, 1908, p. 11. 

"^ Inquest of military tenants of the bishop of Bayeux in 1133, H. F., xxiii. 701. 



no NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Guillelmum, mr in regno nominatissimus,^^* whom we have already 
found sitting in the Norman Exchequer."* He must have been in 
office in 1 1 28 and have continued as late as 1136, since he was a 
chaplain of Stephen. Of the other sons we know nothing save 
that one was named Richard "* and that two of the prior's 
brothers followed him to Sainte-Barbe. "' The Master Thomas 
of fivreux, who appears as a canon of Rouen in 11 65 and subse- 
quently,"* doubtless belonged to this family. Rogerus thesaurarius 
witnesses a royal charter at Rouen in 1135,"' but he is probably 
to be identified with Roger, nephew of the abbot of Fecamp, who 
was a chaplain of Henry I and Stephen.'^" 

The treasurer was not the only chaplain to receive regular 
allowances from the Norman revenues, but the sources now avail- 
able do not permit us to follow the others back or ascertain their 
administrative duties. The dominica capellaria of Saint-Cande-le- 
Vieux at Rouen, for example, tempts our curiosity; its exemption 
from the diocese of Rouen requires explanation, and the fact that 
the authority of the bishop of Lisieux over it seems to have been 
established under John the justiciar suggests some connection 
between these chaplains and the royal administration.^''! The 
whole subject of the royal chapel is one of great obscurity, for 
England as well as for Normandy, and any facts which may be 
brought forward concerning it are likely to throw Ught upon the 
history of the administrative system. The scantiness of the Nor- 
man material for the early twelfth century likewise leaves us ia 

'" Sauvage, Chronique, p. 20. "' Supra, notes 18, 20. 

"« Sauvage, loc. cit., p. 36. He is doubtless the ' Ricardus Ebroicensis canonicus 
noster ' who appears, under 15 January, in the obituary of Rouen cathedral: H. F., 
xjdii. 3S9A. 

"' Sauvage, loc. cit., p. 25. 

"' Cartulary of Foucarmont (MS. Rouen 1224), f. 30 (1165); MS. Lat. 1713s, 
p. 22 (ir72); L. de Glanville, Hisloire du prieuri de Saini-L6, ii. 326 (1177); 
Poupardin, Charles de S.-Germain-des-Pr&s, no. 156. 

"' Round, Calendar, no. 590. 

•^" lUd., nos. 124, 289, 29s, S4I, 105s; Ramsey Carltdary, i. 250; Monasticon, 
vii. 700. 

•2' The whole history of this exemption is obscure. See Gallia Christiana, xi. 42, 
774; Toussaint Duplessis, Description de la Haute-Normandie, ii. i2r; H. de 
Formeville, Hisloire de Vivich€-comli de Lisieux, i, pp. xii-xvi; Stapleton, i, pp. 
cxxx, czxxvii. 



HENRY I III 

the dark with respect to other members of that " official class 
working in the interests of the crown" whose activity at Win- 
chester and elsewhere has been so well illustrated by Round's 
studies.'^^ The following document of 1133-1135 introduces us 
to two such royal clerks: 

(18) H. rex Anglorum archiepiscopo Rothomagensi et iusticiis et baro- 
nibus suis de Normannia et vic[ecomiti] et burgensibus et ministris suis de 
Rothomago salutem. Sciatis quod concede Ojrao episcopo Ebroicensi terrain 
et domum illam de Rothomago que fuit Willelmi Bruni clerici mei quam ipse 
emit ad opus ecclesie sue de Sancta Maria de Ebroicis de Petro filio ipsius W. 
Brimi et Rannulfo scriptore meo consensu '^ per .c. sol[idos] Roth[oma- 
gensiiun] quos eis inde dedit. Et ideo volo et precipio quod ipse episcopus 
et ecclesia sua bene et in pace Ulam teneant et libere sicut predictus WiUel- 
mus unquam melius tenuit et honorabilius. Testibus Adel[ulfo] episcopo 
Carlol[ensi] et comite Leglrec[estrie] et Rog[ero] de Fisc[anno] et WiUelmo 
de Ely et Radulfo de Hastingps], apud Rothomagum.^^ 

William Brown had been ahve in 1130, when he appears as a 
considerable landholder in Suffolk/^s and had held lands in Win- 
chester before 1115 in conjunction with WilUam Fitz Odo, prob- 
ably the constable of that name.^^' Roger Brun occurs in the 
midst of a group of king's clerks in another document of this 
period.i^' Apparently we have here another family of royal clerks, 
and one cannot help surmising some relationship with that Master 
Thomas Brown, also a landowner in Winchester,'^* who makes his 
I appearance in 1137 at the court of Roger of Sicily, where he rises 
to high position in the Judicial and fiscal administration, and is 
then recalled by Henry II to a position of ' no mean authority ' in 
the English Exchequer. '^s j^ jg qq part of our present purpose to 

^ Compare, besides his article on Bernard the Scribe, in E. H. R., xiv. 417- 
430, the Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 430, 536; and R. L. Poole, The Exchequer 
in the Twelfth Century, p. 123 f. 

•23 Cartulary G. 6 has ' scriptore concessu meo.' 

^ fivreux cartularies in the Archives of theEure, G. 122, f. 41V, no. 201; G. 123, 
no. 193; G. 6, p. 17, no. 11; Round, Calendar, no. 289. 

126 Pipe RoU 31 Henry I, p. 99. Ranulf the scribe held lands in Berks: ibid., 
p. 126. 

126 £iber Winton., ff. 3b, 12b. 

12' E. H. R., xiv. 428; cf. Ecclesiastical Documents, ed. Hunter (Camden Society), 

P-Si- 

>28 Pipe Roll I Richard I, p. 205. 

"^9 I have brought together the facts concerning Thomas Brown in an article 



112 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

enter into the controversy respecting the relation of the Anglo- 
Norman Exchequer and the Sicilian diwan to which these facts in 
Thomas's biography have given rise. In view of what is now 
known concerning its Byzantine and Saracen antecedents it can 
no longer be maintained that the Sicilian fiscal system was im- 
ported from England by Thomas Brown ; but it is possible that he 
may have exerted some influence in matters of detail, and it is 
certainly worth noting that, if we are justified in connecting 
him with the clerks of the same name under Henry I, he probably 
had some acquaintance with the workings of Anglo-Norman 
administration before he entered the service of the Sicilian king. 

Precisely to what extent Normandy and England had sep- 
arately organized govermnents under Henry I, it is not possible 
to say without further genealogical study and a more careful 
examination of the dociunentary evidence. Wholly distinct the 
two administrations cannot have been, for so long as kingship was 
ambulatory and the government centered in the royal household, 
a considerable number of the king's officers must have been com- 
mon to the kingdom and the duchy.. Thus William of Tancarville, 
though his castle was in Normandy and though he received a fixed 
grant from the Norman treasury, is styled ' chamberlain of Eng- 
land and Normandy,' "" and the seneschalship of Humphrey de 
Bohun was likewise common to both countries.'" William Brown 
we have just seen as a landholder on both sides of the Channel; 
Simon the dispenser is with the king in Normandy between 1117 
and 1 1 20 and in England in 1130.1^^ Not only the great body of 
personal servants, but such departments as the chancery and the 
chapel, certainly followed the king. Thus in the transfretation 
of 1 1 20, of which the chroniclers have left some record because of 
the loss of the White Ship, the king was accompanied by chap- 
on England and Sicily in the Twelfth Century, E. H. R., xxvi. 438-443, where (pp. 
651-655) the Sicilian fiscal system is also discussed (1911). 

™ Annals of Saint-Wandrille, Histoire liitlraire de la France, xxxii. 204; cf. 
Walter Map, De Nugis, ed. M. R. James, p. 244. For the grant from the treasury 
see Monasiicon, vii. 1066; Stapleton, i. 68, 157. 

"' Ancient Charters (Pipe Roll Society), no. 27. 

"2 Round, King's Serjeants, p. 189; Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, pp. s, 79. 



HENRY I 113 

lains, dapiferi, camerarii, and pincerne.^^^ The fiscal administra- 
tion was naturally more stationary than the household proper, for 
the collection and disbursement of the revenue had to go on in the 
king's absence; and, while we know even less of the Norman 
treasury than of the treasury at Winchester, there was at least a 
separate treasurer and probably some other permanent ofl&cials."* 
Yet in this department too a cormection was maintained between 
the kingdom and the duchy. Treasure was carried back and forth, 
not only with the king, as on his return from Normandy in 1120,1'* 
but also at other times, a considerable part of the large sum stored 
at Falaise at the time of Henry's death having been recently 
brought from England."^ Such transshipments must have been 
accompanied, as under Henry H,'*' by royal ofl&cers — indeed the 
possession of the castle of Porchester by one of the chamberlains 
of the Exchequer may have been connected with this process of 
transfer ''* — while some system of balancing accounts between 
the two treasuries is involved in the practice of receiving pay- 
ments on one side of the Channel to apply on accounts due on the 
other. Intercommunication of this sort is, of course, quite com- 
patible with the existence of two separate corps of oflEicials, but 
the appearance in Normandy of the two chamberlains, Geoffrey 
de Clinton and Robert Mauduit, as well as such fiscal ofl&cers as 

™ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 242; William of Malmes- 
bviry, Gesta Regum, ii. 497. Ordericus (iv. 415-419) mentions by name William, 
one of the four principal chaplains, William de Pirou dapifer, and Gisulf the scribe. 
Cf. the transfretation of 1130, John of Worcester (ed. Weaver), p. 33. 

1^ There was also a separate Norman mint at Rouen, and pleas concerning the 
coinage were held apttd arcam monete: Round, Calendar, nos. 1053, 1459; Pipe 
Roll 31 Henry I, p. 122; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 157. 

"' Ordericus, iv. 412, 419. 

"6 Hid,, V. so; Robert of Torigni, i. 201. 

1" E. g.. Pipe Roll 6 Henry n, p. 47; i3HenryII, p. i93f.; 21 Henry H, p. 200. 

^' Round, in Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 432; Ancestor, v. 207-210. The 
history of this Mauduit chamberlainship is, in spite of Round's researches, not yet 
entirely clear. It is not true that, as the editors of the Oxford edition of the Dialogus 
suggest (p. 20), the office of William Mauduit was acquired by William de Pont de 
I'Arche in ir30, for, apart from the fact that William Mauduit would not be men- 
tioned in the Constitutio domus regis if he was no longer in office, we find him re- 
ceiving money in the camera curie in 1130 (Pipe RoU, p. 134) and witnessing as 
chamberlain in the summer of 1131 {infra, Appendix F, no. 11; cf. Round, Calen- 
dar, no, 107). 



1 14 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Nigel nepos episcopi and Osbert de Pont de I'Arche, would seem 
to indicate that the two administrations were not wholly dis- 
tinct."' In judicial matters the chief link between the kingdom 
and the duchy was the king, although the officers who came with 
him from England might also constitute an important element in 
the meetings of the Norman curia. In general, however, the Nor- 
man judicial system possessed a considerable measure of distinct- 
ness. The cases in which the king sat were more likely to leave a 
record in the charters, yet we have seen abundant evidence of the 
activity of the courts in his absence and of the existence, in addi- 
tion to the local officers, of a body of Norman justices, among 
whom the justiciar and the two seneschals stand out with such 
prominence as to suggest that they constituted the nucleus of the 
Norman central government. 

Our conception of Henry's Norman household will depend in 
large measure upon our interpretation of that curious and unique 
record, the Constitutio domus regis, which contains a detailed list 
of the officers of the court with their daily stipends and allowances 
of food, wine, and candles."" Drawn up not long after Henry's 
death,"' this is based upon the conditions of his reign and is thus 
much the earliest of the many household ordinances of European 
royalty. It is true that in its present form it is not so much an 
ordinance as an attempt at an up-to-date account of the royal 
household; but the word constitutio points to a formal act, and the 
consistent use of the future tense shows that in the body of the 
document we are dealing, not with a mere description, but with 
the language of one who commands and prescribes. If we call to 
mind the contemporary mention of Henry's reform in the prac- 
tices of his courtiers,"^ and particularly the specific statement of 

1*' Cf. introduction to Oxford edition of Dialogus, p. 19, note 3. 

"" Liber Niger Scaccarii, ed. Hearne, pp. 341-359 (the best text); Red Book of 
the Exchequer, ed. Hall, pp. 807-813. For modern discussions, see Hall's introduc- 
tion, pp. cclxxxvi-ccci; Bateson, Media,eval England, pp. 5-8; Poole, The Exchequer 
in the Twelfth Century, pp. 94-99; Round, The King's Serjeants and Officers of 
State, especially p. 54 ff. 

'*>■ Whether under Stephen, as is generally assumed, or in the early years of 
Henry II (cf. Liebermann, Veher Psettdo-Cnuts Conslitutiones de Foresta, p. 25) 
does not greatly affect our purpose. 

"2 Eadmer, p, 192 f.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ii, 487, The re- 



HENRY I 115 

Walter Map that he established scriptas domus etfamilie sue con- 
siietudines, including fixed liveries for the barons of his curia and 
regular allowances for the members of his household,"' we shall 
not hesitate to identify this reform with the original nucleus of the 
Constitutio, so far as this can be separated from glosses and later 
additions. Some elements were doubtless still older, since a charter 
of the Conqueror"* in 1070-107 1 mentions court liveries, demaine 
and common bread, candles and candle ends, such as appear in the 
Constitutio, and since many of the serjeanties of the Constitutio 
can be followed back as far as Domesday. As regards place, the 
Constitutio contains no specific reference to either side of the 
Channel, save for the mention of the modius Rotomagensis as a 
standard of measurement, and this phrase has been used as an 
argument both for and against the compilation of the document 
in Normandy."^ Clearly its scope cannot be restricted to the 
duchy, for most of the persons therein mentioned are found in 
possession of lands and offices in England, and the Pipe RoU of 
1 130 not only shows two of the chief, men of the household receiv- 
ing the per diem allowance fixed in the Constitutio,^*^ but also 

form probably antedates 11 21, since Robert Peche before becoming bishop ' in 
cura panum ac potus strenue ministrare solebat ': Florence of Worcester, ii. 75. 
Another larderer, Roger, had been made bishop in iioi: William of Mahnesbury, 
Gesta Pontificum, p. 303. 

1** ' Scriptas habebat domus et familie sue' consuetudines quas ipse statuerat: 
domus, ut semper esset omnibus habunda copiis et certissimas haberet vices a 
longe provisas et communiter auditas ubicunque manendi vel movendi, et ad earn 
venientes singuli quos barones vocant terre primates statutas ex liberalitate regis 
liberationes haberent; familie, ne quis egeret sed perciperet quisquis certa don- 
aria.' De Nugis Cwialium, ed. James, p. 219 (ed. Wright, p. 210). 

'^* Davis, Regesta, no. 60. 

"5 The Norman view is maintained by Stapleton, Magni Roluli, i, p. xxi; 
Hall, Red Book, p. ccc; id., Studies in English Official Historical Documents, p. 163. 
Poole, p. 95, argues that if the household was settled in Normandy, there would 
have been no need to call upon the bakers to spend 40^. in procuring the measure; 
but it seems clear that the reference is rather to the piffchase of a given quantity of 
grain. If that is the correct interpretation, we have an illustration of fixed prices 
for the court's purchases, such as seem to be implied in the passages of Eadmer 
and William of Malmesbury cited in note 142. 

"' Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, pp. 129, 131, 140, where the liveries of the chancellor 
and William de Pont de I'Arche the chamberlain are reckoned at s^. a day. When 
officers served in the curia, they were paid from the camera curie, so that their 
wages do not appear in the Pipe Rolls, where they are mentioned for the most 



1 16 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

mentions most of its lesser members — ushers, bakers, larderers, 
cup-bearers, butterymen, naperers, and archers, the velterer and 
the master of the harriers, hosarius, scutellarius, bordarius, corti- 
narius,^*'' the cook who pays half a mark of gold for his father's 
office,"' down to the sumpter-man and the Serjeants of the chapel 
and the kitchen."^ All this, however, does not show that these 
were members of a purely English household, for the king had 
spent nearly the whole of this fiscal year in England, and there is 
no record how many of them accompanied him to Normandy in 
September. 

It is impossible, from the records now extant, to follow out the 
officers of the Constitutio on Norman soil, for we have no Ex- 
chequer RoUs for this period and little other material of the sort 
which has enabled the patient learning and ingenuity of Round to 
identify so many of the king's Serjeants in England. In the ab- 
sence of any such body of conquered land as in England, it is 
likely that in Normandy the officers of state were less freely re- 
warded by land and were dependent in large measure upon the 
fixed endowments from the ducal revenues of which we find traces 
here and there. Thus Henry's treasurer, as we have already seen, 
had the tithes of certain vicomtes,^^" and we know that his cham- 
berlain of the family of Tancarville had a fixed grant of £60 from 
the farm of Lilleboime."i Similar charges in the roll of 1180 in 
favor of the dispenser of LiUebonne "'^ and the duke's larderer 
may also have an early origia."' Normandy was familiar with the 

part as excused from Danegeld, the amount remitted serving as an accurate meas- 
ure of the hides which they owned in each county. Cf. Poole, Exchequef, p. 125. 

"' Pipe RoU, pp. 1, 4, IS f., 22 f., 41, 45 f., SI, s6, S9, 6i, 72 f ., 75 f ., 80, 83, 86, 99, 
102, 104, 107, 126; and Roimd, King's Serjeants, under these words. 

"' Pipe Roll, p. 84. If the cook Radulphus de Marchia of the Constitutio is the 
Radulfus de Marceio of St. Paul's documents, he was dead before 1127 (9 Historical 
MSS. Commission, p. 65 f.). 

"' Pipe RoU, pp. 102, 107 f., 126; cf. E. H. R., xiv. 423. 

''" Supra, note 108; cf. infra, Chapter V, note 139. 

"' Monasticon, vii. io56; Stapleton, i. 68. "^ Stapleton, i. 68. 

"' Ibid., i, pp. Ixxxiii, 30, 99, 274, ii. 471, S72, S73- As the alms here charged 
against the farm of Valognes, like the other fixed charges in the rolls, appear to be 
arranged in chronological order, the assignment to the larderer is probably earlier 
than the grant to the chapelry of Valognes, transferred to the abbey De Voto by 
an early charter of Henry II (Delisle-Berger, no. 135). 



HENRY I 117 

system of daily allowances described in the ConsHtutio, for Wace, 
who would carry this back to the time of Richard the Good and 
Robert I, speaks of the duke's provision 

De chandeile e de vin e d' altre livreisim,i" 

and teUs us that the dignitaries of the household 

Chascun iur orent livreisuns 
E as granz festes dras et duns."^ 

This is confirmed and amplified by a curious charter which bears 
the royal style of Henry II but on the ground of its witnesses is 
probably to be assigned to the reign of his grandfather.'*^ This 
document, which gives us the most concrete accoimt of the Nor- 
man household, grants to Odoin de Malpalu, the king's serjeant, 
along with various lands and rights, 

' the whole ministry of the king's panetaria, with all its appurtenances, 
with livery in the court every day that the king is at Rouen, namely four 
pennyworth of bread from the depensa, and one sextary of knight's wine from 
the cellar, and four portions from the kitchen, one of them a large one, two of 
the size for knights, and one dispensaUle. And Odoin is to j&nd the king 
bread in his court, and to reckon by tallies with his dispensers and with aU his 
bakers, and he shall receive the money and give quittances to the bakers. 
And when the king sends to Rouen for bread, Odoin is to bring it at the king's 
cost, and every pack horse shall have i2d. and every pannier-bearing one 6d. 
and every basker-carrier a pennyworth of bread, and if the bread is brought 
by water the boatman shall have 6d. a journey. When the king makes a 
joiurney, Odoin is to have all that is left of the bread of the panetaria; and he 
is to have charge of and jurisdiction over the king's bakers at Rouen and 
within the hanlieue of Rouen, and aU their forfeitures, and the weighing of 
bread, and all fines of bread and forfeited bread. Odoin shall also have one 
free fishery in the Seine, and all his wheat shall be ground in the king's mills 
of Rouen free of charge, immediately after the wheat which he shall find in 
the hopper; and he is to be one of the regarders of the king's forests, at the 
king's cost, and to be quit of pannage in aU these forests for aU his swine, and 
every Christmas he is to have twenty shillings or four swine,' etc."' 

1" Chronique ascendante, ed. Andresen (i. 214), line 211. 

1'' Roman de Rou, ed. Andresen, ii, line 799 ff. 

I's Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 14; Delisle-Berger, no. 705; Round, Calen- 
dar, no. 1280; there is also a copy in MS. Lat. 9067, f. 141V. On the difficult 
question of the nature and date of this charter, see Delisle, in B. E. C, Ixvii. 395- 
397; Round, in Archaeological Journal, bdv. 73-77; Delisle, Hemi II, p. 34, note; 
Round, Serjeants, p. 199 f . 

"' This is, substantially. Round's analysis. 



Il8 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Here the serjeant remains at Rouen and, apart from his con- 
tinuing privileges, draws his livery only while the king is there, so 
that he belongs with the chaplains and porters attached per- 
manently to the royal castles rather than with the ofl&cers who 
follow the king. So in an early charter of Henry II his serjeant 
Baudri, besides his daily wages as porter and jailer at Rouen and 
his gifts and Hveries as regarder and pannager of the forests, is 
confirmed as marshal whenever the king sojourns at Rouen, re- 
ceiving for each of these days six loaves of bread, six portions from 
the kitchen, and a sextary of wine, besides a shield each year and 
every Christmas two swine from the larder of Rouen and a beech 
in one of the forests."' Henry II had a way of rewarding his 
Serjeants with town houses, notably in the growing port of 
Dieppe,'*' and one of his grants of this sort may explain an im- 
explained ofl&cer of the Constitutio, namely Ralph le Robeur, or le 
Bobeur, whom I am inclined to identify with Ralph le Forbeur, 
who held a house at Bayeux on condition of furbishing the king's 
hunting arms.'^" 

Rouen was doubtless the principal center for these officials of 
the more local and stationary type,"' although too much must not 
be argued from the survival of documents respecting serjeanties 
which owed their value principally to the later growth of the city. 
It would still be an anachronism to speak of Rouen as a capital, 
yet it has special significance in connection with the treasury, and 
it appears much more frequently than any other Norman place in 
the king's charters,'*^ while his park at Sainte-Vaubourg and his 
palace at Le Pre were close by.'*' Next to Rouen, Caen holds the 

"8 Delisle-Berger, no. 212. For another Rouen marshalship see Geoffrey's 
charter, infra, Chapter IV, no. 13; and cf. the services due Henry I from Roland 
d'Oissel: Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 2; Round, Calendar, no. 1278. 

'" See the Coutumier of Dieppe, in Archives of the Seine-Inffirieure, G. 851; 
Delisle-Berger, nos. 1x5, 329, 398, 479, 709, 713, 719. 

IS" ' Servitio furbiandi venabula et alia arma mea ': Cartulaire de Normandie 
(MS. Rouen 1235), f. 24V; Delisle-Berger, no. 723; Valin, p. 151, note 4. Cf. 
' Aldwinus forbator ' in Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 41. 

'°' To the treasurer and Serjeants mentioned above should be added ' Robertus 
capellanus mens de Rotomago ': Monaslicon, vii. 1043, 1099; Round, no. 475. 

102 See Appendix G, supplemented by the great number of charters which cannot 
be specifically dated. 

'" B. t,. C, xi. 438; Stapleton, i, p. cxli; fitienne de Roueo, ed. Omont, bk. iii, 



HENRY I 119 

chief place in the description of his enlargement and strengthening 
of the older Norman castles,^'* and in his itinerary Caen, Falaise, 
and Argentan appear most frequently after Rouen. The sessions 
of court and justices at the castle of Caen '^* foreshadow the later 
meetings of the Exchequer there, while the king's loricarii at 
Argentan are reminders that such strongholds were also needed 
for sterner work."^ Henry's sojourns elsewhere are scattered 
through his itinerary without indicating any such degree of fre- 
quency or length of stay; besides the ports of Dieppe and Bar- 
fleur and the older towns and fortresses of the interior, they 
include his newer strongholds on or near the frontier — Vemeuil 
and Vire, VaudreuU and Lions-la-Foret, where he died. 

Besides the Norman parallels to the Serjeants and liveries of the 
Constitutio, there is definite evidence that the officers who ac- 
companied the king to Normandy received the same stipends as 
in England. In the Pipe Roll of 1 130 William de Pont de I'Arche, 
the chamberlain, has an allowance for the period of sixty-three 
days intervening between his departure from the king in Nor- 
mandy and his taking over of the bishopric of Durham,'" a jour- 
ney partly in Normandy and partly in England during which he is 
paid at the luiiform rate of $s. a day fixed in the Constitutio. This 
further shows that the liveries of the Constitutio are reckoned in 
sterling, due allowance being doubtless made for the different 
standards in Normandy. Moreover, if a difference existed be- 
tween allowances in England and in Normandy, the Constitutio 
could hardly have avoided mentioning it in tracing the increase 
in the stipend of the keeper of the seal, Robert, a constant com- 
panion of the king in these later years, who was receiving his 
maximum remimeration in Normandy at the moment of Henry's 
death. We may conclude that there is no reason for ascribing the 

linessff. (Hewlett, Chronicles of Stephen, ii. 713); Delisle-Berger, no. 523; Rottdi 
Chartarum, p. 3. 

'«* On his castles see Robert of Torigni, i. 164, 197; id., in William of Jumifiges, 
ed. Marx, p. 309; Powicke, Loss of Normandy, p. 275 f. 

"' Supra, no. 5; Deville, Analyse, p. 47 f. 

i«« Appendix F, no. 21. Note the attestations of the two marshals. 

1" ' In liberatione Willelmi de Pontearcanim de .bdii. diebus .xv.l. et .xv.s. 
ex quo recessit de Rege in Normannia et accepit episcopatimi Dmielmensem'; 
p. 129, cf. p. 131. 



I20 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Constitutio exclusively to either side of the Channel, but, as the 
compiler speaks particularly of conditions at the time of the king's 
death, he doubtless had most freshly in mind the household of the 
last two years of the reign, which were spent in Normandy. Hence 
the tnodius Rotomagensis, which seems to have been the standard 
measure of the Norman Exchequer."* 

This official or semi-official description of the household in 
Henry's later years may be supplemented by the witnesses to the 
charters which he issued in Normandy 1133-1135."' The most 
solemn of these, the ordinance respecting the Truce of God which 
is the only surviving monument of his Norman legislation,"" was 
promulgated at Rouen in presence of the archbishop and the 
bishops of the province, and by the common coimsel and consent 
of the attesting barons who comprised only earls and high officers 
of the curia: Robert, earl of Gloucester, the king's son, his nephew 
Stephen, the earl of Leicester and Earl Giffard, Brian Fitz Count 
constable, Robert de Courcy and Hugh Bigod seneschals, Wil- 
liam Fitz Odo chamberlain, and William Fitz John, whose office 
has not been identified. The bishops of Ely and Carlisle and the 
keeper of the seal are noted as present, but are carefully distin- 
guished from the barons. A charter of the same year issued at 
Caen "^ adds to Henry's entourage the names of Geoffrey Fitz 
Payne, Roger the treasurer, and three royal chaplains, Robert 
archdeacon of Exeter, Richard de Beaufage, and Richard, son of 
Robert of Gloucester, the last two already designated as bishops 
respectively of Avranches and Bayeux."'' Charters of the pre- 
ceding year "' add to the names of officers of state who were with 

1" Stapleton, i. 32, 39, where we read of rents and allowances in the Cotentin 
of ' modii avene ' and 'modii bladii,' 'ad mensuram Rothom[agensem].' 

"» See Appendix G. 

"" Tris Ancien Couiumier, ed. Tardif, c. 71; Round, Calendar, no. 290. 

™ Round, no. 590. 

"' Ordericus, v. 44 f. 

"' Round, nos. 37s, 959. See further no. 374; supra, no. 18; E. H. R., xjdii. 
726, no. iv {Monasticon, viii. 1275), which adds William, Earl Warren {ibid., vii. 
1 1 13). From the lists of those who were with the king in England just before the 
transfretation of 1133 (Monasticon, vi. 177; Madoz, Baronia Anglica, p. 158; 
cf. Round, Feudal England, p. 426 f.) it appears that many of these must have 
crossed with him. 



HENRY I 121 

the king at Rouen Robert de la Haie and Humphrey de Bohun 
seneschals, and Robert de Vere constable. Three other chamber- 
lains, Aubrey de Vere, William of Houghton, and William of 
Glastonbury, are found at Falaise in a royal charter of the same 
period,"* and two marshals appear with the king at Argentan."° 
At Henry's death, i December 113 5 at Lions, there were present, 
in addition to his chaplains, the archbishop of Rouen, the bishop 
of Evreux, the earls of Gloucester, Surrey, and Leicester, and the 
coimts of Meulan and Perche."" 

In their joumejdngs to and fro across the Chaimel the kings of 
the twelfth century made use of a royal galley (esnecca) ,^'" pay- 
ments for which are a regular item in the Pipe Rolls of Henry H. 
Li the Conqueror's reign this service seems to have been in charge 
of Stephen Fitz Airard, who appears in Domesday holding lands 
in Berkshire, and is probably the ' Stephanus stirman ' who has a 
house in Warwick and the rent of two houses in Southampton."' 
After Stephen's death the privilege does not seem to have passed 
to his family, and when his son Thomas claimed the feudal right 
by placing the White Ship at the disposal of Henry I in 11 20, 
provision had already been made for the king's crossing."' Who 
possessed the ministerium esnecce under Henry I and his grandson 
we learn from a charter issued by Henry H at the beginning of 
his reign: 

Sciatis me reddidisse et concessisse Willelmo et Nicholao, filiis Rogeri 
generi Alberti, et heredibus Bonefacii et Azonis et Roberti et Radxilfi fratrmn 
ipsorum ministerium meum de esnecca mea cimi liberatione que pertinet et 

"* Ramsey Chronicle, p. 284, no. 33s; Ramsey Cartulary, i. 250. 

i'6 Appendix F, no. 21. "* Ordericus, v. 50 f. 

"' ' Rex Anglie ad suam transfretationem navem propriam solet habere. Can- 
cellarius ei fieri fecit non imam solam sed tres simul naves optimas: ' Fitz Stephen, 
Vita S. Thome {Materials, iii. 26). It is not clear whether the ministerium of the 
Hastings esnecca which was held under Henry I by the ancestors of Roger of 
' Bumes ' (Abbreviatio Placitorum, p. 39b) was distinct from the service of the 
esnecca mentioned below. Under Henry II it passed to Hugh de Bee, husband of 
Roger's sister Illaria, and was claimed under John by Roger's niece Avicia. What 
may be a Chester esnecca appears in 1168 (Pipe Roll, p. 92). 

>'8 Ordericus, iv. 411; Domesday Book, i. 52, 63b, 238. Stephen Fitz Airard also 
appears in a charter of the early years of Henry I which permits him to grant lands 
to Ramsey: Calendar of Charter Rolls, ii. 102, no. s (cf. nos. 7 and 15). 

•" Ordericus, iv. 411. 



122 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

totam terrain Rogeri generi Alberti et f eoda omnia que ipse Rogerus tenuit in 
capita de rege H. avo meo et de quocunque tenuisset die qua fuit vivus et 
mortuus. ^^ 

Roger, son-in-law of Albert, is otherwise known. He had held 
lands in Wallop (Hampshire) before 1130,1'' as well as lands 
in Southampton which he and his wife gave to the abbey of St. 
Denis,'*^ and he witnessed a royal charter in Normandy which 
cannot be earlier than 1123.''^ The ministerium doubtless came 
to him from Albert with his wife Avizia, which would carry it well 
back into Henry's reign. The interesting fact to note is that while 
none of the names in his family are Anglo-Saxon, and none are 
necessarily Norman, one at least, Boniface, is evidently ItaHan,'^ 
while the names Albert and Azo, as weU as the form Avizia, 
though not necessarily ItaHan, point toward Italy. The appear- 
ance of an Italian shipmaster in charge of the royal galley under 
Henry I is surely a matter of interest, and suggests that inter- 
course with the South in this period may well have been more 
active than is commonly supposed. 

'8° British Museum, Campbell Charter, xxix. g; printed in Archaeologia, vi. 116; 
Delisle-Berger, no. 26. Cf. N. H. Nicoljis, History of the Royal Navy, i. 433; Guide 
to Manuscripts exhibited in the Department of Manuscripts (1899), p. 41, no. 17. 

^^ Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 39. 

182 Calendar of Charter Rolls, iii. 337; cf. my paper in M Manges Charles Bemont^ 
p. 78. 

183 Charter for Walter de Beauchamp, given at Vaudreuil: Appendix F, no. 9. 
'8* On the rarity of the name Boniface in England in this period see Andrew, in 

the Numismatic Chronicle, fourth series, i. 208. 



CHAPTER IV 

NORMANDY UNDER STEPHEN OF BLOIS AND 
GEOFFREY PLANTAGENETi 

The conquest of Normandy by Geoffrey of Anjou raises an in- 
teresting question for students of Norman history, since by estab- 
lishing between the two countries a personal union which was to 
last sixty years it opened the way to Angevin influence in the 
affairs of the duchy and to the possible modification of Norman 
institutions in accordance with Angevin practice. The problem 
of the nature and extent of this influence presents itself in its 
simplest form during Geoffrey's own reign of six years, not only 
because the new duke was, unlike his successors, exclusively the 
product of Angevin training and tradition, but also because under 
him the Norman and Angevin lands led a life of their own, dis- 
tinct from that of the larger empire of which they afterward 
formed a part. Unfortimately the available information is 
meager, especially with reference to the preliminary elements in 
the problem, for we know but httle of conditions in Normandy 
under Henry I, and no special study has yet been made of Anjou 
tmder Fulk of Jerusalem and his son.^ In general it appears that 
the state which Fulk the Red and his descendants hammered out 
on the borders of the Loire was smaller and more compact than 
the duchy to the northward, and the government of its rulers was 
more direct and personal, so that its administrative needs were 
simpler and seem to have been met without the creation of a fiscal 
and judicial system like the Norman and without any such fixity 
of docmnentary form or rigor of official procedure as are dis- 
cernible in Normandy by the beginning of the twelfth century. 

' Revised from E. H. R., xxvn. 417-444 (1912). 

^ For the eleventh century there is an admirable study by L. Halphen, Le cowM 
d' Anjou au XI" siecle (Paris, igo6). For the twelfth, a certain amount of useful 
material is contained in C. J. Beautemps-Beaupre, Coutumes et instikttions de V Anjou 
et du Maine, part ii, i (Paris, 1890) ; see also F. M. Powicke, The Angevin Adminis- 
tration of Normandy, E. H. R., xxi. 625-649, especially 648 f., xxii. 15-42; and his 
Loss of Normandy, ch, ii. 

123 



124 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

In point of organization there is no ground for considering the 
Angevin government to have been in advance of the Norman, nor, 
unless it be in the more immediate control of affairs by the count, 
is there inherent reason for expecting it to have had the marked 
effects upon Norman policy which are sometimes ascribed to it. 
Statements on these matters are, however, premature until more 
is known of the state of Anjou during this period, but it is possible 
in the meantime to bring together the Norman evidence for 
Geoffrey's reign and consider it with reference to the persistence 
of older institutions as well as to possible innovations. For such 
a study the death of Henry I forms the natural point of departure. 
In Normandy, as in England, the reign of Stephen seems to 
have had a merely negative importance. After Henry's death the 
Norman barons invited Theobald of Blois to rule over them, but 
the news of his brother's accession in England decided them to 
accept the lord of whom their English fiefs were held. Stephen 
took the title of duke of the Normans, and had it engraved on his 
seal, but he used it rarely, even in Norman docixments,' and 
never exercised an effective government over the whole of the 
duchy. The great strongholds of the southern border, Argentan, 
Exmes, and Domfront, had been promptly handed over to the 
empress by a loyal vicomte, as had also the castles of the count of 
Ponthieu, notably S6ez and Alengon, which were restored to 
Count William in return for his support of the Angevin party. 
From this basis, after a short truce, Geoffrey and his followers 
carried their ravages westward into the vale of Mortain and the 
Cotentin, and northward as far as Lisieux, while the party of 
Stephen waited in vain for the arrival of its leader.* It was not 
till March 1137 that the king, accompanied by the queen, the 
bishops of Winchester, Lincoln, and CarKsle, and his chancellor, 
Roger,^ arrived at La Hougue and proceeded by way of Bayeux 

' Delisle, Henri II, p. 115 f. 

* Ordericus, V. 56-78; Robert of Torigni, i. 199 f., 205; John of Marmoutier, 
in Marchegay, Chronigues des comtes d' Anjou, p. 294 (ed. Halphen and Poupardin, 
p. 225); William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, p. 538; Henry of Huntingdon, 
p. 260. 

' See their attestations in Delisle, pp. 11 7-1 19, nos. 2-8, 10. For Alexander of 
Lincoln, see also Henry of Huntingdon, p. 260, and two notifications issued in his 
favor by Stephen at Rouen and preserved in the Registrum Antiquissimum of 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 125 

and fivreux to the valley of the Seine. Although he was well re- 
ceived by the Normans, who had been embittered by the excesses 
of the Angevin soldiery, and was recognized by the French king, 
Stephen's presence was not suflSdent to bring peace to the coun- 
try. Geoffrey was able to lead an attack on Caen and force 
money from Norman monasteries as the price of safety for their 
lands, and after an abortive attempt at an expedition against 
Argentan, Stephen was, early in July, forced to purchase a truce 
by the annual payment of two thousand marks. Through this 
parching summer and until his return to England early in Decem- 
ber, Normandy enjoyed whatever of order its duke was able to 
give it. Certain robber barons were coerced into obedience ^ and 
the forms of administration were maintained, but Stephen's own 
partisans were obhged to admit that he was a weak ruler.' His 
strongest support seems to have come from the Norman church: 
the archbishop of Rouen and four of his suffragans had hastened 
to his court in England early in 1136; Archdeacon Arnulf of Seez 
was his chief envoy to Rome in the same year; ' and most of the 

Lincoln Cathedral, nos. 180, 194, a reference which I owe to the kindness of Mr. H. 
W. C. Davis (cf. Calendar of Charter Rolls, iv. 103, no. 29, 140, no. 17). The king 
was accompanied as far as Portsmouth by Roger of Salisbury and several other 
members of the curia who do not seem to have crossed: Calendar of Charter Rolls, 
iii. 338. On Stephen's sojourn in Normandy see O. Rossler, Kaiserin Mathilde, 
pp. 185-193; Ramsay, Foundations of England, ii. 359-364. 

His presence at Bayeux is shown by a charter for Montebourg O^elisle, p. 117, 
no. i; Robert of Torigni, i. 206), which is dated 1136, and must accordingly have 
been issued between Stephen's arrival in Normandy, in the third week of March, 
andEaster (11 April 1137). So a charter for Le Grand-Beaulieu of Chartres (Cartu- 
laire, ed. Merlet and Jusselin, no. 11, from the original in the Archives of th& 
Eure-et-Loir) is given at fivreux in 1136 ' regni mei vero secundo.' Other points in 
Stephen's itinerary which appear from the charters but are not mentioned in the 
chroniclers are Falaise (Round, Calendar, no. 611), Lions-la-For6t (ibid., no. 1404), 
Rouen (ibid., no. ro55; D. Gumey, Record of the House ofGoumay (London, 1848- 
1858), i. 108; Calendar of Charter Rolls, iii. 374; infra, note 9). 

• Ordericus, v. 81-91; Robert of Torigni, i. 206 f. On the date of Stephen's- 
return see also Gervase of Canterbury, i. loi ; John of Worcester, ed. Weaver, p. 45 ; 
Henry of Huntingdon, p. 260. 

' ' Nonnannia . . . totam eflScaci gubematore provinciam carere mesta vide- 
bat ': Ordericus, v. 9r. 

« Round, Geoffrey de MandeviUe, pp. 252 f., 260, 262 f. On the attitude of the 
Norman clergy cf. Actus Pontijicum Cenomannis, ed. Busson and Ledru (Le Mansy 
1901), p. 446. 



126 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Norman prelates continued to adhere to him with a loyalty which 
was to cost them dear at the hands of his successor. It is not sur- 
prising that, of the score of Stephen's charters which relate to 
Normandy,' two confirm the bishops in their privileges," and most 
of the others concern the religious establishments of upper Nor- 
mandy. Both in form and in substance these documents follow 
closely the charters of Henry I and assume the maintenance of his 
administrative system, with its justices, vicomtes, and subordi- 
nate officers. They also show that the ducal revenues were kept 
at farm, at least in eastern Normandy " — indeed, a fiscal roU of 
1 136 is said to have once existed ^^ — and that the Norman treas- 
urers, among them Robert of Evreux, continued in office.^' It is, 
however, noteworthy that only one order to a Norman official has 
survived, and while it refers to an earlier writ on the same subject, 
it is perhaps significant that this previous command has not been 
obeyed : 1* 

' Delisle, Henri II, pp. 117-120, nos. 1-13 (no. i is printed without the witnesses 
in Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 238; nos. 3 and 4 are in Le Prevost, Eure, ii. 477, 488; 
no. 7 is in part in Neustria Pia, p. 778, and is indicated, probably erroneously, in 
the Inveniaire sommaire as having been in the Archives of the Eure, H. 592); 
Round, Calendar, nos. g, 239, 291-296, 427, 570, 611, 800, 802, 1055, 1404. Also a 
charter for Beaubec issued at Rouen (Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, G. 851, f. 
S7v; Archives Nationales, JJ. 46, f. 37V; printed from a vidimus of Charles VI in 
Gumey , Record of the House of Gournay, i. 108) ; a writ for Bee, printed below, no. i ; 
a charter for Bee given at Marlborough (MS. Lat. 1390S, f ■ 2iv) ; another addressed 
to his officers of Wissant and Boulogne and given at Rouen (ibid., i. 86) ; a charter 
for the cordwainers of Rouen (La Roque, iii. 149, where it is wrongly attributed to 
William I) ; and an agreement in his presence at Rouen in 113 7 between the canons 
of Saint-fivroul and the monks of Notre-Dame de Mortain, notified by Richard, 
bishop of Avranches (MS. 292, f. 309V, of the Library of Caen, from the original; 
MS. Lat. S4II, part ii, p. 409; Collection Moreau, Ivii. 126; MS. Fr. 4900, f. 70). 
Of these nos. 11-13 in Delisle and nos. 9, 295, 296, 427, 800, 802 in Round were 
issued in England, leaving fifteen documents issued in Normandy, if we include 
the charter for Fontevrault (DeUsle, no. 10; Round, no. 1055). To these may be 
added four others given at Rouen for establishments outside of Normandy, namely 
one for Boulogne {Calendar of Charter Rolls, iii. 374), one for the leprosery of 
Chartres [Cartulaire, ed. Merlet and Jusselin, no. 11) confirming its alms from the 
Norman treasury, and the two for Lincoln mentioned above, note 5. 

i" Delisle, nos. 5, 11; Round, nos. g, 291. " Round, nos. 292 f., 570. 

'^ It is mentioned in 1790: M. A. N., xvi, p. xxx. 

" Supra, pp. 106-110; charter for Le Grand-BeauUeu of Chartres (Cartulaire, 
no. 11) confirming Henry I's grant of £10 in his Norman treasury. 

" Fragment of cartulary of Bee in the Archives of the Eure, H. 91 , f . 33, Prob-. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 12/ 

(i) S. rex Angl[orum] Ing[eranno] de Wasc[olio] salutem. Scias quoniam 
vehementer miror de hoc quod non fecisti preceptum meum de terra mona- 
chorum de Becco de Turf re villa de elemosina Willelmi Pevrellp]. Quare tibi 
predpio quod facias in pace et iuste et quiete terrain illam tenere sicut melius 
tenuerunt die qua rex Henricus fuit vivus et mortuus, ita quod non requiras 
aUquam novam consuetudinem de hominibus in terra iUa residentibus. 
Teste comite de Mell[ento] apud Pont[em] Ald[omari]. 

At his departure Stephen left the government of Normandy in 
the hands of certain justiciars, among whom we have the names of 
only Roger the vicomte, who met his death shortly afterwards in 
the effort to maintain order in the Cotentin, and William of Rou- 
mare,!^ who is mentioned as justiciar in a Rouen docimient of 
i8 December 1138." Beyond this point no regular administration 
of the duchy can be traced, and even in the castles and towns 
which continued to recognize Stephen his authority must have 
become merely nominal after the outbreak of the civil war drew 
the leaders of his party across the sea." Wilham of Ypres and 
Richard de Luci, who are fighting for him in Normandy in 1 138, 
join him in England at the close of the year; Galeran of Meulan 
and his brother the earl of Leicester are with him in 1139; and 

ably issued in June, when Stephen was at Pontaudemer (Ordericus, v. 85; cf. 
Delisle, no. 8). 

1' Ordericus, v. 91 f., 105; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, p. 28 f. 

'5 Printed, supra, Chapter III, no. 4; Valin, p. 260; Vernier, no. 61; all from 
the original in the Archives of the Seine-Inferieure. 

^' The charter of Stephen as count of Mortain, purporting to have been issued 
at Mortain ' in aula comitis ' in 1139 {Gallia Christiana, xi. 478), is false, at least so 
far as the date is concerned, for Stephen spent that year in England, and the bishop 
of Avranches was then Richard, not Herbert, whose seal was attached to the accom- 
panying charter (MS. Lat. 5441, ii. 416). Charters of Stephen as count of Mortain 
are known for Bee (Round, no. 378); for Saint-fitienne (DeviUe, Analyse, p. 18); 
for the Dames Blanches of Mortain (Stapleton, i, p. kv); for Savigny (cartulary 
in Archives of the Manche, no. 211) ; and for the nuns of Moutons, in the style of 
the Anglo-Norman writ, as follows: ' St. comes Bolonie et Mortonii Stephano vice- 
comiti omnibusque suis baronibus atque servientibus salutem. Mando et precipio 
vobis ut onmes res dominarum Sancte Marie de Muston, scilicet in terra et in vaccis 
et in aliis bestiis, in pace et qvdete dimittatis, easque et quidquid ad eas pertinet 
honorifice custodiatis et manuteneatis. Tibi autem, Stephane, firmiter precipio ne 
de aliqua causa implacites eas nisi per me et coram me, quia sunt in mea custodia 
illisque deffendo ne placitent sine me. Istis testibus: Hamfredo dapifero et Addam 
de Belnayo et Hamfredo de Camerayo [or camerario].' Copies, based on a vidimus 
of 1310, in Archives of the Manche, /c»»if Moutons. 



128 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

William of Roumare goes over to the empress in 1140.** Left to 
itself, the coimtry quickly fell back into the disorder and blood- 
shed from which it had never really emerged during Stephen's 
nine months' sojourn. The descriptions of the Norman anarchy 
lack something of the realism with which William of Newburgh 
and the Peterborough chronicler depict conditions on the other 
side of the Channel, but the account in Ordericus is vivid enough, 
both in its general summary and its concrete examples, and its 
venerable author saw no hope of better days when he brought his 
work to its noble close in 1141.1' 

Yet this same year proved the turning-point in the reestabhsh- 
ment of ducal authority.^" Secure in the possession of Argentan 

'8 Ordericus, v. 108, 115, 125; Round, Geofrey de Mandeville, pp. 46, 55; Ram- 
say, Foundations of England, ii. 396; E. H. R., xxv. 116. 

'' Ordericus, v. 57-77, 79 f., 89-91, 104-109, 114-117, 130 f., 133. One of the 
regions which suffered most severely was the Avranchin, where the account of 
Ordericus (v. 89) and Robert of Torigni (ii. 234) is supplemented by an original 
notice from the archives of Mont-Saint-Michel (Archives of the Manche, H. 14997; 
MS. Avranches 210, f. 8ov) : Certain men of the Mount 'post mortem enim caris- 
simi domini nostri Henrici regis in abbatem dominum suum et contra totius villg 
salutem nequiter cum pluiibus huiusce mali consciis conspirationem fecerunt. Quo 
comperto a pluribus abbas consilio fidelium suorum eos convenit et super tot et 
tantos malis conquestus eos alloquitur, quibus negantibus et obtestantibus iterum 
fidelitatem tam sug salutis quam totius villg iuraverunt. Qui iterum in proditione 
ilia vehementer grassati hominibus alteritis Tegionis ad tantum facinus patrandum 
adheserunt, iterum allocuti et tercio sacramentis adstricti funditus in malitia sua 
perseveraverunt. Ad ultimum congregata curia ad dies pliuimos constitutos onme 
iuditium subterfugerunt et sic malitia eorum comperta omnibus patuit. Quo com- 
perto Uberales ipsius villg et ipsius provintig proceres super ignominia tanta confusi 
eos omnino exterminaverunt et sacramento affirmaverunt extunc illos non recepturos 
nee cum eis deinceps habitaturos. . . . [Rogerius camerarius] post mortem regis 
Anglie sacramentimi irritum fecit, Britanniam cum omni suppellectili petiit, unde 
multa mala non solum per se verum etiam dux f actus inimicorum qui tunc temporis 
nimia aviditate Normanniam infestabant terre et hominibus ecclesie irrogavit.' It 
will be noted that in this document there is no trace of ducal authority after Henry's 
death, and the barons take matters into their own hands. 

'" On Geoffrey's recovery of Normandy see Kate Norgate, Angevin Kings, i. 
338-342, and the authorities there cited. That, as Miss Norgate says, " the story 
of this campaign, as told by the historians of the time, is little more than a list of 
the places taken, put together evidently at random," is true only of William of 
Malmesbury, who lacked local knowledge. The succession of events in Robert of 
Torigni and John of Marmoutier is intelligible and consistent, and of the additional 
places mentioned by William of Malmesbury, Bastebourg and TreviSres were ap- 
parently the result of special expeditions from Caen and Bayeux, while the others 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 1 29 

and the adjoining vicomtes, and controlling Caen and Bayeux 
through his alliance with Robert of Gloucester, Geoffrey of 
Anjou in 1141 won Lisieux, Falaise, and the country as far as the 
Seine, and the following year gave him not only the outstanding 
places in the Bessin, but the county of Mortain, the Avranchin, 
and the Cotentin.^i By January 1144 he was able to enforce the 
submission of the city of Rouen, followed three months later by 
the surrender of its tower.^^ Although the castle of Arques held 
out until the summer of the following year, the barons of the duchy 
had already made their peace with the new duke, who had won 
over their leader, the count of Meulan, as early as 1141 ; and even 
the Norman church, which had received Stephen's nephew as 
abbot of Fecamp in 1140 and his chancellor as bishop of Bayeux 
in 1 142, was driven to acknowledge the king's defeat. John of 
Lisieux, the justiciar of Henry I, submitted to Geoffrey just before 
his death in 1141; the bishop of Avranches led the procession 
which welcomed the Angevin army to his city in the following 
year; and even the archbishop of Rouen, maximus regis propug- 
nator at the outbreak of the civil war in England, who dated his 
dociunents by Stephen's reign as late as 1143, was doubtless 
present when Geoffrey was received into his cathedral upon the 
city's surrender, and thenceforth recognized him as ruler of the 

— Briquessart, Villers, Plessis, Vire — lay in the direction of Mortain, though not 
" up the left bank of the Ome." 

^1 The chroniclers say nothing of the Channel Islands, although modem writers 
upon the islands say that Geoffrey sent a certain Raoul de Valmont there to estab- 
lish the duke's authority and ascertain his rights. It would be interesting to know 
the origin of this statement. See G. Dupont, Histoire du Cotenlin et de ses lies 
(Caen, 1870), i. 354-357; F. B. Tupper, History of Guernsey (Guernsey, 1876), p. 76; 
E. P£got-Ogier, Histoire des lies de la Manche (Paris, 1881), p. 133 f. We know 
very little of the history of these islands in the twelfth century. 

^ As Geoffrey crossed the Seine at Hilarymas and received the submission 
of Rouen 19 or 20 January, his charter for ChAteau-l'Hennitage, given 28 January 
1144 at Mayet {Archives historiques du Maine, vi. 45), can hardly belong in this 
year. On the surrender of Arques in the following year see Cartulaire de S.-Laud 
d' Angers, ed. Planchenault, p. 65. The completion of the conquest as far as the 
Seine in 1143 is confirmed by a charter of that year given ' Andegavis civitate in 
anno quo annuente Deo et sancta matre eius partem Normannie que est citra 
Sequanam adquisivimus ': P. F. Chiflflet, Histoire de I'abbaye de Totmms, preuves, 
p. 424 (Ju^nin, preuves, p. 156), 



I30 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

duchy.'' Although he had been so styled by his partisans some 
time before,'^ Geoffrey did not assume the ducal title imtil the 
acquisition of Rouen gave him full control of his new dominions 
and Justified his prompt recognition by the king of France.^* 

Geoffrey's reign as duke of Normandy extends from 1144 to 
early in 11 50, when he handed the duchy over to his son Henry, 
the heir of Matilda and Henry I.'^ This transfer, accomplished 

2' Bohmer, Kirche und Stoat in England und in der Normandie, p. 313 f. The 
archbishop still recognizes Stephen in a document of 1143 in Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 23, but acknowledges Geoffrey in charters of 1145 (Pommeraye, HistoiredeS- 
Oiien, p. 425; P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, Cartulaire de I'abbaye de S. -Michel du 
Triport, p. 31; C. Mfitais, Cartulaire de la TriniU de VendSme, ii. 331; Collection 
Moreau, bd. 188, 206) . So Amulf of Lisieux dates a charter for Fecamp by Stephen's 
reign in 1142 (Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, fonds F6camp), but attests a 
charter which recognizes Geoffrey in September 1143 (see the next note), and is 
soon busy securing the favor of the new prince (Epistolae, no. 2). That Geoffrey 
had been able to put pressure upon the Norman church appears from the instance 
of the treasurer of Lisieux, who was kept out of his church of Mesnil-Eudes (Calva- 
dos) ' propter ducatus divisionem ': letters of Bishop John in MS. Lat. 5288, f. 68. 

" Charter of William, count of Ponthieu, for Vignats, 19 September 1143, wit- 
nessed by the bishops of Seez, Lisieux, and Coutances, and three abbots: Gallia 
Christiana, xi. instr. 162. On the other hand Geoffrey is called count in a charter 
of Reginald of Saint- Valery issued some time before the capture of Dieppe: Roimd, 
Calendar, no. 1057; Fr^viUe, Histoire du commerce de Rouen, ii. 9. 

26 On the assumption of the ducal title, see DeUsle, Henri II, p. 135 f.; and cf. 
the date of no. 728 in Round's Calendar. According to Robert of Torigni and the 
annals of Mont-Saint-Michel (ed. Delisle, i. 234, ii. 234), Geoffrey became duke 
upon the surrender of the tower of Rouen (23 April), but a charter of tJlger, bishop 
of Angers (DeUsle, Henri II, p. 135), places 29 June 1145 in the first year of his 
reign. Lucius II addresses him 16 May 1144 as count of Anjou merely: Livre noir 
de Bayeux, no. 206. 

2' Against the annals of Saint-Aubin (Halphen, Recueil d'annales angevines, p. 
1 2) , which give 1 149, and Miss Norgate's argument for 1 148 (Angemn Kings, i. 369 f ., 
377; Dictionary of National Biography, sub ' Henry II '), the date of 1150 seems to 
me clearly established from Robert of Torigni (i. 253), and the annals of Caen {H. 
F., xii. 780) and Saint-fivroid (Ordericus, v. 162), and especially from the regnal 
years in certain of Henry's charters. Gervase of Canterbury (i. 142), who is not 
quite clear as to the year, gives January as the month of Henry's return to Nor- 
mandy; and two charters for Savigny, given in the eighth year of his reign as duke 
and issued before the beginning of April 1157, show that he became duke before the 
end of March (Delisle, pp. 122, 231, 279 f., 515, nos. 30, 30a; Berger, i. 183, con- 
fuses the whole matter of these charters by dating Henry's reign from the end of 
1150, following an unsupported statement of Delisle, p. 121). A charter of Arch- 
bishop Hugh (La Roque, iii. 45) is dated 1150 'principante in Normannia duce 
Henrico.' On the other hand Geoffrey drops the title of duke in a charter of 28 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 131 

when the young duke was in his seventeenth year, shows plainly 
that the count of Anjou had won and held Normandy for his son 
and not for himself, and earlier evidence points to the same con- 
clusion. Besides the few weeks which may have intervened be- 
tween his return and his assiunption of the ducal title in 1150, 
Henry was on the Norman side of the Channel from the end of 

1 146 to the spring of 1149,^' enjoying the instruction of the most 
famous Norman scholar of the time, William of Conches, who 
prepared for his use a choice selection of maxims of the Gentile 
philosophers; 2* yet even at this tender age his name was used to 
give sanction to ducal acts. A charter for Bec^' and one for Saint- 
WandriUe ^^ are issued by Geoffrey with the advice and consent 
of his son Henry; another confirmation for Bee '^ and one for 
Fecamp '^ are issued by the two jointly; while a document of 

1 147 for Saint-Ouen, attested by Geoffrey's chancellor, Richard 

October 1150 {Liber aUms Cenomannensis, no. 6; cf. Delisle, p. 138) and in a notifi- 
cation at Montreuil, addressed to the archbishop of Rouen, evidently in 1150- 
1151 {infra, note go). 

^^ On the dates of Henry's crossings see Round, Geojjrey de Mandeville, pp. 405- 
410. 

28 William's Dragmaticon is dedicated to Geoffrey as duke of Normandy and 
count of Anjou in an introduction which praises his care for the education of the 
young princes (R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, p. 347 f .) ; 
and his treatise on moral philosophy, De honesto et utili, is dedicated to Henry before 
the assumption of the ducal title. See this work, attributed to Hildebert of Le 
Mans, in Migne, ckxi. 1007-1056; and, on its authorship, Haur6au, in Notices et 
extraits des MSS., xxxiii, 1, pp. 257-263. Curiously enough, it was used by Giraldus 
Cambrensis in writing the De principis instructione, where Henry H serves as a 
terrible example. Adelard of Bath also appears to have been one of Henry's tutors: 
E. H. R., xxviii. 516. 

2' ' Non lateat vos nee quenquam presentium sive futurorum me consiUo H. filii 
mei et baronum meorum concessisse quod ecclesia SancteMarie de Becco et monachi 
Ulius ecclesie habeant omnes consuetudines et quietudines et Ubertates quas habebant 
in tempore H. regis. Quapropter ego precipio ut omnes res eiusdem ecclesie sint 
quiete et libere in terra et in aqua et in piano et in nemore per totam Normanniam 
ab omni consuetudine et vexatione, sicut erant in tempore Henrici regis ' (extract 
by Dom Jouvelin-Thibault, in MS. Lat. 13905, f. 85V). 

"• Round, no. 170; Delisle-Berger, no. 9*; Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 78. 

3' " Geofroy due de Normandie et d'Anjou, Henri 2'' son fils, confirment et de- 
clarent que monachi de Becco et omnes res eorum sunt quiete de theloneo et passagio 
et pontagio et de omni consuetudine, sicut a retroactis temporibus fuerunt apud 
Archas et apud Diepam ": MS. Lat. 13905, f. 85V. 

'^ Delisle, p. 508, no. 6* and facsimile no. i; Delisle-Berger, no. 8*. 



132 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

of Bohun, is given by Henricus duds Normannorum et comitis 
Andegavie filius and addressed to his officers of Normandy." We 
should also expect to find the empress taking an active part in 
Norman affairs; but her absence in England from 1139 to 1148 ^* 
removed her from any share in the events of these critical years 
on the Continent, nor has any trace been found of her participa- 
tion in her husband's administration after her return. The lack of 
documents which can be specifically referred to these two years 
is, however, probably accidental, for we have a grant of land at 
Argentan to one of her followers before her departure for Eng- 
land,'^ and several charters, issued in her own name or conjointly 
with her son, which show her activity in the years immediately 
following his accession.'^ 

The sources of information for the study of Geoffrey's govern- 
ment of Normandy are remarkably scanty and fragmentary. The 
narrative writers fail us entirely, for Ordericus stops before the 
conquest is completed, and Robert of Torigni and John of Mar- 
moutier give us nothing beyond an enumeration of campaigns. 
We are perforce restricted to the charters, among which those of 
the duke himself, about forty in number, are so fundamental as 
to caU for somewhat special examination. The following list in- 

^' Neustria Pia, p. 15; La Roque, iv. suppl., p. 10; Delisle, p. 508, no. 3*; De- 
lisle-Berger, no. $*. Delisle and Berger query the date, but we know that Henry 
was solemnly received at Bee on Ascension Day, 1147 (Robert of Torigni, i. 243). 
Henry likewise makes a grant to the nuns of Almenfeches as son of Duke Geoffrey: 
Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 5; Delisle-Berger, no. 7*- 

^ Delisle, Henri II, p. 140, and the older Norman writers give 1147 as the year 
of her return, which took place ' ante Quadragisimam.' There is some tmcertainty 
because of the confusion of chronology — which is, however, less than has been 
supposed (see Round, Geofrey de Mandemlle, pp. 405-410) — in Gervase of Canter- 
bury, but as he (i. 133) places Matilda's return after the death of Robert of Glouces- 
ter (31 October 1147) and just before the council of Rheims (21 March 1148), it 
would seem to fall in 1148. Rossler, Kaiserin Mathilde, pp. 410-412, assimies 1147, 
but his book has no value for Matilda's later years. 

" Original in MS. Lat. 10083, f- 3? analyzed in M. A. N., viii. 388; Delisle, 
p. 141, no. 4; Roimd, no. 591. As this charter is given at Argentan and witnessed 
by Matilda's brother Reginald, who attests as earl of Cornwall after 1141 (Roimd, 
Geofrey de Mandemlle, pp. 68, 271), it must be anterior to her departure in 1139. 

'» Delisle, pp. 126, 141-143, nos. S-13; Delisle-Berger, nos. 11*, 45*. See also 
her charters for Silly, Round, Calendar, nos. 679 f., 683; aad Sarunt Charters, p. 14 
(1148). 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET I33 

dudes such Norman charters of Geo£frey as I have been able to 
find, arranged, since few of them are dated, in the alphabetical 
order of the places for whose benefit they were issued: 

Almeneches. Delisle, Carkdaire normand, no. 4, and p. 273. 

Bayetjx. Probablyii4S-n47. Eight charters andwrits of Geoffrey: i.ijtf-e 
noir, nos. 16-19, 24, 25, 39, 100 (1147). Also four reports addressed to him 
by his justices: nos. 43, 44, 89, 90. These are all, except no. 100, attributed 
to Henry II in the edition (see, however, the corrections at the end of the 
second volume), but in the cartulary the initial G appears in every case on 
the margin. See A. H. R., viii. 618; infra, Chapter VI; Delisle, Henri II, 
pp. 137 f., sii. nos. 42*, 43*, where the attribution of the last two to Henry 
II is corrected by Berger, i. 3. . No. 17 is also in the Livre rouge (MS. Lat. 
n. a. 1828, no. 401), of which there is a poor edition by Anquetil (Bayeux, 
1909). 

Bec. Extracts from two charters, printed above, notes 29, 31. 

Beg, priory of Notre-Dame-du-Pr6. 27 March 1149, at Bec. Original, 
printed below, no. 2. 

Beg, priory of Saint-Ymer. 1147, at Saumur. MS. Lat. n. a. 2097, p. 9; 
Collection Lenoir at SemiUy,lxxii, 2, p. 169. Cartulaires de S.-Ymer-en-Auge 
et de Bricquebec, ed. C. Br^ard (Paris, 1908), p. 7; Round, Calendar, no. 360; 
Delisle, no. 3* A; cf. DeUsle-Berger, i. 2. 

Cluny. Before 1147, ^ it is attested by Hugh, archbishop of Tours. A. 
Bruel, Charles de Cluni, v. 447 ; cf . G. F. Duckett, Charters and Records of 
Cluni, ii. 78. In Martene and Durand, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, i. 383, it is 
attributed to a duke R. 

CouTANCES. At Saint-L6. A. E. R., viii. 630; infra, Chapter VI, note 
95. Cf. DeUsle, Carkdaire normand, no. 162; Henri II, no. 17* A; Delisle- 
Berger, i. 2. Ascribed to Henry II by Round, no. 960. 

EvEtXJX. At Rouen. Printed below, no. 6. 

Fecamp, (i) At Rouen.- Original, misplaced, in Archives of the Seine- 
Inferieure; modern copies in MS. Lat. n. a. 1245, ff. 122-123; MS. Rouen, 
1210, f. 17." (2) With his son Henry; at Rouen. Original, in same archives. 
Delisle, Henri II, no. 6*, with facsimile; Delisle-Berger, no. 8*; Round, no. 
126, omitting most of the witnesses. 

Lessay. At Saumur. Original, printed below, no. 3. 

LisiEUX, Saint-Desir, and the Knights of the Hospital. 1147, after 
Easter (?'in Pascha precedenti'), at Mirebeau. Modern copies in Archives 
of the Calvados. Extract in Grente and Havard, Villedieu-les-Poeles 
(Paris, 1899), p. 6; Roimd, no. 576, where it is dated at Easter and the wit- 

" ' Gaufredus dux Normannorum et comes Andegavorum omnibus hominibus 
Fiscanni salutem. Sciatis me vidisse cartam ecclesie Fiscanni que testatur ecclesie 
Fiscanni portus maris de Stigas usque ad Leregant. Idee mando vobis et prohibeo 
quod vos non intromittatis de aliqua re que ad portus istos veniat vel sit, nisi per 
inanum Henrici abbatis vel servientixun suorum, quia in ipsis nichil habeo. Teste 
Ragioaldo de Sancto Walerico apud Rothomagum.' 



134 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

nesses are omitted; M. A. N., xiv. 382, xvii. 325 (translation). Lechaud6, 
M. A. N., vii. 247, ascribes it to William Rufus! 

Marmoutier, priory of HeauviUe. At Argentan. Printed below, no. 7a. 

MoNTEBOURG. (i) At Argentan. Printed below, no. 4. (2) At Lisieux. 
Printed below, no. 5. 

MoRTEMER. II October 1147, ^•t Rouen. La Roque, iii. 152, iv. 1396, 
1636, suppl.,p. 8; NetistriaPia,p.iyg. Aaalyzed'm Bulletin des AnPiquaires 
de Normandie, xiii. 115; Round, no. 1405; cf. H. F., xiv. 511. '^ 

Preaux. 1 149, at Rouen. Notice of transaction in curia sitting at Geof- 
frey's order. Archives of the Eure, H. 711, no. 453. Printed in VaUn, p. 
265; cf. Le Prevost, Eure, iii. 324. 

ROTIEN, cathedral. At Rouen. Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, G. 7, 
p. 793. Printed in VaUn, p. 266 (where the undeciphered word is scilicet); 
Delisle-Berger, no. 39*. The initial is left blank in the cartulary, so that the 
author may be either Geoffrey or Henry II. Delisle, no 37*, ascribes it to 
Henry, but gives no reason. Geoffrey's authorship seems to me likely from 
the phrase ' tempore H. regis AngUe,' for ii; such cases (e. g., Livre noir de 
Bayeux, nos. 27, 28, 32; Neustria Pia, p. 15) Henry II adds ' avi mei,' as 
in the writ for H6auviUe (Delisle-Berger, no. 29*), which we can compare 
with an exactly parallel one of his father (no. 7a below). 

Rouen, town. Probably in 1144 and doubtless at Rouen. Incorporated 
in Henry II's charter: A. Chdruel, Eistoire de Rouen, i. 241; Round, no. 
109; DeKsle-Berger, no. 14*. 

Rouen, gild of cordwainers. At Rouen. Vidimus of 1267 in MS. Lat. 
9067, f. issv; and MS. Rouen 2192, f. 189. Printed from vidimus of 1371 
(Archives Nationales, JJ. 102, no. 317) in Ordonnances des Rois, v. 416; 
translated in Cheruel, Rouen, i, p. cxiv. Cf. Delisle-Berger, no. 16* 

Rouen, Henry the Marshal, the duke's serjeant. Probably before 1147, 
at Rouen. Printed below, no. 13. 

Rouen, leprosery of Mont-aux-Malades. (i) At Rouen. Original writ, 
printed below, no. 12. (2) Charter notifying the reception of the Palmers 
of Rouen into confraternity: translation in P. Langlois, Eistoire du prieurg 
du Mont-aux-Malades-les-Rou^n (Rouen, 1851), p. 4. 

Rouen, Saint-Amand. At Lisieux. Printed below, no. 7. 

Rouen, Saint-Ouen. ' Gaufredus dux Normannorum et comes Ande- 
gavorum coniirmat donationem c[omitis] Walterii Giffardi. Testibus Ro- 
berto de Novoburgo, Widone de Sabluel.' MS. Lat. 5423, f. 232V. 

SAZNT-ANDRi-EN-GouEFERN. At Argentan. Printed below, no. 10. 

SAiNT-fivROUL. Probably in 1144. Printed below, no. 8. 

Saint- Wandrille. (i) At Rouen. Printed E. E. R., xxvii. 438, note 97 ; 
Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 1 19. (2) At Argentan. Neustria Pia, p. 176 (extract) ; 
Round, no. 170; in fuU in Lot, no. 78; DeUsle-Berger, no. 9*. 

Savigny. (i) At Argentan. Original, Archives Nationales, L. 969; 
cartulary in Archives of the Manche, no. 408; Round, no. 812. (2) At Ar- 

'* The epact in this charter is of 1148, showing that it was calculated from i 
September, as in a charter of Geoffrey in the Cartulaire de S.-Laud d' Angers, no. 49. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 135 

gentan. Vidimus, printed below, no. 11. (3) At Montreuil; 1150-1151. 
Original, printed below, note 90. 

Seez, Saint-Martin. Printed below, no. 9. 

For a reign of six years this is a respectable number of docu- 
ments, if we take into accoimt the relatively small body of Nor- 
man charters which has survived from the first half of the twelfth 
century, and their geographical distribution is significant. Four 
of the episcopal sees are represented, the archives of the others 
being an almost total loss, and the monasteries of the list are 
scattered throughout the duchy, from the ancient establishments 
in the region of the Seine to Montebourg, Heauville, Lessay, and 
Savigny on the west. All this bears evidence of an effective rule of 
the whole land. At the same time it is noteworthy that, if we 
except the charter for the town of Rouen, which was granted 
under special circumstances, there are among them all no general 
enumerations and confirmations of lands and privileges such as 
are fotmd under Henry I and in still greater number under 
Henry H.^' What we have instead is specific grants, letters of 
protection, declarations of freedom from toll, and orders to the 
duke's ofl&cers to hold inquests, make payments, and maintain 
rights. The writs bulk large in proportion to the charters. This 
cannot be mere accident, for the detailed confirmations which are 
so nvunerous under Henry II rarely mention his father,*" but hark 
back constantly to the conditions of his grandfather's time. We 
get distinctly the impression of a reign which restores rather than 
creates, and administers rather than ordains, of a regency rather 
than a permanent government. 

Considered from the diplomatic point of view, Geoffrey's char- 
ters show variety, but they also show something of the regularity 
and definiteness of form which come only from an organized 

" An apparent exception, the long charter for Bayeux (Liwe noir, no. 39), is 
merely a statement of the results of inquests held to determine the ancient rights of 
the see. The difference from the policy of other dukes may be seen even in the case 
of Stephen by comparing his detailed confirmation for Montebourg {Gallia Christi- 
ana, xi, instr. 238) with the charters of Geoffrey for the same abbey printed below, 
nos. 4, s- 

*" Later references to Geoffrey's official acts are rare. See infra, notes 89,91,121; 
Round, no. 1296; and the grant to Aunay cited in a bull of Eugene III (Bulletin des 
Antiquaires de Normandie, xix. 256), 



136 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

chancery. That Normandy had the advantage of such a system 
under Henry I is of course well known, but we caimot speak with 
equal certainty of conditions in contemporary Anjou. Down to 
the close of the eleventh century the counts of Anjou, like the 
kin gs of France, had not entirely differentiated their chancery 
from their chapel, the same man appearing at one time as chaplain 
and at another as chancellor, nor had they developed a regular 
set of forms for their official acts. Until 1 109 at least, the only 
period which has been carefully studied, almost all of their docu- 
ments were drawn up by the monasteries in whose favor they 
were issued,*^ and the evidence of style would indicate that this 
custom persisted in large measure imder Fulk of Jerusalem and 
even under his son. Geoffrey's Angevin charters have something 
of the variety, the prolixity, and the narrative form which belong 
to the monastic notice rather than to the charter proper, and 
which are in sharp contrast with the brevity and fixity which the 
Anglo-Norman charter, and especially the writ, has attained 
before the close of the Conqueror's reign. 

StiU, mention is found from time to time of the chaplain or 
notary who composed the document, and especially of Thomas of 
Loches, the historian of the counts of Anjou, whose attestation 
appears as early as 1133 and continues as chaplain or chancellor 
throughout the reign.^^ Thomas also accompanied Geoffrey on 
his Norman expeditions, for his signature as chancellor appears in 
documents issued at Argentan, Lisieux, and Rouen, and he wit- 
nesses as chaplain a charter given at Bee in 1149.*' Curiously 
enough, this last document bears likewise the name of the duke's 
principal chancellor, Richard of Bohun. Dean of Bayeux since 

" Halphen, Le comti d'Anjou, pp. 192 f., 237. For the confusion of chancellor and 
chaplain under the Capetians see Prou, Recueil des actes de Philippe I", pp. liv-lvi. 

^ On Thomas see Mabille's introduction to Marchegay, Chroniques des comtes 
d'Anjou, pp. xiv-xxv; Beautemps-Beauprfi, Coutumes, part ii, i. 220-222; and 
now the introduction to Halphen and Poupardin, Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou, 
pp. xxvii-xxxvi. 

*' Infra, nos. 2, 4-73. Thomas is mentioned in a writ of the empress for Cher- 
bourg (Delisle, Henri II, no. 84*; Round,no.938) in a way that suggests (particu- 
larly if we conjecture ' tenuerunt ' in the missing portion) that Geoffrey may have 
given him some part of the considerable possessions of Roger of Salisbury (of. 
Round, no, 909) in the Cotentin. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET I37 

the days of Henry I, Richard bought the chancellorship from 
Geoffrey by pledging the income of his deanery for an amount 
which he had much difficulty in paying and which subsequently 
brought him into trouble with his bishop and with the Pope; and 
in 1151 he was rewarded with the bishopric of Coutances.^* Nine 
of Geoffrey's charters and writs bear his attestation,^^ and as one 
of these is dated at Saumur,^^ it is plain that he followed the duke 
beyond the confines of Normandy. No chronological separation 
between the charters of Richard and Thomas seems possible: 
the Bayeux writs attested by Richard belong to the early years of 
the reign; two of the others fall in 1147 '" and one in 1149; *' and 
he appears as chancellor in five docmnents issued by Henry 11.^' 
Probably the explanation is that Richard was chancellor in Nor- 
mandy and Thomas chaplain, as in the charter for Bee, but that 
in Richard's absence Thomas took the title and perhaps the func- 
tions of chancellor, which he had claimed in Anjou as early as 
1142.^" 

Richard's work can be tested in two originals, issued at places 
as far apart as Bee and Saumur, but written by the same scribe ^' 

" ' Postmodum vero venientis ad nos venerabilis fratris nostri Philippi Baiocensis 
episcopi suggestione accepimus quod antedictus frater noster pecuniam illam, non 
pro ecclesie Baiocensis utUitate aut sui honesta necessitate suscepit, sed ut cancel- 
lariam sibi nobilis memorie Gauf ridi quondam Andegavensis comitis compararet, et 
cum in capitulo Baiocensi se infra biennium soluturum eandem pecuniam promisis- 
set, licet multum post decanatum habuerit, debitum tamen ipsum, ut promiserat, 
nequaquam exsolvit ' {Liiire noir, no. 185). As Richard continued to hold the 
deanery, not only for two years but ' multum post,' he evidently became chancellor 
not long after Geoffrey's conquest of the duchy. He had been dean under Bishop 
Richard Fitz Samson {ibid., no. 480), who died in 1133, and is mentioned with this 
title in several Bayeux documents: ibid., nos. 60, 100 (1147)1 103 (1146), 106, 207 
(1146), 2gi; cf. Delisle-Berger, no. 20* (1151). On the date of his elevation to the 
bishopric see Robert of Torigni, i. 257 and note; and cf . Delisle-Berger, nos. 35*, 45*- 

*^ Livre noir, nos. 17, 19,39; Round, nos. 126 (= Delisle,no. 6*, with facsimile; 
DeUsle-Berger, no. 8*), 170, 960, 1405; infra, nos. 2, 3. 

*^ Infra, no. 3. " Round, no. 1405; Neustria Pia, p. 15. *' Infra, no. 2. 

" DeUsle-Berger, nos. 5*, 12*, 28*, 40*, 42*. Delisle, p. 88, note, is incorrect. 

'» Cartulaire de I'abbaye du Ronceray, ed. Marchegay, p. 244 {Archives d' Anjou, 
iii) . Halphen and Poupardin, l.c.,p. xxix, doubt whether Thomas was really chan- 
cellor, the title being at times taken by a mere notary. 

'' That Richard was not himself the scribe is seen from the recurrence of the 
same hand in the notice printed below (note 90), issued by Geoffrey as count of 
Anjou at Montreuil-Bellay in 1150-1151, in which Richard is not mentioned. 



138 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

and showing such resemblances in their formulae that the first, 
excellently preserved with its seal, may safely be used to supply 
some of the gaps in the mutilated text of the second. These are: 

(2) G. dux Norm[annorum] & com[es] And[egavorum] H. archiep[iscop]o 
& omnibus ep[iscop]is comitibus baronibus iusticiis Norni[annie] & omni- 
bus suis iidelibus sal[utem]. Notum sit vobis atque omnibus tam presentibus 
quam futuris quod ego dedi & concessi monachis Sanctg Marie de Becco tres 
prebendas de Buns, ea conditione quod post quam ill§ fuerint liberatg a 
tribus presentibus clericis, scilicet Ivone Hugone atque Alexandro, monachi 
Sanctg Marig de Prato iUas perpetuo libere & quiete possideant. Huius rei 
sunt testes: Ric[ardus] cancell[arius], Gaulr[edus] Roth[omagensis] decanus, 
Tomas capellanus, Robertus de Movoburg[o] (sic) & alii quam plures. Hoc 
autem concessum est anno ab incarnatione Domini .M.C.XLIX. in Pascha 
instanti die dominica de ramis palmarum in Beccensi capitulo.'^ 

(3) G. dux Norm[annorum] et comes And[egavorum] H. archiepiscopo & 
omnibus ep[iscopis comitibus] baronibus iusticiis & omnibus suis servienti- 
bus salutem. [Notum sit vobis] atque omnibus hominibus tam presentibus 
quam futuris quod ego concessi donationem quam WiUelmus de Aureavalle 
fecit ecclesig Sanctg Trinitatis de Exaquio, videlicet de molendino de Sancta 
Oportuna quod predictg ecclesig dedit cum omnibus consuetudinibus &molta 
& omnibus rebus que ad iUud molendinum pertinebant & de parte ilia quam 
in ecclesia Sanctg Oportung habebat [ecclesig] Exaquii dedit sicut carta iUius 
testatur. & ut hec dona[tio et concessio] perpetuo fiat sigilli mei testimonio 
illam confirmari [T]estes autem inde sunt Ric[ardus] cancel- 
larius, WiUelmus de Vernone, Engelg[erus] de Boli[one], Alex[ander] 
de Boh[one], Robertus de Montef[orti], de Sancto lohanne, 
Rualocus de Saeio, Iosl[inus] de TyT[onibus], Pi[ppinus de Tyronibus], WU- 
lelmus de [Sai ?], Adam de Sotewast. Apud Salmu^am]."* 

'2 Original, sealed en double queue, in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure. See the 
facsimile, Plate 7 b. Cf. G. Demay, Invenlaire des sceaux de la Normandie, no. 20; 
Porde, Bee. i. 397. The phrase ' in Pascha instanti ' seems at first sight to indicate 
that the style of Easter was here used, which would bring the date g April 1150. 
This is, however, inconsistent with the fact that Henry had by this time become 
duke (supra, note 26), and we should need stronger evidence to establish so striking 
a variation from the practice of beginning the year at Christmas or i January, which 
prevailed in both Normandy and Anjou (Delisle, Henri II, p. 230; Halphen, Le 
comtS d' Anjou, pp. 237-239) . Evidently the phrase has no reference to the beginning 
of the year, as is likewise true of 'in Pascha precedenti' in the charters of 1147 in 
Neustria Pia, pp. 15, 779, in the latter of which, dated 11 October, the reference 
to Easter could have no significance under any system of reckoning, a fact over- 
looked by Berger, Henri II, no. 5*- The Bee charter belongs accordingly to 27 
March 1149. 

^ Original, with double queue, but no trace of seal, in Archives of the Manche, 
H. 7771. Printed in Invenlaire sommaire; d. Delisle, Henri II, p. s°9, ^°- i7*B; 
Berger, i. a. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 139 

No originals have been discovered from the hand of the chan- 
cellor Thomas, but we can follow him with some confidence in 
certain early copies. Let us begin with two charters in the 
cartulary of Montebourg: " 

(4) Ego Goffr[edus] diix Norm[annorum] et comes And[egavorum] rela- 
tione multorum cognoscens audiendo et audiens cognoscendo quoniam H. 
rex predecessor meus abbatiam Montisburgi Sancte Marie tanquam pro- 
priam capellam nimio dilexit amore diligendo custodivit augmentavit no- 
bilitavit, similiter abbatiam eamdem in mea custodia et in tuitione capio et 
quicquid ille contulit vel concessit in bosco et in piano et in omnibus con- 
suetudinibus et in omnibus modis unde habent monachi cartas et brevia 
prefate abbatie diligenter annuo. Insuper illi addo do et concede in perpe- 
tuam elemosinam perpetuo iure habendam pro salute mea et filiorum meorum 
necnon et predicti regis omniumque predecessorum meorimi Ulam terram 
que est in suo aisimento inter suam terram et forestam usque ad rivulum 
sicut oritur et descendit de veteri fonte, et ipsum rivulum cum alveo concede 
Ita ut rivulus fesseatus sit firma divisa inter ees et forestam, cum censtet 
quia redditus nichil inde foreste minuitur sed melius clauditur munitiu: atque 
defenditur. 

Testibus Thema canceU[ario], Alex[andro] de Beh[ene], Ric[ardo] de Haia, 
Ric[ardo] de Wauvilla, W[iIIelmo] Avenel, Olivier de Albiniaco, Gisleb[erto] 
archidpacono], Rob[erto] de Valeniis, Rob[erto] Berdel, Unfr[edo] de Bose- 
viU[a] et aliis multis, apud Argent[omiun]. 

(s) Ego Gaufridus comes Andegavis {sic) et dux Normannorum cunctis 
baronibus meis vicecomitibus ministris et omnibus hominibus meis salutem. 
Sciatis quod habee in mea propria custodia abbatiam de Monteburgo emnes 
menachos et omnes res ad ees pertinentes tanquam meam propriam elemo- 
sinam sicut habuit rex Henricus antecessor meus, et concede abbatie et 
ipsis monachis quicquid concessit eis predictus rex in omnibus rebus et in 
omnibus consuetudinibus et unde habent ipsius regis cartas et brevia, et ut 
habeant omnes censuetudines suas in ferestis meis liberas et quietas et fecum 
in Monteburgo, et ut sint quieti a theloneo et consuetudine ubicunque ven- 
dant vel emant vel conducant aliquid qued homines eorum pessint af&dare 
esse proprium ecclesie et monacherum, et omnes denationes barenum quas 
dederunt vel dederint ipsi ecclesie. Precipio igitur vobis ut abbatiam et 
quicquid ad eam pertinet manuteneatis et defendatis et regatis sicut meam 
propriam elemosinam, ne pro penuria recti inde clamerem audiam. 

T[estibus] WiU[elmo] de Vemen, Alex[andro] de Bohun, Pag[ano] de 
Claris VaUibus, Th[oma] canceUario, Rob[erte] de Curc[eio], apud Luxovium. 
+ Preterea concede eidem abbatie coram supradictis testibus iUam terram 
que est inter suam terram et forestam usque ad rivum et ipsum rivum sicut 
descendit de veteri fonte et quoddam warlocum quod est in altera parte. 

" MS. Lat. ioo?7, nos. 35, 36. 



140 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

The first of these uses a comparatively untechnical phraseology 
and has something of the more literary flavor of the Angevin 
charter. The second, from its substance evidently posterior, is 
full of the legal terminology of the charters of Henry I on which it 
is based,'^ and culminates with the characteristically Norman 
clause, ne pro penuria recti inde clamorem audiam.'^ Such repeti- 
tions of the language of earlier charters for the same establish- 
ment are perfectly natural and are familiar to all students of 
diplomatics." When, however, we find Thomas adopting the 
brevity and precision of the Anglo-Norman writ, as well as its 
typical phrases, we see how thoroughly Norman an institution the 
chancery of Geoffrey has become. The first of the following re- 
lates to the see of Evreux, the second to the nuns of Saint-Amand, 
the third to H6auviIIe, a priory of Marmoutier: 

(6) G. dux Normann[orum] et comes And[egavoruin] G[uidoni] de Sablo- 
l[io] et Will[elino] Lovello atque prepositis et ballivis suis de Vemolio et de 
Nonancort salutem et dilecitionem. Mando atque vobis precipio quod 
episcopo Ebroicensi reddatis omnes decimas suas de Vernolpo] et de Nonan- 
cort sicut eas umquam melius habuit in tempore H. regis et sicut carta eius 
garantizat, ita quod eas habeat prout tempus ierit ad voluntatem suam, et 
de tempore transacto quicquid ei debetur absque dilatione reddatis. Insuper 
etiam vobis precipio ne quid inde amittat neque pro ref actura molendinorum 
neque pro augmentatione reddite supradictarum villanmi. De pace vero 
fracta mando vobis quod ei inde quicquid habere debuerit plenarie reddi 
faciatis, scilicet .ix. libras sicut carta H. regis garantizat. Tibi etiam, Wil- 
lelme Lovel, precipio quod iusticiam ei facias de Gilleberto nummario (?). 
Teste Thoma cancellario apud Rothomagum.'s 

(7) G. dux Normann[orum] et comes And[egavorum] R. de Sancto Wa- 
lerico et ministris suis de Archis salutem. Precipio quod habere faciatis S. 
Amando decimam suam de forestis de Awi et de Alihermont in denariis 

'' Supra, Chapter III, nos. 8-15; Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 737. 

" E.H.R., xxvi. 446 f . Can we see Thomas's hand in a writ of Geoffrey in 1 146, 
mentioned in a notice from La Trinitg de Venddme (Cartulaire, ii. 343), where we 
have ' ne ampUus super hoc clamorem audiret ' ? 

" An excellent illustration is furnished by the charter of Geoffrey cind Henry for 
F6camp (Delisle, Henri II, p. 508, no. 6*, with facsimile; Delisle-Berger, no. 8*), 
which reproduces the language of the early grants of immunity: ' absque uUa in- 
quietatione vel imminutione secularis vel iuditiarie potestatis.' See Appendix B. 

" Archives of the Eure, G. 122, no. 204, G. 123, no. 196, printed in Le Pr6vost, 
Eure, ii. 488, who reads ' munario ' before the testing clause where I conjecture 
'nummario.' For the charter of Henry I see Tris Ancien Coutumier, c. 71; 
Round, Calendar, no, sgo. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET I4I 

frumento et avena sicut earn melius habuit tempore Henrici regis, quia nolo 
ut elemosina mea minuatur. Teste Toma cancellario apud Lux[ovium]." 

(7a) G. dux Norm[annorum] et comes Andeg[avorum] episcopo Constan- 
tinensi et iusticiis et vicecomitibus et baronibus Constantini salutem. Pre- 
cipio et volo quod monachi Sancti Martini Maiorismonasterii de Heavilla 
teneant omnes terras et ecclesias et decimas et omnes res suas que pertinent 
ad elemosinam meam de Heavilla ita bene et in pace et honorifice et iuste 
et quiete sicut melius et quietius tenuerunt tempore regis H. Et nemo eis 
vel rebus eorum ullam iniuriam vel conttuneliam faciat. Teste Thoma 
cancellario apud Argent[omum].™ 

The triumph of the traditions of the Anglo-Norman chancery 
can also be seen in documents in which no chancellor is men- 
tioned. The following, which probably belongs to the early part 
of 1 144, is a good example of a brevity which is literary rather 
than legal in its phraseology: *' 

(8) Notum sit omnibus tam futuris quam presentibus quod ego Gaufridus 
Andegavormn comes, Fulconis bone memorie Iherusalem regis filius, mo- 
nachis Sancti Ebrulfi res eorum universas ita habendas et possidendas libere 
et quiete concedo et affirmo, sicut habebant in tempore regis Hainrici anteces-r 
soris mei. Et omnibus communiter ne predictos monachos de rebus suis in 
causam mittant precipio, insuper illis ne cmn aliquo inde placitentiur pro- 
hibeo, et amicis meis ubicunque fuerint, sicut me diligunt, ut eos manuten^ 
eant et ab omnibus defendant cirni summa diligentia submoneo et rogo. 

The next is similar, though Geoffrey is now duke: '^ 

(9) Goffridusdux Normannorum et comes Andegavensium omnibus dapi- 
feris et prepositis villicis et servientibus suis salutem. De his que pertinent 
ad proprium victum et vestitum monachorum Sancti Martini de Sagio et 
serviens eorundem monachorum proprium esse eorum affiducare poterit, 
nullum inde capiatis teloneum aut pedagixmi aut consuetudinem ahquam 
minimam vel magnam. Quod si feceritis meum incurretis odimn et cum 
sexaginta solidis reddetis. 

59 Copy by Gaignieres in MS. Lat. 17031, p. 137. 

«» Vidimus of 1524 after sealed origmal, " fort consumfi en queue simple,'' in 
BibliothSque Nationale, Collection de Touraine, xxxi. 57, no. 8. Cf. A. H. R., xx. 
29; Delisle-Berger, no. 29*. 

^ Cartulary of Saint-£vroul, MS. Lat. 11056, no. 681 ; Round, Calendar, no. 637. 
In the absence of place and witnesses this charter presents some curious features. 
Geoffrey speaks as successor of Henry I, yet he has not taken the ducal title. The 
news of Fulk's death, which occurred 10 November 1143 (R. Rohricht, Geschichte 
des Konigreichs Jerusakm, p. 229), could hardly have reached his son before the 
capitulation of Rouen, where Geoffrey remained until his assumption of the ducal 
title; yet a charter issued at Rouen in such an ahen style is rather surprising. 

•^ Copy from Livre rouge of Sfiez, m MS. Fr. 18953, pp. 37, 222- 



142 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

In the following charter the same matter is thrown into the legal 
language of Henry I's time; indeed, except for the insertion of 
sicut mee res proprie, it reproduces exactly the terms of a writ of 
Henry for the same monastery: *' 

(10) G. dux Norm[annonmi] comes And[egavorum] baronibus et omni- 
bus vic[ecoimtibus] et ministris tocius Anglie et Normannie et portuum 
maris salutem. Precipio quod totum corrodium et omnes res monachorum 
de abbatia de Vinaz quas servientes eorum affidare poterint pertinere suo 
dominico victiii et vestitui sint in pace et quiete de theloneo et passagio et 
omnibus consuetudinibus sicut mee res proprie. Et super hoc prohibeo quod 
nullus eos disturbet iniuste super .x. libras forisfacture. Testibus comite de 
Pontevio et Alexandro de Bohun et Roberto de Noburg' (sic), apud Argen- 
tomum. 

The following is parallel, but contains a further provision: '* 

(11) G. dux Normannorum et comes Andegav[orum] omnibus baronibus 
et fideKbus suis et ministris totius Normannie et Cenomaimie et portuum 
maris salutem. Precipio quod totum corredium abbatis de Savign[eio] et 
monachorum suorum et abbatum qui sunt de obedienda Savign[eii] et 
omnes res quas ministri sui affidare poterunt esse suas sint quiete de theloneo 
et passagio et omni consuetudine ubicunque venerint, et prohibeo ne ullus 
eos super hac re disturbet super decern libras forisfacture. Precipio etiam 
quod monachi Savigneii totam terram suam et homines et omnes res suas in 
iirma pace teneant et non inde pladtent, quia terra et omnes res eorum in 
mea custodia et defensione sunt et nolo quod aliquis eis inde contumeUam 
faciat neque de ahqua re eos inquietare presumat. 

Teste {sic) Guidone de Sabl[olio] et Alexandro de Bohun, apud Argen- 
tomagum. 

Another writ of a well known type is: ** 

(12) G. dux Norm[annorum] et com[es] And[egavorum] vicec[omitibus] 
Roth[omagensibus] sal[utem]. Precipio quod tradatis leprosis Roth[omagen- 
sibus] xl. sol[idos] Roth[omagensium] singuUs mensibus sicut rex .H. eis dedit 
et carta eius testatur. 

T[este] Rob[erto] de Novo burgo, apud Roth[omagu]m. 

" Cartulary of Saint-Andr6-en-Gouffem, in Archives of the Calvados,f.22V, no. 
90; no. 72 is the writ of Henry I. Note that Geoffrey has even let Anglie stand. 
This type of writ is familiar in England; see, for example, J. Armitage Robinson, 
Gilbert Crispin, p. 150, no. 34. For a quite different Angevin form see CarMaire de 
Tiiron, i. 63. 

°* Copy of 1237 under seal of William, bishop of Avranches, in Archives of the 
Mandie, fonds Savigny. 

"' Original, with fragment of simple queue, in Archives Nationales, K 23, 15^. 
See the facsimile, Plate 7 a. Printed m Delisle, Henri II, p. 136; Langlois, Histoire 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET I43 

Further illustration is unnecessary. We recognize not only the 
sobriety, conciseness, and clearness which Delisle notes as the 
characteristics of the Anglo-Norman chancery,^^ but also its 
regular terminology, such as the address, the nisifeceris clause," 
sicut umquam melius habuit, ne inde amplius clamorem audiam, ita 
bene, etc., and the ten poimds' penalty for infringement.** In aU 
essential matters Geoffrey's ducal chancery was a Norman institu- 
tion, and, what is more important, it was an instrument for 
maintaining the rights which his predecessors had granted and 
the administration through which they had governed. 

Since few of Geoffrey's charters are dated, it is impossible to 
construct an itinerary or form any estimate of the distribution of 
his time between Normandy and Anjou. He visited Normandy 
every year of his reign as duke,'' but, apart from his sojourns at 
Rouen and Argentan and an occasional military expedition, the 
only places at which he can be traced are Bayeux, Bee, Lisieux, 
and Saint-L6. By far the greater number of his charters are 
issued from Rouen, which seems to have acquired new importance 
as the capital of the duchy. Geoffrey rebuilt the tower and the 

du prieurS du Mont-aux-Malades-Us-Rouen, p. 397; calendared in Tardif, Monu- 
ments historigues, no. 516. 

'° Henri II, pp. 240-246. 

" Hvre noir, no. 24. 

*' A further indication of Norman influence is seen in Geoffrey's second seal, 
where he takes the title of ' dux Normannorum ' and carries still further the imita- 
tion of the Norman type which his father had begun. Only one original of this seal 
is known to exist (see the facsimile, Plate 7b), attached to a charter for Bee, printed 
above (no. 2), and described by Demay, Inventaire des sceaux de la Normandie, no. 
20; but there are also certain drawings (Delisle, Henri II, p. 138 f.). On the intro- 
duction of the Norman type into Anjou, see G. de Manteyer, Le sceau^matrice du 
comte d' Anjou Foulques le Jeune, in Mimoires des Antiquaires de France, be. 305- 
338; on the distinction between the ' sigillum ducatus ' and the ' sigillum comitatus,' 
the Cartulaire de S.-La/ud d' Angers, no. 83; of. Cartidaire deS.-Auhin, ii. 112. 

" In ii4she is at Arques and Rouen (Robert of Torigniji. 237, 239); inii46at 
Rouen {ibid., i. 242) and Courcy-sur-Dive (charter for Cormery given ' in presentiam 
meam apud Curciacum super Divam in exercitu meo . . . aimo Domini miUesimo 
centesimo quadragesimo sexto regnante Ludovico rege Francorum qui tunc crucem 
Domini assumpserat ': Bibliotheque Nationale, Collection Housseau, v, no. 1718); 
in 1 147 at Argentan {Liwe noir, no. 100) and 11 October at Rouen (Round, no. 
140s); in 1148 at Fauguemon, near Lisieux (Robert of Torigniji. 247); 27 March 
1149 at Bee {supra, no. 2). 



144 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

bridge over the Seine,'" and after Rouen became the abode of the 
empress in 1148'' a local poet did not hesitate to compare to im- 
perial Rome the ancient and noble city which resembled it so 
closely in name and claimed JuUus Caesar for its founder^'' To 
Geoffrey Rouen owed a detailed and comprehensive charter, the 
earliest of the city's surviving mimiments,'' which restored to the 
citizens the privileges which they had enjoyed under Henry I, 
safeguarded particularly their Jurisdictional and fiscal immuni- 
ties, confirmed the gild organization, as represented in the mer- 
chant and cordwainers' gilds,'^ and guaranteed the rights of Rouen 
merchants in England and their monopoly of the commerce of the 
Seine and the Irish trade of Normandy. Rouen had no rival in 
poKtical or commercial importance, nor can much trace of mimi- 
cipal life be discovered elsewhere in the duchy during this reign. 
Vemeuil and Nonancourt on the southern border seem to have 

'" Robert of Torigni, i. 239, 242, 368. Cf . A. Deville, Secherches sur I'ancien pont 
de Rouen, in Pricis des travaux de I'Acadlmie de Rouen, 1831, pp. 171-173. 

1 Supra, note 34. Most of MatUda's Norman charters are dated at Rouen or 
Le Pr6: Delisle, Henri II, p. 142 f., nos. 6-13; Round, nos. 263, 679 f., 683. 

" ' Rothoma nobilis, urbs antiqua, potens, speciosa, 

Gens Normanna sibi te preposuit dominari; 
Imperialis honorificentia te super omat; 
Tu Rome similis tam nomine quam probitate, 
Rothoma, si mediam removes, et Roma vocaris. 
Viribus acta tuis devicta Britannia servit; 
Et tumor Anglicus et Scotus algidus et Galo sevus 
Mimia protensis manibus tibi debita solvunt. 
Sub duce Gaufredo cadit hostis et anna quiescunt, 
Nominis ore sui Gaufredus gaudia fert dux; 
Rothoma letaris sub tanto principe felix.' 

The remaining nine lines are a eulogy of King Roger of Sicily (cf. E. E. R., xxvi. 
43S) : MS. Fr. 2623, f . 1 14V, printed in C. Richard, Notice sur I'ancienne BiblioMque 
des &chm,ns de Rouen (Rouen, 1845), p. 37. ' Imperialis honorificentia ' is, of 
course, an allusion to the coming of the empress. For the tradition respecting 
Caesar, see Ordericus, ii. 324, where its size and prosperity are also spoken of. 

" Ch&raA, Histoirede Rouen, i. 2^1; Round, Caienrfor, no. 109; Delisle-Berger, 
no. 14*. Cf. A. Giry, &tabUssements de Rouen, i. 25-27. 

'* The privileges of the cordwainers are contained in a special charter: Ordon- 
nances des Rois, v. 416; supra, p. 134. See the similar charters of Henry I, Stephen, 
and Henry II in La Roque, iii. 149 (cf. Round, no. 107; Delisle-Berger, no. 16*), 
where the charter of Stephen, found in his name in MS. Lat. 9067, f. 155, is wrongly 
attributed to William the Conqueror. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 145 

continued something of the prosperity which they owed to the 
fostering care of Henry I," but it is perhaps significant that Geof- 
frey's charters make no mention of Caen or of its religious estab- 
lishments, and the fortunes of both Caen and Dieppe waited upon 
the reestablishment of close relations with England under his 
son.'* Charters and chroniclers are also silent in Geoffrey's reign 
respecting another phase of local hfe, namely castle-building, 
which had been a traditional practice of the Angevin coimts at 
home and played a prominent part in the Norman policy of 
Henry I and Henry H." 

On his visits to Normandy Geoffrey was often accompanied by 
Angevin barons, such as the seneschal Joslin of Tours and his 
brother Pippin, Geoffrey de Cleers, and Vdijae of Clairvaux; but 
he had also an important Norman following. His most frequent 
attendants were the seneschal Reginald of Saint- Valery, Robert 
de Neufbourg, Robert de Courcy, William de Vernon, Guy de 
Sable, Alexander and Enjuger de Bohun, Osbert de Cailli, Richard 
de la Haie, and Enguerran de Vascoeuil. The attestations of the 
great men of the duchy, such as the counts of Meulan, Roumare, 
and Ponthieu, appear more rarely, while the subscriptions of the 
bishops occur only in occasional documents dated at Rouen,'* 
where they doubtless attended the more formal meetings of the 
court, although they played no regular part in the ducal adminis- 
tration. The appearance of Norman barons with Geoffrey in 
Anjou '' likewise goes to show that there was no mechanical 
separation between his two groups of followers; but the regular 
officers of government were quite distinct in Normandy from 

'' SeeHenry'schartertoVememlmOr(Zo«»o«ceideji?oM, iv. 638; and the docu- 
ments mentioning these towns in Le Pr6vost, Eure, ii. 476 f., 488, iii. 345, 347; 
Round, nos. 282 f., 287, 292 f . For Geofifrey's reign see supra, no. 6; and Ordericus, 
V. 132, where the conventus of Vemeuil in 1141 is estimated at 13,000 men. 

'6 For Dieppe under Geoffrey see below, note 97; and Round, nos. 109, 170, 
1057 f. The growth of the town under Henry II is seen in the various grants of 
houses to the king's officers preserved in the Coutumier de Dieppe (Archives of the 
Seine-Inf^rieure, G. 851): Delisle-Berger, nos. 115, 398, 709, 713, 719. 

" For the Norman castles of the twelfth century see Powicke, The Loss of Nor- 
mandy, ch. vii. 

'" Livre noir, nos. 17, 19; Round, no. 126; Delisle-Berger, no. 8*; infra, no. 13. 

" Supra, no. 3; Cartulaire de S.-Ymer, p. 7; Round, no. 1058, 



146 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

those in his other possessions, in which indeed there does not 
seem to have been entire unity of organization.*" 

It was in this nucleus of administrative ofl&cers that the breach 
of continuity created by time and dvil war between the curia of 
Henry I and that of his son-in-law was most serious, yet it is 
significant that the new recruits came from Normandy and not 
from Anjou. The change was most marked on the ecclesiastical 
side, for Henry's justiciar, John of Lisieux, had died in 1141, and 
Archbishop Hugh and the bishop of Coutances were the only pre- 
lates who survived from Henry's time. The bishops had taken 
Stephen's part; Philip of Bayeux, the most experienced of them 
in public affairs, had even been his chancellor; ^^ and it was not 
to be expected that Geoffrey would turn to them for confidential 
advice or place one of them at the head of his administration. 
Under these circumstances the suppression of the justiciarship 
was natural, particularly as no such ofi&ce existed in Anjou. The 
principal seneschal of Henry I, Robert de la Haie, was also dead,*^ 
and his son Richard had held Cherbourg for Stephen; ^ so that 
this dignity feU to a new man, Reginald of Saint- Valery,^ under 
whom it seems to have gained something of the relatively greater 
importance which, in the absence of a justiciar, it had come to 
possess in Anjou.*^ We hear very little of the other seneschals, 
although Robert de Courcy, dapifer under Henry I, has the same 

'°, What has been said above of the chancellors can hardly be considered an ex- 
ception to the distinctness of Nonnandy. For Geoffrey's other dominions note the 
mention of Hugh and Geoffrey de Cleers as seneschals besides Joslin of Tours in 
Marchegay, Chroniques des Iglises d' Anjou, p. 88 (cf . the documents cited in Delisle, 
Henri //, p. 387 f .) ; and also the special officers for Maine who appear in a charter 
given at Le Mans in 1146 (B. &. C, xxxvi. 433). 

" Register of St. Osmund, i. igi f.; Calendar of Charter Rolls, v. 17, no. 8. For 
Philip's biography see Bourrienne's articles in Revue cathoUque de Normandie, xviii ff . 

'^ On his place under Henry I, see supra, p. gg. He disappears after Henry's 
time. 

83 John of Marmoutier, ed. Marchegay, pp. 2gg-3oi, ed. Halphen and Poupaidin, 
p. 2 29 f . If, as John says, Richard was carried off by pirates, he would seem to have 
returned to Normandy, where he holds an important position under Geoffrey and 
Henry H. There may, of course, have been two barons of this name; the seneschal, 
{infra, note 88) was a son-in-law of WiUiam de Vernon (Stapleton, i, p. cxlv). 

** On Reginald see Delisle, p. 421. 

" On the seneschal in Anjou see Beautemps-Beauprfi, Coutumes, part ii, i, chs. 
8, 10; and cf. Powicke, E. H, R., xxi. 649; Loss of Normandy, p. 38. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET I47 

title in one of Geoffrey's charters; ** and while I have not found 
the title applied to him before Henry II's reign, I believe that 
Robert de Neufbourg, whose signature regularly precedes that of 
Robert de Courcy in the charters," must also have been dapifer 
under Geoffrey before he became chief seneschal under Henry II. 
The same title may have been restored to Richard de la Haie, 
who uses it in 1152.'* 

Of actual meetings of the curia we have few notices, and these 
are concerned entirely with its judicial decisions. It was in 
Geo£frey's court that Philip of Bayeux established his rights over 
Ducy and Louvieres *' and released to the abbey of Savigny his 
claim to land in Escures; '" here also the abbot of Fecamp won 

*' Livre noir, no. 19. Robert de Courcy, who was in Normandy in 1138, when he 
befriended Geoffrey (Ordericus, v. 109), in 1141 (Tardif, Tres Ancien Coutumier, 
p. 117; cf. Roimd, Calendar, no. 1198), and in 1145 (B. &. C, xxi. 127, 131), may 
not be identical with the Robert de Courcy who as dapifer attests charters of the 
empress in 1142 (Round, Geoffrey de Mandevilh, pp. 170, 183). The Courcy 
genealogy needs clearing up; see Tardif ,/. c. ; Delisle, p. 440. 

8' Liwe noir, no. 39; Round, Calendar, no. 170; Neustria Pia, p. 15; infra, 
Chapter VI, note 95; cf. Delisle-Berger, no. 8*; and the charter for Bee, supra, 
no. 2. Robert de Neufbourg was one of the early partisans of Geoffrey: Ordericus, 
V. 68. On his position under Henry II see Delisle, pp. 445-447. 

*' See his charters in the Archives of the Manche, H. 4622, 5130; and cf. H. 692. 
Stapleton, i, p. xjodv, note, says he was dapifer under Geoffrey, but cites no evidence. 

" ' Quas in curia nobihs memorie Gaufridi quondam Normannie ducis per iudi- 
ciiun obtinuisti ': Xiwe noir, no. 156. 

"• ' H. Dei gratia Rothomagensi archiepiscopo totique capitxdo Rothomagensis 
ecclesig G. Andeg[avorum] comes salutem et dilectionem. Notimi sit vobis atque 
omnibus hominibus tam presentibus quam futuris quod Philipus Baiocensis episco- 
pus in pace dimisit et quietam clamavit terram de Escuris quam ipse adversum 
monachos Saviniacenses calumpniabatur et quam monachi in tempore regis H. et 
duorum Baiocensium episcoporum predecessorum eius libere et quiete tenuerant. 
lUam autem terram dimisit eis quietam et liberam ipse Ph. Baiocensis episcopus in 
presentia GuiUelmi Cenomannensis episcopi et mea aput Cenomannos, presente 
Raginaldo de Sancto Walerico et Guidone de Sabl[eio] et Gofferio de Brueria atque 
plurimis aUis. Quare vobis mando ac vos diligenter deprecor ut si Baiocensis episco- 
pus vel aliquis alius super hoc reclamare aut terram calimipniari presumeret, mo- 
nachi prefati vestram protectionem atque adiutorium inde haberent. Testibus 
Gaufredo de Claris Vallibus et Guillelmo de Botevilla et magistro Hugone decano 
Sancti Martini, apud Mosterolpum].' Original, with double queue, in Archives 
Nationales, L. 969; cartulary of Savigny, in Archives of the Manche, no. 201; 
Round, no. 809, where the place and witnesses are omitted and Geoffrey's title is 
arbitrarily altered by the insertion of ' duke of the Normans.' For the date see 
above, note 26. Another account of the transaction, showing that Hugh de Cleers 



148 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

control of the port against the townsmen,'^ and the canons of 
Rouen established their privileges in the forest of Aliermont.'^ In 
these instances the duke appears to have been himself present; '' 
but the curia at Rouen, which effected a compromise between the 
abbot of Pr^aux and Enguerran de Vascoeuil, was composed of 
indices, baillivi, and proceres under the presidency of Reginald of 
Saint- Valery as dapifer Normannie,^^ Possibly Angevin prece- 
dents may have done something to develop the seneschal's im- 
portance on such occasions, but as an itinerant justice he is in no 
way distinguished from his associates. As under Henry I,'^ the 
judicial authority of the duke seems to have been exercised chiefly 
by travelling justices who acted under his writs. Such officers are 
constantly found in the inquests held on behalf of the bishop 
of Bayeux, specific mention being made of Reginald of Saint- 
Valery, Robert de Neufbourg, Robert de Courcy, William de 
Vernon, Richard de la Haie, Guy de Sabl6,Enjuger de Bohtm,and 
Galeran, count of Meulan.'^ Certain of these reappear in the same 
capacity in other parts of Normandy: Robert de Neufbourg and 

was also among those present, is given in the following letter of William, bishop of 
Le Mans: ' H. Dei gratia Rotomagensis ecclesie archiepiscopo totique eiusdem 
ecclesie capitulo G. eadem gratia humiUs Cenomannensis episcopus per bona tem- 
poralia inunarcescibilis vite coronam feliciter attingere. Discretioni vestre notum 
fieri volumus quod Philip^jus Baiocensis ecclesie episcopus terram de Escuris, quam 
abbati et monachis de Savinneio calmnpniabatur et quam predictus abbas et mon- 
achi solute et quiete in tempore duorum episcoporum predecessorum suorum et 
Henrici regis tenuerant, in presentia nostra et domini Gofredi Normannorum 
ducis et Andegavorum comitis et Guidonis de Sablon et Raginaldi de Sancto 
Galerico et Goferii de Brueria et Hugonis de Cleriis et aliorum midtorum in pace 
dimisit. Hoc ideo vobis scripsimus quod si prefatus episcopus vd aliquis alius 
erga ecclesiam Savinneii insurrexerit, prescripte ecclesie, sicut decet sanctos, ius 
suum defendatis.'- Original in MS. Lat. 92x5, Savigny, no. i; cartulary, no. 202; 
omitted by L. Celier, in his Catalogue des actes des Piques du Mans (Paris, 1910); 
cf. Auvry, Histoire de la congregation de Savigny, iii. 44. 

" ' Sicut eum disrationavit in curia patris mei et postea in curia mea' : charter 
of Henry H, Delisle-Berger, no. 120; Round, no. 132. 

92 Valin, p. 266; Delisle-Berger, no. 39*; cf. supra, p. 134. 

" Pleas ' ante ducem Normannorum ' are mentioned in the charter to Rouen 
(Delisle-Berger, no. 14*) . In the eulogy of Geoffrey by fitienne de Rouen his justice 
is especially praised: Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou, ed. Marchegay, p. 313; Hew- 
lett, Chronicles of Stephen, ii. 772. 

" Valin, p. 265. »» Supra, Chapter IH. 

•° Livre noir, nos. 17, ig, 24, 25, 39, 43, 44, 89, 90, 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET l^f) 

William de Vernon at Arques and Dieppe; " Guy de Sable, this 
time with William Lovel, at Verneuil and Nonancourt.'* In the 
Cotentin we read of an inquest held at the duke's assize {in 
assisia mea) at Valognes; no justice is mentioned, but four who 
are otherwise known to have exercised such functions witness the 
charter of Geoffrey which declares the result.^' Evidently the 
system extended throughout the duchy; evidently also the jus- 
tices were chosen from the principal lay members of the curia, 
without recourse to the clergy. 

The problem of chief interest in connection with Geoffrey's 
justices is their administration of the sworn inquest in the deter- 
mination of disputes concerning land, a question which need not 
here be treated at length, as we shall have occasion to discuss it 
with some fullness later.i"" The evidence comes for the most part 
from the Livre noir of Bayeux and is connected with the active 
efforts of the bishop, Philip d'Harcourt, for the recovery of his 
property in the years immediately following the Angevin con- 
quest. For his benefit Geoffrey provided for a general recognition 
of the demesne, fiefs, and other rights of the see, as well as for the 
determination by inquest of neighbors of disputes between the 
bishop and any of his tenants, and he added special writs to 
individual justices with reference to particular estates and feudal 
holdings. The facts were determined by the oath of lawful men of 
the vicinage, and each of the justices in charge made a written 
return to the duke, four such returns having survived as detailed 
evidence of the procedure employed. The sworn recognition was 
also used under Geoffrey to determine the rights of the bishop of 
Coutances over Tourlaville '"' and those of the chapter of Rouen 
in the forest of Aliermont; i"'' and its diffusion is further shown by 

" E. H. R., xxvii. 438, note 97; Lot, S.-WandriUe, no. 119. Reginald of Saint- 
Valery was also concerned with Dieppe, where he held the revenues of the port: 
Round, nos. 1057 f. 

" Supra, no. 6. In the region of Argentan Fulk d'Axinou and Robert de Neuville 
seem to have been justices: Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 4, p. 273. 

"' William de Vernon, Enjuger de Bohun, Robert de Neufbourg, and Robert de 
Courcy: infra, Chapter VI, note 95. 

"» Infra, Chapter VI. 

1™ Itifra, Chapter VI, note 95. 

!« Delisle-Berger, no. 39*. On the attribution to Geoffrey see above, p. 134. 



150 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

the practice of submitting tKe question of a champion's profes- 
sionalism to the oath of ten citizens of Rouen selected by the 
duke's Justice,'"' and by a case in the baronial court of the count 
of Meulan where the parties put themselves on the verdict of 
eight lawful knights.'"* The sworn inquest was nothing new in 
Normandy, having been prescribed by Henry I in 1133 to deter- 
mine the possessions of the bishop of Bayeux,'"^ and in employ- 
ing it again for the bishop's benefit Geoffrey expressly states that 
he is following in Henry's footsteps.'"^ It was obviously a Nor- 
man, not an Angevin institution. The evidence for its use under 
Geoffrey, however, is much more abundant than under the pre- 
vious Norman dukes, and two writs of his directing his justices to 
cause lands of the bishop of Bayetix to be recognized secundum 
assisiam meam led Brunner to conclude that the duke, whom he 
supposed to be Henry II, was here citing a general ordinance 
which introduced this procedure as a regular method of trial in 
cases concerning land. No other mention of such an assize has 
been found in Geoffrey's reign, and it is possible to interpret the 
phrase in other ways; but the reappearance of these words in the 
early years of Henry II, along with clear evidence of the use 
of the recognition as a remedy regularly open to ordinary liti- 
gants, adds weight to Brunner's conclusion. On the whole, it 
seems probable that the regularization and extension of this 
form of procedure, which are well attested by 11 59, had aheady 
begun imder Geoffrey and had perhaps been formulated by him 
in some specific document now lost."" 

Next to the justices, who may be considered as both central and 
local oflScers, came the vicomtes, who had since the eleventh cen- 
tury been the principal agents of local administration, charged 
with the general oversight of the vicomte, and particularly with the 

"* Delisle-Berger, no. 14*. 

'" Valin, pp. 201, 264; Chapter VI, note 128. 

105 Supra, Chapter I, p. 15. 

106 ' Vestigiis regis Henrid inherentes qui hoc idem iuramento antiquorum homi- 
num fecerat recognosci. . . . luramentum quod rex Henricus fieri fecerat ratum 
esse volentes, iuramento eorundem qui tempore regis Henrici iuraverunt et aliorum 
recognosci fecimus iura, possessiones, consuetudines, libertates quas ecclesia Baio- 
censis tempore Odonis episcopi habuerat et habere debebat.' Livre noir, no. 39. 

"" See the discussion of this evidence in Chapter VI. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 151 

collection of the duke's revenues and the payment of the farm at 
which their district was let.'"' These fiscal arrangements, which 
also covered the parallel but inferior jurisdiction of the prevdts, 
show remarkable fixity from the time of WiUiam the Conqueror 
to that of Henry II,!"' and it is not surprising that Geoffrey 
sought to reestablish and maintain them, especially since his 
resources had been diminished by the extensive grants from the 
ducal demesne which he had been obliged to make as the price of 
the barons' support."" He is careful that the bishop of Evreux 
shall have his tenths from the farm of Verneuil and Nonan- 
court,"' the nuns of Saint-Amand their tithes in the forests of 
Eaui and Aliermont,"^ the monks of Saint-Wandrille their ancient 
rights in his rents at Arques and Dieppe, in the proceeds of the 
fair at Caen, and in the toll of Rouen, Exmes, Falaise, and Argen- 
tan."' We have the actual writ ordering the vicomte of Rouen to 
pay the lepers of the city the forty shillings monthly which King 
Henry had given them,"* and the charter to the citizens of Rouen 
shows the duke's ofi&cers collecting the tolls and customs and 
wine-dues which are mentioned in the documents of his prede- 
cessors."* While, however, the vicomtes and prevdts continued to 
accoimt to the Exchequer ' for the issues of their more ancient 
jurisdictions,' the Angevin dukes superimposed upon the local 
government of Normandy the new area of the bailliage}^^ It is not 
likely that under Geoffrey this new unit acquired any such im- 
portance as it possesses in the miUtary returns of 1172; yet the 

•"^ Stapleton, i, pp. xxxiv-xxxvi, Ixi; Delisle, in B. E. C, x. 264 f.; id., Henri II, 
pp. 212-218; supra, p. 46 f. 

'™ Supra, pp. 42-44, los f. "" Supra, no. 6. 

"» Robert of Torigni, i. 267. "^ No. 7. 

"' Lot, S.-WandriUe, nos. 78, 119. Another example of the continuity of the 
fiscal system is seen in the empress's grant to Saint-Andrfi-en-Gouffem (1151-1154) 
of 46 J. ()d., which had been paid annually to the vicomte of Argentan for the gravaria 
of Montgaroult: Round, no. 593; Delisle, p. 142, no. 10. 

"* Supra, no. 12. Cf. the charters of the empress and Henry for Le Grand- 
Beaulieu: DeUsle, p. 126; Delisle-Berger, nos. 11*, 45*. 

"^ Round, no. 109. On the dues collected at Rouen under the Norman dukes 
see Charles deBeaurepaire,iaFico»««^(/e I'Eau de Rouen (Evreux, 1856), pp. 2, 18- 
20, 40-52. 

"' Stapleton, i, p. xxxiiif.; B. J§. C, x. 259 f.; Powicke, E. H. R., xxii. 22 f.; 
and, more fully, in his Loss of Normandy, pp, 71-73, 103-116. 



152 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

name hailia, probably in the more general sense of an officer's dis- 
trict, occurs first in his reign,"' and the bailUvi make their appear- 
ance in his charters, where, however, the term, like the more 
common ministri, may have been applied collectively to all below 
the rank of vicomte}^^ We meet also with the duke's constable at 
Cherbourg,"' the wardens of his forest of Argentanj'^" his gold- 
smith at ArqueSji^i and his moneyer at Vemeuil or Nonancourt,'^^ 
as well as a group of servientes — a loose term which in one in- 
stance describes those who exercise the duke's authority on the 
lands of the bishop of Bayeux,'^' and in another denotes the Ser- 
jeants of Rouen whose offices the charter of the city promises to 
restore.!^* One hereditary serjeanty of this sort, that of Henry the 
marshal in Rouen and its banlieue, is known in its curious privi- 
leges from the document, preserved in a corrupt form, by which 
Geoffrey conferred it: ^"^ 

(13) G. dux Normeim[orum et] comes Andeg[avorum] . . archiepiscopo 
Rothomagensi et omnibus episcopis Normemiie et comitibus'''* et iusti- 
ciis suis salutem. Noveritis quod ego dedi et concessi Hemico le Mareschal 

"' Livre noir, no. 24. Cf. no. 40, issued shortly after Geoffrey's death; and 
Stapleton, i, p. xxxiv. 

''' Liwe noir, no. 16; Neustria Pia, p. 15; Valin, p. 265; supra, nos. $, 10, 11. 
Cf. Delisle, pp. 207, 219. 

"' Delisle, pp. 142 f., 409, 513, no. 84*, facsimile, pi. i. This is a writ of the em- 
press, probably issued between 1151 and IIS4, but the constable in question, Osbert 
de la Heuse, was a companion of Geoffrey (John of Marmoutier, ed. Halphen and 
Poupardin, p. 174), and had doubtless been placed by him in charge of Cherbourg. 

'^'' Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 4. 

^^ Charter of Henry II granting ' Waltero cambiatori aurifabro et heredibus suis 
totam terram Roberti cambiatoris patris sui sitam apud Archas quietam et liberam 
et totum cambium et totam aurif abricaturam toscius castellarie Archarum et tocius 
Deppe . . . preterea . . . omnes consuetudines et quittancias et libertates quas 
pater mens G. comes Andegavorura dedit et concessit Roberto patri suo et carta con- 
finnavit.' Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, G. 851, f. 5S^.', MS. Lat. 9209, Rouen, 
no. 2; Delisle, Henri II, no. 527; Delisle-Berger, no. 719. 

^ Supra, no. 6, reading ' Gisleberto niunmario.' 

'^ Livre noir, no. 16. The general meaning is also found in nos. 3 and 9, supra. 

•^ Delisle-Berger, no. 14*, where the ' proprium marescallum civitatis ' is also 
mentioned. 

^^ Archives Nationales, JJ. 72, no. 191, based on a vidimus of Philip V in 1318. 
The charter is probably anterior to 1147, as it is witnessed by the count of Meulan. 
For other serjeanties connected with Rouen under Henry I and Henry II see Chap- 
ter III, notes 156-158, and Chapter V, notes 145-147. 

■^' MS, cormmmibus. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 1 53 

servienti meo sergenteriam de bagnileuca Rothomagensi sicut se proportat 
de feodo de Pratellis et de feodo de Cailliaco, et dedi eidem Henrico et suis 
heredibus sergenteriam de Cailliaco sicut se proportat in longum et in latum 
et sicut extendit de feodo de Cailliaco et de feudo de Pratellis et de feodo de 
Feritate usque ad partes de Gournayo, et omnia alia ad placitum spate per- 
tinencia, tenenda et habenda dicto Henrico le Mareschal et suis heredibus 
bene et in pace servientium {sic) faciendo. Et volo et concede quod dictus 
Henricus le Maxeschal et eius heredes habeant omnes robas tallatas omnia- 
que superlectillia et omnia vasa nisi fuerint argentea et aurata, et carnes ba- 
conum nisi bacones fuerint integri, et dolium nisi plenum sit vini, videlicet 
eorum et earum que membra sua forefadent, et de domibus que cremabuntur 
forefactxu-a que eidem Henricus et eius heredes habeant tantum quantimi 
poterimt sursum percutere de moura •*' spate sue si eques fuerint ignem def- 
fendendo. Volo etiam et concedo quod eidem Henricus et eius heredes 
habeant suum hardere et suum edificare in foresta mea de Tisone et pastu- 
lagia ab omnibus libera et quieta. Et quia volo quod omnia et singula 
predicta dicto Henrico et eius heredibus rata et stabilia in perpetuum tene- 
antur, banc presentem cartam munimine sigiUi mei confirmavi. 

Testibus Hugone Rothomagensi archiepiscopo, Ern[ulfo] Luxoviensi 
episcopo, Philippo Baiocenso episcopo, Galerano comite Mellendi, Reginaldo 
de Sancto Walerico, Rogero de Claris vallis {sic), Gaufredo de Cleres, apud 
Rothomagum. 

Respecting Geoffrey's policy toward the Norman church, there 
is little to add to what Bohmer has said on the subject. '^^ On 
three occasions during his reign the effort was made to exercise 
freedom of election in place of the practice of ducal appointment 
which had prevailed under Henry I and even under Stephen; but 
while in each case Geoffrey ended by accepting the candidate so 
chosen, he asserted his authority with a vigor which left his real 
control xmdiminished. He held the property of the see against 
Amulf of Lisieux for two years and three months, and restored it 
then only after the exaction of a heavy payment; Gerard of Seez, 
elected imder questionable circumstances about the beginning of 
1 144, suffered at the hands of Geoffrey's followers acts of violence 
which were subsequently compared to the murder of Becketj'^' 
and was not reconciled to the duke until Easter 1147; the abbot 
whom monks and pope set over the monastery of Mont-Saint- 
Michel was compelled to purchase his peace with the duke at a 

^2' I. e., the blade: Old French moure, meure (Godefroy). 

^^ Kirche und Stoat in England und in der Normandie, pp. 310-325. 

^' Giraldus Cambrensis, viii. 301. 



154 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

price which left his house under a heavy burden of debt."" Con- 
tests such as these, as well as the long adherence of the prelates to 
Stephen's cause, make it plain why the bishops play so little part 
in the secular affairs of the duchy during Geoffrey's reign, the 
only notable exception being the use of Amulf of Lisieux as inter- 
mediary in the difi&culties of 1 150 with Louis VII.'^i Apart, how- 
ever, from the energetic assertion of his claims during vacancies, 
when he doubtless did much to earn Saint Bernard's characteriza- 
tion of malleus bonorum, oppressor pads et lihertatis ecclesie,^^^ 
Geoffrey can hardly be accused of injustice in his dealings with 
the Norman church. If the case of Bayeux may be taken as an 
example, we find him placing the full machinery of judicial ad- 
ministration at the bishop's disposal for the recovery of rights and 
property which had been lost during the anarchy and earlier,^'' 
and it is significant, in contrast with conditions in Anjou,"^ that 
no complaints of Geoffrey's exactions in Normandy meet us at the 
outset of the succeeding reign. It was in accord with the ten- 
dencies of the age that the Norman church should in Geoffrey's 
time be drawn into closer relations with Rome and with the rest 
of northern France, but it is noteworthy that he did not permit 
Eugene III or his legates to enter his dominions; "' and, with due 
allowance for the inevitable growth of curial influence and of 
solidarity within the church in this period, it would seem that the 
ducal prerogative was handed on unimpaired to his successor. 

I'D Annals of Mont-Saint-Michel, in Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca (1657), i. 352. 

■^ H. F., XV. 521; Oeuwes de Suger, ed. Lecoy de la Marche, p. 267. 

"2 Epislolae, no. 348, in Migne, clxxxii. 553. So Peter of Cluny says: ' totius 
ecclesie Dei que in partibus illis est hostis comes Andegavorum audiatur.' H. F., 
XV. 637. 

133 Infra, pp. 204-212; Remie cathoUque de Normandie, xix. 167-172, 266-272, 
295-301 . Observe also the enforcement of the fine of £9 for breach of the bishop's 
peace: supra, no. 6. 

"< See the charters of Henry II for Saint-Florent and Fontevrault, in Delisle- 
Berger, nos. 22*, 27*, 30*. 

™ ' Certus erat se Romanam ecclesiam offendisse, quod nee domnum papam nee 
aUquem legatum passus erat ingredi terram suam: ' John of Salisbury, Historia 
Pontificalis, in M. G. H., Scriptores, xx. 531. B6hmer overlooks this passage. The 
mission of the legates Alberic and Imarus, upon which he bases his statement that 
legatine authority was freely exercised in Normandy, belongs to 1144 and hence 
can hardly be considered typical. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 80; Livre noir, no. 58; 
H. F., XV. 696 f. 



GEOFFREY PLANTAGENET 1 55 

So far as this investigation furnishes an answer to the question 
with which we started, it is that in his administration of Nor- 
mandy Geoffrey continued the institutions and the policy of 
Henry I. The judicial and fiscal system and the organs of local 
government remain as before, with no trace of Angevin admix- 
ture. The personnel of the curia undergoes some change, and the 
seneschal perhaps acquires somewhat greater importance; but 
if the justiciar disappears, it is only to reemerge under Henry H, 
and the department which stands in the most intimate relation 
to the new ruler, the chancery, is Normanized even to its smallest 
phrases. Where, as in the case of the sworn inquest, some de- 
velopment appears probable, it roots in the practice of Henry I's 
reign and follows no discoverable Angevin precedents, nor do we 
find in Normandy that direct and personal rule which is so char- 
acteristic of the government of the counts of Anjou. All the evi- 
dence goes to show that Geoffrey observed for himself the policy, 
which at the close of his life he laid down for his son, that of avoid- , 
ing the transfer of customs or institutions from one part of his 
dominions to another. ^'^ How far this advice was followed by 
Henry II is a problem for the next chapter. 

i» ' Terre vero sue et genti spiritu presago in posterum previdens, Henrico heredi 
suo interdixit ne Normannie vel Anglie consuetudines in consulatus sui teiram, vel 
e converse, varie vicissitudinis altematione permutaret: ' John of Marmoutier, 
ed. Marchegay, p. 292; ed. Halphen and Poupardin, p. 224. 



CHAPTER V 

THE GOVERNMENT OF NORMANDY UNDER HENRY II ' 

In the great Plantagenet empire of the twelfth century Nor- 
mandy held the central place, mediating historically, as well as 
geographically, between the England which it had conquered a 
century earher and the Angevin and Aquitanian lands which 
shared its Prankish traditions and were beginning to feel with it 
the nascent centripetal power of the French monarchy . The 
begiimings of this empire were the result of Norman initiative, 
and upon Normandy fell the brunt of, the attacks under which it 
collapsed. Yet Normandy, though central, was not dominant. 
It was boimd to its neighbors, not merely by a personal union, but 
by a common imperial policy, by certain elements of a common 
administration, and by constant communication and interchange 
of officials; and it took its place by their side as a member of the 
strongest and most remarkable state of its time. Be our interest 
military or economic, ecclesiastical or constitutional, we cannot 
hope to understand any part of this realm without constant refer- 
ence to the other parts and to the whole. What is true of the 
several countries is true of their sovereign. Henry II has too often 
been viewed merely as an English king, yet he was bom and edu- 
cated on the Continent, began to rule on the Continent, and spent 
a large part of his later life in his Continental dominions. He was, 
it is true, not a foreigner, as was William the Conqueror, for 
England had a share in forming him which it had not in the mak- 
ing of his great-grandfather; yet he is not, even retrospectively, 
a national figure, either English or French. In a later age he 
would have been called international, or even cosmopolitan, for 
he had wide-ranging tastes, and knew the languages of the world 
from France to Syria.^ 

1 Revised and expanded from A. H. R., xx. 24-42, 277-291 (1914-1915). A sum- 
mary was read before the International Congress of Historical Studies at London in 
April 1913. 

^ 'Linguarum omnium que sunt a marl Gallico usque ad lordanem habens 

«s6 



HENRY 11 157 

It is natural that Henry's reign should have been most thor- 
oughly studied in the land where his descendants still rule, but it 
is significant of his wider influence that the Continental relations 
of his legal reforms were first clearly seen by a German jurist, and 
that the greatest French scholar of our time should have begun 
his long Ufe of labor with a study of Henry's financial adminis- 
tration and closed it by dedicating to the Continental documents 
of his reign a masterly volume of the Chartes et dipldmes relatifs a 
Vhistoire de France. Where Brunner and Delisle are masters, one 
must perforce follow; yet this period of Norman history is not ex- 
hausted, as Powicke has recently shown us, and one may still seek 
to contribute a bit of new evidence or a new suggestion to the 
understanding of what will always be a reign of imcommon inter- 
est. In presenting the results of any such study much depends on 
the point of view. When the institutions of Normandy approach 
those of its Continental neighbors, they wiU impress the Enghsh 
student more than they impress the French, while other elements 
which seem famihar and hence commonplace to an English writer 
become highly significant when seen against a Continental back- 
groimd. The point of view in this chapter is Enghsh in the sense 
that it examines the government of Normandy under Henry II 
particularly for light which may be thrown upon the government 
of England in the same period; and, while it is based upon an inde- 
pendent exploration of the available evidence, it will pass Ughtly 
over institutions which, like the chancery, are already well under- 
stood, or which, like the fiscal system, are interesting chiefly by 
way of contrast to Continental conditions.' The central subject 
must be the courts of law. 

The great obstacle to any careful study of Normandy in this 
period is the paucity of original information, especially as con- 

scientiam, Latina tantum utens et Gallica,' says Walter Map, De Nugis CuriaUum, 
ed. M. R. James, p. 237 (ed. T. Wright, p. 227). 

' For the fiscal system Delisle's study, Des revenus publics en Normandie au XII' 
sUcle, B. £. C, X, xi, xiii, is still fundamental. For legal matters L. Valin, Le due de- 
Normandie et sa cow, is useful, though inadequate in its use of materials and at 
times too juristic. F. M. Powicke's Loss of Normandy, supplemented at certain, 
points by his articles in E. H. R., xxi. 635-649, xxii. 15-42, gives the best survey of 
the Angevin period but treats constitutional matters less fully than other aspects, 
of the subject. 



158 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

trasted with the wealth of record in contemporary England. For 
Henry's reign the only Norman chronicle is that of Robert of 
Torigni,^ pieced out by occasional local annals and by the casual 
references of English writers to Norman affairs, and there is little 
to add in the form of letters ^ or other literary remains. Over 
against the splendid series of the Pipe Rolls, unbroken after 1155, 
Normandy can show only the Exchequer Roll of 1180 and two 
fragments of 1184.* There is no Dialogiie on the Exchequer and 
no Glanvill, and the earliest customal is not earlier than iigg.'' 
Henry's charters are fairly numerous, in originals, in cartulary 
copies, or in the vidimus of French kings, and an admirable basis 
for their study at last exists in Leopold Delisle's Introduction,^ 
now being followed by the publication of the full texts; yet of 
those here collected the four hundred or more which relate to 
Normandy are an insignificant part of the thousands which once 
existed and from which it would have been possible to recon- 
struct the whole course of administrative and judicial procedure 
in the Norman state. The charters of bishops and barons and 
lesser persons are more numerous and offer much to reward the 
investigator of local and family history and of legal and economic 
relations, but they too often tell us what we least want to know, 
and the result of prolonged explorations is in many respects 
disappointing. 

Equally fatal is the loss of Henry's Norman legislation. At 
best, as Maitland has reminded us,' his law-making was done in 

* Cited from Delisle's edition (Soci6t€ de THistoire de Nonnandie, Rouen, 
1872-1873); Howlett's reprint in the RoUs Series {Chronicles of Stephen, iv) is much 
less useful. 

' The letters of Amulf of Lisieux, for example, are disappointing. 

" Cited from the edition of Thomas Stapleton (London, 1840-1844); the second 
fragment of 1184 from Delisle's Henri II, pp. 334-344. That the Exchequer had 
other types of roUs appears from the notice of 1186 printed by Delisle, Mlmoires 
de I'Acadimie des Inscriptions, xxiv, part 2, p. 353; and by VaUn, p. 278. 

' E.-J. Tardif, Le Tres Ancien Coutumier, in his Coutumiers de Normandie, i 
(Rouen, 1881); cf. Viollet, in Histoire littlraire de la France, xxxiii. 43-62. 

' Recueil des actes de Henri II roi d' Angleterre et due de Normandie concemant les 
provinces francaises et les affaires de France, Introduction, with a fascicle of facsimiles, 
Paris, 1909; tome i, revised and published by filie Berger, Paris, 1916; tome ii 
in press. Cf. my review, E. H. R., October 1917. 

' History of English Law, i. 136. On the legislation of the dukes of Normandy 



HENRY II 159 

an informal fashion and has left few monuments, even in England, 
and for Normandy the only formal ordinances that have been 
preserved are the levy of the Palestine tax in 11 66 and the Con- 
tinental prototjqjes of the Assize of Arms and the regulations con- 
cerning the Saladin tithe.^" Here again time has dealt imkindly 
with records which are known to have existed. The Bee annalist 
tells of the Christmas court at Falaise in 11 59, whose acts he evi- 
dently had before him in writing his provokingly meager sum- 
mary," and three years later we hear of a Lenten assembly at 
Rouen which seems to have had legislative importance.^'' There 
were probably, as we shall see, one or more specific assizes estab- 
lishing the use of the recognition, and tenure by parage seems to 
have been introduced by a definite statute.^' Now and then, in an 
age when no line was drawn between legislation and adjudication, 
there are instances of general enactments in the form of judicial 
decisions.** 

Next to the Exchequer Rolls, the fullest information respecting 
Norman institutions under Henry was contained in the returns 
from the great general inquests ordered at different occasions in 
his reign. One of these, the inquest of 1172 concerning military 
tenures, has long been known and used, but for the others we have 
little more than a bare mention. In Normandy, as later in Eng- 
land, the new ruler began at once the gradual recovery of the lost 
portions of his demesne through the machinery of the sworn in- 
quest; and we have record of such inquests held at Caen before 
1 1 54 to determine the duke's rights at Bayeux, and, then or 
shortly afterward, throughout the Bessin,'* while in 11 63 two of 

see Tardif , &Uide sur les sources de I'ancien droit normand, read before the Congrfa 
du Mill^naire in 191 1, of which the part covering Henry II has not yet appeared. 
On Henry's early legislation see infra. Appendix I. 

1" Gervase of Canterbury, i. 198 (Delisle-Berger, no. 255); Benedict of Peter- 
borough, i. 269, ii. 30. Cf. also the general ordinance concerning the debts of Cru- 
saders issued at Vemeuil in 1177, ibid., i. 194; DeUsle-Berger, no. 507. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 180; cf. infra, Appendix I. 

•2 Robert of Torigni, i. 336. ^ Powicke, Loss of Normandy, pp. 69, loi. 

" See Robert of Torigni, ii. 241; the various reforms attributed to William Fitz 
Ralph in the Tres Ancien Coutumier, cc. 60-65; and the unpubUshed example in 
Appendix H, no. 9. 

" Livre noir, nos. 13, 35, 138; Delisle-Berger, nos. 68*, 76*, 38. On the pro- 
cedure see infra. Chapter VI., 



l6o NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

his justices made inquiry, diocese by diocese, concerning the rents 
and customs pertaining to the duke and his barons.'* This was not 
entirely effectual, and in 1 171 the income of the duchy was almost 
doubled by an inquest held throughout Normandy to ascertain 
the lands and forest and other portions of the demesne which had 
been occupied since the death of Henry I." Of this systematic 
survey we are fortunate in having, besides the references in the 
Exchequer Rolls '^ and possible indications in cartularies " and 
in the Couiumier desforets of Hector of Chartres,^'* the full returns 
for the vicomte of the Avranchin,^' which give us an exact picture 
of the king's rights and his administration in this district. Per- 
haps we may coimect with the same inquest a still more important 
document of Henry's reign, the so-called iurea regalis, preserved 
in the Tres Ancien Coukimier ^^ and containing a statement of the 

•' Robert of Torigni, i. 344. Roger of Wendover (i. 25) speaks of an 'inquisitio 
generalis ' in England this year, but he plainly has in mind the inquest of knights' 
fees of 1 1 66. The Inquest of Sheriffs of 11 70 is the nearest English analogy to the 
Norman inquests of 1163 and 1171; see Stubbs-Davis, Select Charters (1913), 
p. 174; and on thereturns Round, The Commune of London, pp. 125-136. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 28. 

1' Indicated by the phrase ' recuperatus per iuream,' Stapleton, passim. 

" Notably in the cartulary of Fecamp (Valin, p. 269; Delisle-Berger, no. 338), 
where there is a reference to the rights of the duke as recognized and recorded in 
his roU; and in the Bayeux cartularies (Liwe noir, no. 46; Liitre rouge, no. 46), 
where the phrase ' recognitum autem fuit ' shows that an extract has been made 
from a more comprehensive document. Being subsequent to the accession of 
Bishop Henry in 1165, the Bayeux document is not a part of the earUer inquests 
for this district nor connected with the general inquest of 1163, and the mention 
of William Fitz John seems to place it before the close of 1172 (see, on the date of 
his death, DeKsle, p. 480, where it should be observed that the entry of 11 80 refers 
to an old account). The portion of the original inquest which concerned the king 
would naturally be omitted in drawing up a statement for the benefit of the bishop. 

2° Preserved in the Archives of the Seine-InfMeure; see Michel Pr6vost, ^ude 
sur la forlt de Roumare (Rouen, 1904), pp. 354-365. The numerous references to 
Henry in the Coutumier, which appeared to Beaurepaire (B. 6. C, kvii. 508) to 
point to a general inquest on the forests, seem rather to cite his charters. 

» Printed by Delisle, pp. 345-347. Cf. Powicke, in E. B. R., xxv. 710 f.; and 
for the date, Haskins, ibid., xxvi. 326-328; and Appendix K. 

22 Ed. Taidif, pp. 59-65. The iurea cannot be later than the death of William 
Patric in 1174, and it is anterior to 1172 if we accept Sir George Warner's date for 
the death of William Fitz John (supra, note 19) ; but there is nothing to connect it 
with any one year, and it may belong with the inquest of 1163 or with the earlier 
inquiries in the Bessin. In any case, in spite of its general form, it was the result of 



HENRY II l6l 

duke's reserved jurisdiction and his rights over wardship, craspice, 
wreck, and treasure trove. Ducal example, if not ducal precept, 
is doubtless responsible for the exact surveys of the possessions of 
religious houses which were made in this reign and of which the 
chief Norman instance is the detailed inquest on the manors of La 
Trinite de Caen.^* The military inquest of 1172 ^ was a natural 
consequence of the English inquiry of 1166, itself perhaps sug- 
gested by Sicilian precedents,^^ but, save in the case of the bishop 
of Bayeux ^* and the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel," we have only 
the general summary and not, as in the parallel English case, the 
original returns made by the tenants. 

It would be especially interesting to know in some detail the 
history of Henry's early years as duke, not only because of their 
importance in forming the youth who was at twenty-one to be- 
come ruler of the vast Norman empire, but also because we might 
then study the institutions of the duchy and the policy of its ruler 
before the union with England reopened the way to possible modi- 
fication from without. Unfortimately the thirty ducal charters 

a local inquest, for all the jurors are in some way connected with the Bessin and 
the statement concerning the fishing rights of the bishop of Bayeux and the earl of 
Chester points to the same region. That William Fitz John was connected with 
earUer inquests in the Bessin (infra, note 74) is pointed out by Tardif {Aiide sur 
les sources, i. 12), who, however, knows nothing of the inquest of ii7r, in which 
year William was also justiciar (Round, no. 456; M. A. N., xv. 198). E. Perrot, 
Les cos roywux (Paris, 1910), p. 306 f., assigns the iurea to ca. iiso. 

^ MS. Lat. 5650, ff. 60V-87, where the mention of William du Hommet (f. 82) 
shows that the inquests belong to the latter part of this reign and not to the earlier 
half of the century, as suggested by H. Legras, Le bourgage de Caen, p. 37, note. 
The whole is to be published by R. N. Sauvage in the BibUotheque de droit normand. 
English examples of monastic inquests in this period are those of the Ramsey 
Cartulary, iii. 224-314; the inquest of ii8i in the Domesday of St. PavVs; and the 
Glastonbury inquisition of 1189. For a writ of Henry II granting the monks of 
Canterbury permission to hold such inquests on their lands, see Delisle-Berger, no. 

425- 

^ B.. F., xxiii. 693-699; Red Book of the Exchequer, pp. 624-647. On the text 
see Powicke, in E. H. R., xxvi. 89-93; 0° the importance of the document for the 
"history of the Norman baronage, see his Loss of Normandy, pp. 482-520. 

'^ See my discussion in E. H. R., xxvi. 66r-664. 

^ M. A. N., viii. 425-431; H. P., xxiii. 699-702. These returns were based on 
the inquest of 1133 and represent still earUer conditions, supra, p. 15. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 296-303; H. F., xxiii. 703-705. 



l62 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

which constitute our sole source for Norman government between 
1 1 50 and 1154 give few answers to the many questions we should 
like to put. So far as they tell us anything, they show the young 
duke surrounded by his father's advisers and maintaining his 
father's policy, itself a continuation of the system of Henry I,^* 
but we can also discern certain new names which are to rise to 
importance in the ensuing period. Reginald of Saint- Valery is still 
seneschal,'" and so are Robert de Courcy, Robert de Neufbourg,'" 
and Richard de la Haie; '^ but Manasses Bisset and Humphrey de 
Bohun also appear with this title,'* while William the marshal, 
Richard du Hommet the constable,'' and Warin Fitz Gerald the 
chamberlain'* are new. Besides Richard de Bohun, who con- 
tinues to act as chancellor, at least until 1151, we find another 
chancellor, William,'^ and a chancellor's clerk and keeper of the 

'' Supra, Chapter IV. The writ for Hfiauville in Delisle-Berger, no. 29*, is, save 
for the witnesses and the insertion of am mei, an exact repetition of the writ of Geof- 
frey for the same establishment printed above, Chapter IV, no. 7a. The following 
charter of 1150-1151 for the chapter of Chartres is not in DeUsle-Berger: ' H. dux 
Normannorum G. comiti Mellendi et Willehno de Hangemara et Roberto de Havilla 
et omnibus fideUbus suis totius Normannie salutem. Sciatis me resaisisse canonicos 
Sancte Marie Camotensis ecclesie de decima et de ecclesia de Havilla, ideoque 
mando et firmiter precipio quod ecclesiam et decimam teneant in bono et in pace 
iuste et integre salvis rectis suis omnibus iUis hominibus, ubi ea sibi fieri debent, 
qui in predicta ecclesia aut decima aliquid clamaveiint rationabiliter. Testibus 
Alexandre de Bohun, Willehno Trosebot, Stephano de BeUo Campo, apud Rotho- 
magum ' (MS. Lat. 5185 I, p. 328; not in the printed cartulary). Delisle-Berger 
also omit a charter of 1x52-1154, printed in Revue cathoUgiiedeNormatidie,\Ti. 446. 

^ DeUsle-Berger, nos. 8*, 11*, 3S*-37*, 44*- See in general the Ust of witnesses 
to Henry's early charters in Delisle, p. 133 f., where, however, the official titles are 
not always given and no distinction is made between Normandy and Anjou. 

'" Robert de Neufbourg is not called seneschal in documents before 1155, but 
his activity as justice and his precedence in charters make it probable that he held 
this dignity also under Geoffrey and during the early years of Henry. See Chapter 
IV, note 87. 

" Delisle, p. 133 f.; Liiirenoir,no. 7. 

'2 Dehsle-Berger, nos. 48*-5o*, 63*, 65*, 68*, 76*; cf. Vernon Harcourt, His 
Grace the Steward, p. 37. 

*" Delisle-Berger, nos. 50*, 51*, 63', 65*-68*, 72*, 76*. Humphrey Fite Odo and 
William of Roumare also appear as constables (Delisle-Berger, nos. 10*, 42*), and 
still others appear in no. 55* For William the marshal see no. 13*. 

" Delisle-Berger, nos. 48*, 49*, 57", 76*. 

»' Delisle, p. 88, note; Dehsle-Berger, nos. 13*, 15*, 36*, 50*, 52*, 65*. I do not 
understand why DeUsle dismisses the early chancellors with bare mention; certainly 
Henry's chancery does not begin its history in 1154. See E. H. R., xxxii. 597. 



HENRY II 163 

seal, Maurice,'* who need clearing up. The most notable among 
these new men is the clever and ambitious Bishop Amulf of 
Lisieux, who heads the lists of witnesses to Henry's charters and 
the list of Justices in his curia,^'' thus restoring the office of justiciar 
which his predecessor Bishop John had held under Henry I and 
which had disappeared under Geoffrey. Of himibler servants we 
find Odo hostiarius, doubtless the usher of this name who appears 
in the Pipe Rolls and perhaps the Odo of Falaise, regiorum com- 
putator redituum, who was cured of blindness at the tomb of 
Becket.'* The curia meets in different parts of Normandy '' — 
Rouen, Lisieux, Domfront — and has its share of judicial busi- 
ness: there the abbot of Aunay proves his right to the church of 
Cenilly, the abbot of Fecamp to his tithes in the neighboring 
forest, the abbot of Savigny to the land claimed by Robert Fitz 
Ralph.*" We get ghmpses of a body of justices busy with the hold- 
ing of sworn inquests and the protection of legal rights; *' and 
there are local vicomtes and baillis and porters, all receiving their 
orders in the sharp, crisp language of the Anglo-Norman writ.*'' 
So far as the sources of information are concerned, the period 
from 1154 to 1 189 is divided into two almost equal parts by the 
change of the king's style in 1 172-1173, which separates his char- 
ters into two groups, according as they do or do not contain the 
words Dei gratia in the title.*' These groups do not differ notably 
in number, but the materials for the second half of the reign 
are the fuller, since the charters are there reenforced by the 
Exchequer Rolls and by a larger mmaber of records of judicial de- 
cisions. The earher period, is, however, the more interesting from 
a constitutional point of view as being a period of origins, and this 

'^ Delisle-Berger, nos. 20*, 37*, 44*. 

" Ibid., nos. 11*, 34*-37*, 42*, 45*, 68*, 72*, 75*, 76*, 80*. For the disappear- 
ance of the justiciarship vinder Geoffrey, see supra, p. 146. 

" He is the sole witness to Dehsle-Berger, no. 38*. For Odo of Falaise see 
Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ii. 185. 

" Delisle-Berger, nos. 32*, 67*, 75*; Robert of Torigni, i. 255, 259. Cf. also 
the large gathering at Bayeux in November 115 1: Delisle-Berger, no. 20*. 

*" Delisle-Berger, nos. 32*, 67*, 75*; Appendix H, no. 3. 

" Delisle-Berger, nos.28*, 29*, 32*-34*, 41*, 66*, 67*, 80*; Revue catholique,vu.44.6. 

« Delisle-Berger, nos. 11*, 14*, 15*, 35*, 36*, 38*, 43*, 66*. 

« Delisle, pp. 12-38. 



164 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

is notably true of the years between 11 54 and 1164, preliminary 
to the struggle with the Church and the great legislative measures 
of the reign in England, but as yet obscure on both sides of the 
Channel. The possibility of Norman precedents, especially in 
matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and civil procedure, requires 
a careful sifting of all the information that has reached us from 
what seems to have been a formative period in Henry's policy. 

Let us first consider the administration of justice. Of the judi- 
cial business that came before the duke himself in his curia we 
have only the slightest indications,^ and these tell us next to 
nothing in the earlier years. Between 11 54 and 1164 the king 
spent half his time in England, while the affairs of his other 
dominions claimed many of the busy months he passed on the 
Continent. If Normandy was to have an efifective judicial system, 
it must be organized to work in the king's long absences as well as 
under his immediate supervision. From his father and grand- 
father Henry inherited the institution of a regular body of jus- 
tices, both in the curia and in local affairs, which he had only to 
develop and adapt to the needs of a rapidly expanding ducal 
jurisdiction. In this process there was doubtless constant experi- 
mentation, both with men and with methods, such as we can 
follow somewhat more closely in England later in the reign ; but 
for the earlier years the Norman evidence happens to be fully as 
abundant as the English,^^ and shows us some features of the 
system with reasonable clearness. 

First of all there is a distinction between the ordinary justices 
and the justiciar of Normandy, iusticia rnea Normannie.^ Ordi- 
narily, as imder Henry I,*' there would seem to have been two 

** M.A. N., XV. 198; Delisle, p. 43; infra, Appendix H, no. 3. An example from 
the latter part of the reign is found in an agreement between the abbot of Saint- 
Pierre-sur-Dive and Gervase de Fresnay, i May 1181, ' coram domino rege et 
iusticia sua' (original in Archives of the Calvados, /owdj Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive). 

^' On which see Stubbs, introduction to Benedict of Peterborough, ii, p. bdv. 

*' Notably in the clause of the king's writs, ' nisi feceris iusticia mea Normannie 
faciat fieri ': Delisle-Berger, nos. 13, 14, 365, 368, 382; Round, nos. 44, 949; cf. 
Livre noir, no. 37, of Henry I. In other writs we find in the same clause only 
iusticia mea: Delisle-Berger, nos. 38, 91, 99, 155, 206 f., 228 f., 335, 342, 346, 369 f. 
Sometimes the justice is mentioned by name: ibid., nos. 66* f., 75*, 21, 22. 

*' Supra, Chapter HI. 



HENRY II 165 

justiciars, a bishop and the chief seneschal, who frequently sit 
together, but at least five persons are known to have acted in this 
capacity in this period, and the available sources do not enable us 
to fix their succession and relation to one another with the pre- 
cision which has sometimes been sought.*^ As under Geoffrey,^' 
the courts held by the justiciars are called assizes,*" often, by way 
of distinction from the lesser courts, full assizes {plena assisia);^'^ 
and if we may judge from a fuU assize held at Caen in 1157 and 
attended by the barons from the four grealt regions of the west,*^ 
they comprehended several administrative districts. Meetings 
at Caen and Rouen are frequent, but not sufl&ciently regular to 
indicate the existence of a permanent central curia, and the 
justiciars are clearly itinerant. The lack of any rolls prevents our 
tracing their circuits, but the records of cases are more numerous 
than those which have been collected for England in the same 
period.*^ In 1155, before the king had returned from his corona- 
tion. Bishop Amulf of Lisieux and Robert of Neufbourg the chief 
seneschal, as master justices of all Normandy, hold assizes at 
Carentan and Domfront.^ In 1157 they appear in two judgments 
of the curia at Caen,** and about the same time in another pro- 

<8 Notably by Vernon Haicourt, His Grace the Steward, pp. 43-50. His at- 
tempt to sustain his theory of the unimportance of the seneschal by explaining 
away the dapifership of Robert de Neufbourg has been satisfactorily disposed of 
by Valin, p. 157 f. The charter of Henry H for Savigny (Delisle-Berger, no. 80), 
in which Harcourt considers Robert's style ' unofficial embellishment,' is also in 
the Cartulaire de Normandie (MS. Rouen 1235), f. 8ov. 

*' ' In assisia mea apud Valonias,' infra, Chapter VI, note 95. 

'" Robert of^Torigni, ii. 241; M. A. N., xv. 197. Note in Henry's writ in Liiire 
noir, no. 10, ' quando fui apud Baiocas ad asisiam meam,' the order to William 
Patric to be ' ad primam asisam que erit citra Lexovium ' (anterior to 1172-1173, 
Delisle-Berger, no. 33s). 

'' 'In plena assisia apud Abrincas': Deville, Analyse, p. 18; Valin, p. 268; 
Delisle-Berger, no. 153. 'In plena assisia apud Rothomagum': Appendix H, 
no. 6; cartulary of Saint-fivroul, no. 172. ' In plena assisia apud Argentomum ': 
ibid., no. 250 (1190). 

^ ' In plenaria curia regis, utpote in assisa ubi erant barones iiii comitatuum ': 
Robert of Torigni, ii. 251. 

'' On records in England, see PoUock and Maitland, i. 156. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 241. 

'' Ibid., ii. 251; M. A. N., xv. 197 (original in Archives of the Ome, H. 3912). 
Cf. Delisle-Berger, nos. 98, 102. 



1 66 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

ceeding, likewise at Caen, in part of which the bishop of Lisieux 
is in his absence replaced by two barons.^ Before his death in 
1 1 59 we find Robert de Neufbourg in various other cases at 
Avranches, Bayeux, Caen, and Rouen.*' In 1 157 there appears 
with him at Rouen Rotrou, bishop of fivreux,'* who is active in 
the administration of justice throughout the duchy during the 
next seven years and is specifically called ' justiciar of Nor- 
mandy.' '' At times Rotrou is accompanied by Reginald 
of Saint-Valery as justiciar,*" and in 11 63 they hold an iter 
throughout the duchy to ascertain the respective rights of king 
and barons. *i Richard du Hommet the constable also appears 

" Appendix H, nos. 3, 4. 

" Livre noir, nos. 27, 28, 35; Valin, p. 267 f.; M. A. N., xv. 198; Deville, 
Analyse, pp. 18, 42; Delisle-Berger, nos. 21, 22, 38, 121, 153; Round, no. 341; 
Appendix H, nos. 3-5. He is still ' dapifer et iusticia totius Normannie ' when he 
retires to Bee in 1159: Robert of Torigni, i. 322, ii. 174. Cf. Delisle, pp. 445-447; 
Harcourt, p. 46 f. 

'* ' In presencia domini Rotroldi episcopi Ebroicensis et Roberti de Novo Burgo 
dapiferi et Gualeranri comitis de Mellent et Rogerii abbatis Sancti Wandregisili et 
Rogerii abbatis Sancti Audoeni Rothomagensis et Hugonis de Gomaio et Godardi 
de Vallibus et Adam de Wacnevilla et Roberti filii Haimerici, apud Rothomagum. 
Huius pactionis sunt testes. . . .' Cartulary of Saint-Wandrille, D, ii, 14. The 
first set of witnesses is different in the other version which follows in the cartulary 
and is printed by Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 88; Round, no. 172. 

The following charter shows Rotrou and Robert de Neufbourg in the court of 
Galeran, count of Meulan, probably sitting as ducal justices, such as we find under 
Henry I (Chapter HI, no. 16) and later in Henry H's reign {infra, note 179): 
■ Arnio etiam ab incarnatione Domini millesimo centesimo quinquagesimo quinto 
residentibus in curia mea apud Brionnium domino Rotroth venerabili Ebroicensi 
episcopo et domino Rogerio abbate Becci et honorabili Michaele predicti monas- 
terii patre atque domino Roberto de Novoburgo multisque aliis nobilissimis viris, 
ego Gualerannus comes de Mellent. . . .' Cartulary of Pr6aux, no. 68. 

69 Delisle, p. 455 f.; Valin, pp. 268, 270; infra. Chapter VI, note 93; Appendix 
H, nos. 6, 8. A document of Rotrou for Foucarmont (originals in Archives of the 
Seine-InfMeure; also in MS. Rouen 1224, f. 87) ends: ' Hoc autem totum factum 
est me presente et audiente et tunc temporis existente iusticia Normannie.' In 
Henry's great charter for Saint-fitienne, 1136-1161 (Delisle-Berger, no. 154), he 
attests as ' iustic[ia] Norm[annie].' 

'" Delisle, p. 455; Valin, p. 270; Round, nos. 133, 134, 491; Harcourt, p. 48 f.; 
Delisle-Berger, nos. 221, 223, 397; and Appendix H, nos. 7, 8. Reginald was ab- 
sent in the East from 1158 to 1160: Robert of Torigni, i. 316, ii. r66; cf. also Jaff6- 
Lowenfeld,/?egeria,no. 10363. Pardons of Danegeld in 1136 (Pipe Roll 2 Henry II, 
pp. 9f., 23) indicate that Rotrou and Reginald were already members of the curia. 

" ' Rotrocus episcopus Ebroicensis et Rainaldus de Sancto Walerio fecenint in 



HENRY II 167 

with this title,'^ and Bishop Philip of Bayeux may also have 
held it.«' 

These courts were doubtless attended by the chief barons and 
royal officers of the region,*^ some of whom evidently acted as 
Judges, although the title of justice appears rarely in the notices of 
decisions and our lists of royal officers are so incomplete that in 
most instances it is impossible to distinguish the officials from the 
barons. A good example is furnished by an assize held at Ba- 
yeux *^ by the bishop of fivreux and Reginald of Saint-Valery 
between 1161 and 1165, where we find the bishops of Lisieux and 
Avranches, Richard son of the earl of Gloucester, Godard de 
Vaux, one of the king's justices, Etard Poulain, one of his hailUs 
in the Bessin,*^ Osbert de la Heuse, constable of Cherbourg,^^ 
Robert Fitz Bernard, prevot of Caen,^^ Graverend d'fivrecy, 
mcomte,^^ Richard de Vaux, vidame of the bishop of Bayeux/" and 
Roger d'Arri, canon of Bayeux and later a permanent official of 
the Exchequer.'! The vicomtes and baillis acted as judges in their 

Normannia recognoscere iussu regis, per episcopatus, legales redditus et consuetu- 
dines ad regem et ad barones pertinentes': Robert of Torigni, i. 344. 

^ A judgment of 1164 is rendered ' apud Cadomum [coram] abbate de Troamo, 
Ricardo de Humet tunc tempoiis iustitia regis, Guillelmo filio lohaimis, Renaldo 
de Gerponvilla, Godardo de Vaux, Guillelmo de Varaville, lordane Taxone, Ricardo 
fiUo comitis, Guillelmo Crasso, Henrico de Agnis, Nicholao de Veies, Graver[endo] 
de Vrecie, Roberto filio Bemardi, Sjrmone de Scuris, Henrico filio Corbini, Roberto 
Pigache, Guillelmo Forti, Philippo f ratre Vitalis monachi, Guillelmo Gemon, Rogero 
Darriedf Ricardo de Vaiuf, lohaime Cumin ': cartulary of S.-Wandrille, Q, ii, 36. 
See also infra, Appendix H, no. 6. 

'^ He is specially mentioned with Robert de Neufbourg in Delisle-Berger, no. 120, 
and with Rotrou in Valin, p. 268 (Delisle-Berger, no. 153). Cf. Harcourt, p. 47, 
note. 

** ' Interfuerunt huic concordie comes de Mellent, comes Ebroicensis, comes 
Giffardus, et multi barones et servientes regis de diversis partibus.' Charter of 
Rotrou: Delisle, p. 455; Le Provost, Eure, i. 551. 

** M. A. N., XV. 197; Valin, p. 270. Cf. the longer list in the assize at Caen in 
1164, supra, note 62, in which nearly all these names reappear. 

'^ Infra, notes 77-79. 

" Delisle, p. 409. 

«8 Delisle-Berger, no. 66*; Robert of Torigni, ii. 251. 

•9 Ibid., ii. 248. 

"• Ibid., ii. 258. 

^ See infra, note 125, the index to the Livre noir, and the list of later assizes in 
Appendix J, 



l68 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

own districts,'^ where an ordinance of 1 159 required them to hold 
court once a month," and they naturally sat with the justiciars in 
the larger assizes, where they are sometimes specifically called 
justices. Thus WiUiam Fitz John and fitard Poulain, the chief 
royal officers in the Bessin,'^ both with the title of baillim regis,''^ 
are constantly found in the assizes of Lower Normandy. WiUiam 
can be traced in the local administration of justice as well as in the 
assizes, and later in the reign becomes dapifer, justice, and pro- 
curator NormannieJ^ Etard sits in two cases at Caen in 11 57, in 
one of them apparently with the title of justiciar," is iusticia regis 
at Lisieux in 1161,'' and appears in the court elsewhere." He 
is frequently accompanied by Godard de Vaux, who replaces the 
bishop of Lisieux at Caen at the beginning of the reign, sits at 
Caen and Rouen in 1 157,*° and appears at various other sessions at 
Rouen in this period, often with a certain Adam de Wanneville, 
who may also have been a justice. ^^ Our information does not 
permit us to separate the local from the itinerant judges in the 
records of the assizes, still less to follow the work of the local 
courts. Doubtless arrangements varied locally and in the course 
of the reign, and apparently the confusion of local areas stood in 
the way of a set of courts as simple and uniform as the EngUsh. 

™ Thus at Pontaudemer and in the territory of Brionne, William de Morville 
is ' custos et iusticia iussu regis Henrici ' : cartulary of Pontaudemer (MS. Rouen 
1232), ff. 18, 28; Delisle-Berger, no. 368. At Mortain in 1162-1163 we find the 
constable, Robert Boquerel {Analecta Bollandiana, ii. 527; cf. Delisle-Berger, nos. 
79, 364), holding the king's court (Delisle, p. 440; original in MS. Rouen 3122, 
no. 4); and somewhat later the seneschal of Mortain, Nigel, addressed as one of 
the king's justices (Stapleton, i, p. kv; Delisle, pp. 210, 408). See infra, note 170. 
Cf. 'the king's justices of Caux ' (1154-1165): Somm^nil, Chronicon Valassense 
(Rouen, 1868), p. 83. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 180. 

" Delisle, pp. 366, 479 f.; Tardif, Tres Ancim Coutumier, p. no; Livre noir, 
nos. 9, 12; Delisle-Berger, nos. 13, 228. 

'* Delisle, p. 447; infra, Appendix H, nos. 3, 4. 

" Liwe noir, nos. 27, 28, 35, 36, 46; Robert of Torigni, ii. 31, 251 f.; Delisle- 
Berger, nos. 66*, 14, 21, 22, 38, 305; M. A. N., xv. 198; supra, notes 56, 62. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 252; M.A. N., xv. 197. 

'" Infra, note loi. '» Appendix H, no. 5. 

80 Supra, note 58; infra. Appendix H, nos. 3, 4. 

81 Supra, notes 58, 59; infra. Chapter VI, note 93; Appendix H, nos. 3, 5-8; 
Delisle, p. 456; Delisle-Berger, no. 366; Round, no. 341 ; also, perhaps, as justice, 
in an illegible charter in the Archives of the Manche, H. 212. 



HENRY II 169 

The one clear point of special importance is the existence of a 
well defined system of itinerant justices. 

Of even greater interest is the question of procedure, which 
bears directly upon the development of the jury. This problem 
will be discussed in detail in the following chapter, so that at this 
point it is necessary only to indicate its relation to these formative 
years of Henry's poUcy. In England, in spite of the occasional 
employment of the sworn inquest since the Conqueror's time, we 
have no evidence that it was a normal mode of trial before the 
appearance of the assize utrum in 1164, followed shortly by the 
other possessory assizes and the grand assize. In Normandy, on 
the other hand, writs ordering the determination of questions of 
possession and ownership in accordance with the duke's assize 
{secundum assisiam meani) are found in 1156, as well as in 
Geoffrey's reign, while we find an ordinary litigant demanding an 
assize against Saint-Etienne before 1159. In that year a question 
concerning tithes and presentation is decided by recognition on 
the duke's court, while at Christmas Henry issued a formal 
ordinance directing the use of the evidence of neighbors in his 
local courts. Accordingly it would appear that the recognition 
had become the normal procedure in certain types of actions con- 
cerning land, while the testimony of the vicinage had been pre- 
scribed in ecclesiastical courts much as in the Constitutions of 
Clarendon. That matters had reached this point on the English 
side of the Channel does not appear from any evidence as yet 
brought to Ught, and in the existing state of our knowledge it is 
highly probable that Henry drew upon the results of his Norman 
experience in drafting his Enghsh assizes. There was, of course, 
no mechanical transfer, for a restless experimenter like Henry was 
constantly reshaping his materials, and if we could follow the 
process in Normandy, we should probably find him modifying in 
various ways the procedure and the assize which he had inherited 
from his father. Something, too, must be allowed for the natural 
development of the institution as it passed into more general use, 
but the exceptional is not likely to have become normal without 
some direct action of the sovereign in extending his prerogative 
procedure to his subjects, and in this respect the evidence avail- 



lyo NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

able from the years before 1164 places Normandy in advance of 
England. 

There is another field in which the practice of the Norman 
courts before 11 64 has a special interest for England, namely that 
of ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. The struggle between Henry II and 
Becket, says Maitland,*^ "has a long Prankish prologue"; has it 
also a Norman prologue ? A short prologue, at least, it must have 
had, for in February 1162 a great council was held at Rouen, in 
which Henry " complained of the bishops and their officers and 
his vicomtes and ordered that the provisions of the council of Lille- 
bonne should be observed." *' No details are given, but the men- 
tion of the local officers and the coimcil of Lillebonne shows 
plainly that the question was one of encroachments by the Church 
which his officers failed to prevent. Just which of the canons of 
this council the king believed to have been violated we can only 
surmise, but he clearly sought to base his protest, as in England 
two years later, upon an appeal to ancient and well estabUshed 
practice, as contained in a document which had been drawn up 
under the Conqueror in 1080 and confirmed by Henry I,^ and 
which thus presented a more definite formulation of the "customs, 
liberties, and dignities of his ancestors " than was at hand in 
England. Erom the ecclesiastical point of view, these canons had 
become somewhat antiquated by 1162, since they referred con- 
stantly to local Norman usage rather than to the general prin- 
ciples of canon law which had been more sharply formulated in 

^ Pollock and Maitland, i. 18. 

" ' Querimoniam fadens de episcopis et eorum ministris et vicecomitibus suis, 
iussit ut concilium lulie Bone teneretur: ' Robert of Torigni, i. 336. 

** The best text of the council of Lillebonne, now preserved in the Archives 
Nationales, bears the seal of Henry I: Teulet, Layettes, i. 25, no. 22; Delisle, Cartu- 
laire normand, no. i. The canons are also given by Ordericus, ii. 316-323; cf. the 
analysis given by Tardit, &tude sur les sources, pp. 39-43 ; and supra, Chapter I, pp. 
30-35. Evidence that they were observed in the twelfth century is found in a charter 
of Audoin, bishop of fivreux from 1118 to 1139: ' Convocatis ex more ad synodum 
omjiibus presbiteris nostris; circadam quam ab illis exigebam ex concilii lulibone 
institutione et ecclesiarum episcopalium Normannie consuetudine, quoniam ilia 
gravari conquerebantur, eorum communi petitioiie et nostrorum canonicorum in- 
tercessione perdonavi ': Archives of the Eure, G. 122, no. 36. The canons of the 
council were frequently copied in legal collections relating to Normandy. 



HENRY II 171 

the interval, and since they recognized the supremacy of the duke 
and the arbitrament of his curia in church matters to an extent 
which would not have been admitted by the Church in Henry II's 
time. It is, indeed, highly probable that Henry's complaint was 
based particularly upon the closing enactment of the assembly of 
LiUebonne, that the bishops should seize no right of justice or cus- 
tomary dues beyond those there enumerated until they had 
established their claim in the king's court; but the absence of 
evidence precludes us from examining the bearing of this canon 
upon the vexed question of criminous clerks. Some idea of their 
treatment in Normandy can be gained from a case described by 
Amulf of Lisieux, that of a certain Henry, who, apparently before 
1 166, manufactured false money and put it into circulation at 
Eayeux. Convicted after confession, it is not stated in what court, 
he was imprisoned and fettered by the king's officers, but finally 
much effort of the diocesan secured his release on condition of 
abjuring the duchy, and he was degraded by the archbishop.*^ 
An ordinance of 1159 requiring the testimony of neighbors in 
accusations by rural deans ^ shows that Henry's dissatisfaction 
with the exercise of jurisdiction by archdeacons and deans had 
found expression in Normandy as well as in England before the 
Constitutions of Clarendon, in which it occupies a definite, though, 
subordinate, place. 

Still another claim which Henry made in 11 64 we are able to 
test by Norman practice, namely the jurisdiction of the king's 
court over suits respecting advowson and presentation.*' In 1 159, 
when the bishop of Coutances had smnmoned Ralph de la Mouche 
to show by what right he claimed the presentation of the priest of 
Mesnil-Drey, a certain Osmund proved his right against Ralph 

*' Ep. 123 (Migne, cci. 144). Addressed to N' (this, not Nicolao, is the reading 
of the MS. used by Giles, St. John's College, Oxford, 126, as Mr. R. L. Poole has 
kindly ascertained for me), bishop of Meaux, who does not appear to have existed, 
the text of this letter requires further examination. The priest's brother Amfredus 
had forfeited his lands and gone into exile fifteen years before, and if Henry's 
offenses are of the same period, they would fall at least as early as n66. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 180; cf. Constitutions of Clarendon, c. 6. See infra. 
Chapter VI, note 94; and Appendix I. 

<" Constitutions of Clarendon, c. i. On the probability of previous English 
legislation concerning advowsons, see Appendix I. 



172 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

by sworn recognition in the king's court at Gavray.'' In another 
case anterior to 1164 the bishop of fivreux, acting as the duke's 
justiciar in full assize at Rouen, had adjudged the presentation of 
Le Sap to the monks of Saint-£vroul against a lay claimant. ** 
There are also examples of the bishop's jurisdiction in such cases 
when one or both of the parties were ecclesiastics,'" so that there 
was some foundation for the assertion of Amulf of Lisieux that 
such matters had always pertained to the bishop; '^ but the com- 
prehensive inquest of 1205 states specifically that in Henry's 
reign disputes respecting patronage had to be settled in the 
duke's court or in the court of the lord of whose fee the church was 
held,'2 and this is borne out by the documents.'^ Indeed more 
than a generation before 11 64 the monks of Chartres, claiming the 
church of Chandai in the court of Richer of Laigle, plead in the lay 
court iuxta morem Normannie.^ In the latter part of Henry II's 
reign the question whether a holding was lay fee or alms was 
matter for a recognition in the king's court, as we see from various 
cases in the cartularies and Exchequer Rolls, '^ as well as from the 

*' Robert of Torigni, ii. 259. 

*' Chapter VI, note 93. 

'° Robert of Torigni, ii. 259; dispute between Archbishop Hugh and the abbot 
of Pr^aux, cartulary of Pr^aux, no. 51; Jordan Taisson ji. a clerk in the court of 
Henry, bishop of Bayeux, Archives of the Calvados, H. 5606, 3; cartulary of 
Saint-fivroul, nos. 231, 233; infra, note 125; Appendix H, no. i. 

'^ Ep. 116: ' Mota est ei qui presentaverat questio patronatus in iudicio secu- 
lari, cum semper ab antiquo cause huiusmodi ad episcopalem audientiam per- 
tinerent.' 

^ DeUsle, Cartulaire normand, no. 124; Round, no. 1318. 

" Stapleton, i. 5, 12, 64, 96, 114; cartulary of the chapter of Rouen (MS. Rouen 
1193), f. 131; charter of Bishop Lisiard of Sfiez in cartulary of Saint-fivroul, no. 
250 (1190); and the assizes of danein presentment in Round, no. 438; Delisle, 
Jugements de V&chiquier, no. 35; the cartulary of Fecamp (MS. Rouen 1207), f. 
70V; and Delisle-Berger, no. 651. 

^ CarMaire de S.-Pere de Chartres, ii. 607; Round, no. 1237. 

*' Stapleton, i. SS, 64; JB. &. C, i. 545; Delisle-Berger, no. 406; charters of 
Jordan de I'fipesse, in Archives of the Manche, H. 1034, 6452 (printed in Inven- 
taire sommaire) ; charter of John P6ril granting ' presentationem ecclesie Sancti 
Martini de Mairoles (Marolles, canton Lisieux) cum omni iure patronatus eiusdem 
ecclesie et duas garbas dedme eiusdem ville et totius patochie, que recognite fuerunt 
in assisa apud Monfort tempore domini regis Henrici ad laicum feodum ' (copy of 
cartulary of leprosery of Lisieux, Archives of the Calvados, H. suppl. 486, f. 9; cf. 
infra, Appendix J, no. 20). 



HENRY II 17-^ 

Coutumier and from the inquest of 1205; '* yet it is not possible 
to say how clearly this principle was established in Normandy 
before the appearance of the assize utrum in the Constitutions 
of Clarendon." That this assize had a somewhat independent 
history in Normandy may perhaps be argued from the divergence 
of the Norman ireoe defeodo et elemosina from the English assize 
utrum.^^ While we have clear cases of the decision of questions 
of tithes and parish lands in the duke's court before 1164,'' there 
are traces of the bishop's authority here also,"" and there is some 
indication that the two jurisdictions might deal with the same 
case, apparently without rivalry.^^ Here, as in aU questions con- 
cerning the Norman antecedents of the Constitutions of Claren- 
don, the evidence is interesting but too scanty to be conclusive. 
In working back from this document it is always well to remember 
Maitland's dictum that " if as regards criminous clerks the Con- 
stitutions of Clarendon are the high-water-mark of the claims of 

'' Tres Ancien Coutumier, c. 18; Delisle, Cartulaire normand, no. 124. 

" The case of the rights of Saint-fivroul over Le Sap cannot be considered an 
authentic example of this: infra, Chapter VI, note 93. 

" Bnmner, Schwurgerichie, pp. 236 f., 324-326; Maitland, Collected Papers, ii. 
216; Bigelow, History of Procedure, p. 4 f . 

'' Robert of Torigni, ii. 259; infra. Appendix H, nos. 3, 5, 6. Cf. Cartulaire de 
Notre-Dame de Chartres, i. 187 (1171); MS. Lat. 5650, f. 80. 

^°° E. g., Neustria Pia, p. 351 (= Le Provost, Eure, iii. 82); cartulary of Saint- 
fivroul, no. 233; Vernier, no. 75; infra. Chapter VI, note ro9; Appendix H, 
no. 9. 

"" Thus (ris6-iiS9) we find the prior of Perrieres establishing his right to the 
tithe of fipaney (Calvados) in the coiuts of the bishop of Sdez (Collection Moreau, 
Ixviii. 9), the archbishop of Rouen {ibid., liv. 243; Archives of the Ome, H. 2026), 
and the king, the judgment being finally confirmed by Henry: ' teneat bene et in 
pace et quiete tptam decimam suam de Espanaio sicut earn dirationavit in curia mea 
coram iusticiis meis et in curia archiepiscopi Rothomagensis ' (Delisle-Berger, no. 
109). We also find the king's justices sitting in the court of Bishop Amulf of 
Lisieux in ii6r in a case between Alice Trubaud and the abbot of Caen against the 
abbot of Troam concerning the advowson of Dives: 'Huius autem actionis sunt 
testes et ipsius iudicii cooperatores extiterunt Normannus et lohannes archidiaconi, 
Fulco decanus, Rogerius filius Aini canonicus et alii plures canonici Lexovienses, sed 
et barones regis Radulfus de Tomeio, Robertus de Montfort, Aicardus Puldn 
iustida regis ': cartulary of Troam (MS. Lat. 10086), f. 159; cf. the charters of 
Amulf and Cardinal Henry of Pisa, f. iS2v.; and Sauvage, Troam, p. 166, n. 5. 
For a case of T147 ' iustitia archiepiscopi Rothomagensis et comitis de Mellent,' 
see Valin, p. 264. See also Round, no. 138; Delisle-Berger, no. 650; Liverani, 
SptdlegUtm Liberianum (Florence, 1864), p. 579. 



174 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

secular Justice, as regards the title to lands they are the low-water- 
mark." 102 

After 1 1 64 the point of view of our study must be somewhat 
shifted. Thanks to a series of legislative monuments and treatises 
which have no Norman analogues, we can trace with some con- 
fidence the course of English constitutional development, while 
our knowledge of Norman affairs is too scanty to permit following 
the evolution of institutions or poUcies. The most that we can 
attempt is to reconstruct the chief elements of judicial and 
fiscal organization and procedure, in the hope of furnishing an 
instructive parallel to better known English conditions. 

The turning-point in the constitutional history of Normandy 
during the latter part of Henry's reign is the year 1176, when the 
death of the seneschal and justiciar, William de Courcy,^"' led the 
king to appoint in his place as ruler of Normandy Richard of 
Ilchester, bishop of Winchester, long a trusted officer of the Eng- 
hsh Exchequer, where he had charge of a special roll and proved 
himself particularly " alert and businesslike in reckonings and the 
writing of rolls and writs.""* Very possibly the constitutional 
development of Normandy may have lagged behind that of Eng- 
land in the busy years which intervened between the Constitu- 
tions of Clarendon and the Assize of Northampton; very likely 
its administration had fallen into disorder after the rebellion of 
1173 ; certain it is that Richard was excellently qualified by talent 
and experience to undertake the reorganization of governmental 

iiB Collected Papers, ii. 216. 

'^ On whom see Delisle, Benri II, pp. 476-478. 

1" Dialogus, bk. i, c. s (Oxford ed., p. 77). On Richard see Miss Norgate, in 
Dictionary of National Biography, xlviii. 194; Delisle, pp. 431-434; R. L. Poole, 
The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, p. 1 16 ff . It is not quite true, as Miss Noigate 
says, that we have no trace of his activity during his sojourn in Normandy. He is 
mentioned in three documents: a charter of Philippa Rosel given at the Exchequer 
in 1176 (original in British Museum, Add. Ch. 15278; Round, no. 517); an assize 
which he held at Caen in January, 1177 {Livre noir, no. 95; Delisle, p. 347); and 
an assize held at Montfort ' quo tempore Ricardus Wintoniensis episcopus in 
Normannia post regem iudex erat et maior iustitia ' (Appendix H, no. 10). A 
tallage levied by him is still carried on the roll of 1180 (Stapleton, i. 74). Delisle- 
Berger, no. 569, probably belongs to these years; ct. the witnesses with the justices 
in Appendix H, no. 10, 



HENRY II 175 

business which seems to have been effected during the year and a 
haK which he now spent in Normandy. It is not without signifi- 
cance that the roll of 11 76 remained the basis of reckoning for 
more than twenty years, and that from this year we begin to fol- 
low with some clearness and continuity the judicial work of the 
Norman Exchequer. 

It has indeed been maintained that the term exchequer does 
not previously occur in Normandy, and hence that Richard is the 
creator of the institution.'"^ The author of the Dialogus, however, 
who began his treatise while Richard was in Normandy, refers to 
the Norman Exchequer as an ancient institution, as old perhaps 
as the Conqueror,"^ under whom we can trace the regular ac- 
counting for the farm of the vicomUs which is the essence of such 
a fiscal system; "' and the name scaccarium occurs in 1171 "' and 
in a notice of Henry I's reign discovered by Round.'"' At what 
epoch there was introduced the distinctive method of reckoning 
which gave the Exchequer its name, is an even darker problem in 
Normandy than in England. According to an ingenious conjec- 
ture of Poole,"" the employment of the abacus for balancing the 
royal accounts came to England from the schools of Laon in the 
reign of Henry I. To me the epoch of its introduction seems prob- 
ably earlier and connected with the abacists of Lorraine in the 

"' Valin, pp. 116-136. On Valin's own showing we can hardly imagine Richard 
creating the Exchequer between his arrival toward Michaelmas of 1176 and the 
regular session of that body, doubtless also at Michaelmas, mentioned in the Rosel 
charter of that year (see the preceding note). 

"8 Bk. i, c. 4 (Oxford ed., p. 66). 

i*" Supra, pp. 40-44; E. H. R., xxvi. 328 (1911) (a terra data under the Con- 
queror). For accounts which run far back of 11 76 see Stapleton, i. 12, 92, 94. On 
the administrative organization as the essence of the Exchequer cf. Liebermann, 
E. H. R., xxviii. 153. For the use of tallies under the Conqueror see Stapleton, i, 
p. xxii. 

i»8 Delisle, p. 345; cf. E. H. R., xxvi. 326-328 (1911). No reliance can be placed 
on the early mention of the Exchequer in a highly suspicious charter for Saint- 
fivroul: Round, nos. 638, 639; Delisle, p. 316; Delisle-Berger, no. 513. There is 
an important document from the Exchequer, 1178-1180 (Round, no. 1123), which 
Valin overlooks. ■ His misreading of ' rotuUs trium annorum ' (p. 135) as a single 
roll covering three years hardly requires comment. 

"'' E. H. R., xiv. 426 (1899); supra, Chapter III, note 18. 

"" Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, pp. 42-59. 



176 N0RM4N INSTITUTIONS 

preceding century; "' but in any case the English evidence ante- 
dates the Nonnan, and, although the personnel and the language 
of the Enghsh Exchequer were Norman, the process may very 
well have been, as Poole urges, " from England to Normandy, not 
from Normandy to England." 

The absence of earlier rolls deprives us of all basis for fixing the 
nature of Bishop Richard's reforms, which probably had less to do 
with the mechanism of administration than with the reestablish- 
ment of order in the finances through the collection of back 
accoimts — arrearages of seven, fifteen, even twenty years meet 
us in the roll of 1180"'' — the revision of the farms, and the change 
of ofl&cials in Normandy and the other continental dominions 
which is recorded in 11 77."' Whatever Richard accomplished, he 
did not make the Norman Exchequer a copy of the EhgUsh, for 
in 1 1 78-1 1 79 the author of the Dialogue, who had more than 
once been in Normandy, tells us that the two bodies differed " in 
many points and wellnigh in the most important." "* 

What these great differences were, apart from the absence of 
blank farm in Normandy, it is impossible to say, for we have no 
Norman Dialogue. The terms of the Norman Exchequer are the 
same as the English, Easter and Michaelmas; the ofl&cers are like- 
wise called barons; the place is fixed at Caen, where the principal 
treasury was."' One point of divergence which appears from the 
rolls is that in Normandy each section begins with a statement of 

"1 See my article on The Abacus and the King's Curia, E. H. R., xxvii. 101-106 
(1912). Norman clerks also were in relations with the schools of Lorraine: Orderi- 
cus, iii. 265. 

"* Stapleton, i. 12, 92, 94. 

"' Benedict of Peterborough, i. 198. The words of Ralph de Diceto (i. 424) 
' fiscalia diligenter recensens ' need mean no more than is here suggested. On these 
points I am glad to find myself in agreement with Powicke (pp. 73-75, 85). 

"* ' In plurimis et pene maioribus dissident: ' bk. i, c. 4 (p. 66). Cf. Liebermann, 
Einleitung in den Dialogus, p.m. For Richard Fitz Neal's sojourns in Normandy 
see Eyton, Itinerary, pp. 112, 190; Delisle-Berger, no. 384. 

"' That the principal treasury was at Caen as early as 1172 is clear from Robert 
of Torigni's account (ii. 297) of the deposit there of the barons' returns of that year. 
See also Stapleton, i. 56, and another mention on p. no, where (cf. p. 77; Rotuli 
Normanniae, p. 50) the treasury at Rouen is likewise important. Treasure was 
also kept at Falaise (Stapleton, i. 39), which had been a principal place of 
deposit under Henry I (Robert of Torigni, i. 200; Ordericus, v.. 50), and at 
Argentan Pelisle, p. 334). See Chapter III, p. 107 £f. On the use of castles for 



HENRY II 177 

the total amount due, whereas in the Pipe Rolls, until 8 Richard 
I, this can be discovered only by computation."' Variation in 
nomenclature is seen in the Norman heading misericordie, pro- 
missiones, et fines, corresponding to the placita, conventiones, and 
oblata of the EngHsh record. The Norman rolls tell us next to 
nothing respecting the royal judges and their circuits, while the 
absence of anything corresponding to Danegeld renders it impos- 
sible to trace the members of the curia by means of amoimts par- 
doned them. The author of the Dialogue was perhaps impressed 
by the absence from the Norman rolls of the capital headings and 
other rubrics which he so carefuUy describes in the English, but so 
far as we can compare the surviving records the 'great differences' 
seem to have consisted in externals rather than in essentials. 
Though the two Exchequers kept their transactions quite dis- 
tinct,"' the two sets of rolls rest upon the same fundamental 
system of accoimting,"' the greater subdivision and local detail of 
the Norman roll resulting from the existence of a set of govern- 
mental areas much more complex and irregular than the English 
shires. The older vicomte and prevoti persist in spite of the super- 
position of the newer hailliage; "' many of the tithes and fixed 

the custody of treasure see Round's introduction to the Pipe Roll of 28 Henry II, 
p. xxiv. 

The Pipe Rolls make frequent mention of transshipments of treasure from Eng- 
land to Normandy for the king's use on the Continent, and there is evidence that the 
various treasuries in the empire were regarded 'asparts of a single system' (Powicke, 
Loss of Normandy, pp. 347-350). For the year 1198 Ramsay {Angemn Empire, p. 
372) has calculated that the Norman revenue was greater than the English. 

"' Stapleton, i, p. xi; Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, p. 130. 

"' Thus we rarely find one Exchequer crediting a pajonent made at the other, 
as in the case of the relief of Hugh de Goumay: Pipe Roll 32 Henry II, pp. xxviii, 
60. For such examples under Henry I, see Chapter III, note 103. 

"' Even to the form of the rolls and the use of tallies: Stapleton, i, pp. ix, xiii, 
84; Wace, ed. Andresen, ii, line 2012. Cf. also the parallel treatment of the crown 
debtors: Stapleton, i, p. xii; Powicke, p. 74. See, however, infra, note 215. 

"' In what may be considered our only contemporary description of the Norman 
Exchequer under Henry II, Wace's account of Richard the Good in his tower, we 
read (ed. Andiesen, ii, lines 2009-2012): 

Venir ad fait de cest pais 
Tuz ses provoz e ses baillis, 
Ses gravereins et ses vescuntes; 
Ses tailles ot e ses acuntes. 
On the whole subject of local geography, see Powicke, pp. 61-79, 103-119. 



178 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

allowances go back to the Conqueror's time or even earlier; ''" 
and the farm, less affected by terre date than in England, seems to 
have imdergone little change except in the case of important com- 
mercial centers Uke Rouen, Caen, and Dieppe."^ The whole sub- 
structure of ducal finance was evidently very ancient, and for 
that reason in Henry's time quite inadequate, and the rolls show 
clearly that, as in England, the chief means for supplementing it 
were found in the administration of civil and criminal justice.'^ 
However interesting it might be to follow out in detail the points 
of agreement and divergence in the methods of the two Excheq- 
uers, the fact of primary importance is that, so far as northern 
Europe is concerned, England and Normandy stand in a group 
by themselves, well in advance of all their neighbors in the 
development of a money economy and in the mechanism of fiscal 
administration. 

As regards its functions as a court, it has recently been argued '=" 
that the Exchequer of the Norman dukes was in no sense a judicial 
body and was in no wise connected with the later Echiquier de 
Normandie. This view is a natural reaction against those writers 
who approached the earlier institution with the ideas of an age 
when the Exchequer was known only as a court, but it assumes a 
breach in that continuity of law and institutions which is in 
general so noteworthy in passing from Angevin to Capetian Nor- 
mandy, and it does not fully realize the fluidity of the Anglo- 
Norman curiaP^ What we seem rather to find is a curia which 
sits for fiscal purposes at Caen and for judicial purposes at various 
places in the duchy, and which, when Philip Augustus transfers 
its fiscal duties to Paris, retains its judicial functions and its 
Anglo-Norman name. The chief thing to avoid in tracing its 
history is the projection back into the Anglo-Norman period of 

"i" Supra, pp. 42-44- "' Supra, p. 105; Stapleton, i. 56, 68, 70. 

122 Cf. Delisle, B. &. C, x. 288, xiii. 108 £f. 

^ Valin, pp. i37-i39> 249-251; the two passages are not wholly consistent. See, 
contra, Powicke, pp. 85, 398. 

''^ On the fundamental identity of curia. Exchequer, and assizes see R. de 
Frfiville, hude sur I'organisalion judiciaire en Normandie aux XII' el XIII' sUdes 
in Nouvelle revue historique de droit, 1912, p, 683. 



HENRY II 179 

the more fully organized Echiquier which we know from the 
Grand Coutumier and the arrets of the thirteenth century. From 
the reigns of Henry 11 and Richard a small but definite body of 
cases furnishes conclusive evidence of the activity of the Excheq- 
uer in Judicial matters, and indicates that there was no clear dis- 
tinction between its competence and that of the curia regis}^ As 
in England in the same period,^^ it seems probable that the dif- 
ference was essentially one of place: when the curia sat in the Ex- 
chequer chamber at Caen, it was said to sit at the Exchequer, 
when it sat elsewhere it was called simply the curia. Certainly the 
distinction was not, at least among the higher ofl&cers, one of 
persoimel, for the same men appear at one time as barons, or 
justices,!" Qf tiig Exchequer and at another as justices holding 
assizes in various parts of Normandy.*^* 

«5 For cases and transactions before the Exchequer in this period see M. A. N., 
XV. 198-201; Delisle, p. 349; Valin, pieces, nos. 19, 24, 25, 28; Round, nos. 309, 
310, 438, 461, 485 (another version in MS. Lat. 10086, f. logv), 509 (also in the 
British Museum, Add. Ch. 15289, no. 2), 517 (original in Add. Ch. 15278; some 
additional witnesses in the confirmation in Archives of the Calvados, H. 322, no. 3), 
560, 606 (where the witnesses are omitted; original in Archives of the Calvados, H. 
6607, 301-303), 608, 1123; cartulary of F6camp, f. 25 (letter of archbishop of Rouen 
to William Fitz Ralph and the other barons of the Exchequer notifying them of the 
settlement of a question of presentation in the court of the bishop of Bayeux); 
Cartulaire de Normandie, f. 68v (infra, note 127); Archives of the Calvados, H. 
5716, 6607 (78-83, 309), 6653 (338-342), 6672 (293-301), 6679 (186-191), 7707; 
Archives of the Ome, H. 3916 (infra, Appendix H, no. 11); and the following pas- 
sage in Richard's great confirmation of the privileges of Saint-fitienne: 'Recuperavit 
idem [abbas Willelmus, d. 11 79] super Robertum de Veim in curia H. regis patris 
nostri apud Cadomum hereditagium quod idem Robertus clamabat in tenendo 
manerio de Veim et de Sancto Leonardo, et super Robertum de Briecuria ecclesiam 
Sancti Andree de Vilers de qua monachos violenter dissaisierat sed iuditio baronum 
qui erant ad scacarium apud Cadomum adiudicata est ecclesia predicta Sancto 
Stephano et restituta ': Archives of the Calvados, H. 1836; cf. Deville, Analyse, p. 
52. Most of these documents relate to agreements or acknowledgments before the 
Exchequer, but good examples of judicial proceedings will be found in the last ex- 
tract; in Valin, nos. 24, 25, 28; in Round, nos. 309, 310, 438 (Delisle-Berger, no. 
647) ; and in the documents given in facsimile va.M. A. N., xv. 

''^ Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, pp. 174-182; cf. G. B. Adams, 
mA.H. R., xviii. 357 (i9i3)- 

127 ' Hoc autem factum f uit apud Cadomum ad scacarium coram iusticiis domini 
regis tempore Willelmi filii Radulfi senescalli Normannie ' : Cartulaire de Normandie, 
f. 68v. SoalsoinValin, nos. 19, 24; Round, nos. 509, 517. Barons of the Exchequer 
appear in Valin, no. 25; Round, no. 11 23; Delisle-Berger, no. 647. 

^' See the list of assizes, infra, Appendix J. 



l8o NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

In the sessions of the Exchequer the seneschal naturally pre- 
sided, accompanied by certain men who bear the title of barons or 
justices but in the documents are not always distinguishable from 
the other barons and clerks in attendance. In a charter of 1178- 
1180,1''' besides William Fitz Ralph the seneschal, we find as 
barons William du Hommet the constable. Master Walter of 
Coutances, who had served as clerk of the king's camera and 
keeper of the seal and was perhaps treasurer of Normandy,"" 
Osbert de la Heuse, constable of Cherbourg, Ranulf de Grandval, 
Richard Giflard, and Gilbert Pipart, justiciars of the king, the 
last two having served as justices in England and as barons of the 
Norman Exchequer imder Richard of Winchester."' Later we 
find most frequently Haimo the butler, the justices William de la 
Mare and Richard Silvain, Jordan de la Lande, and certain clerks, 
of whom as many as four appear in one charter of the period."^ 
Most of these clerks are only names to us, but we can follow with 
some clearness two members of the clerical family of Arri, Roger, 
canon of Bayeux since the early years of Henry's reign and a 
regular witness in records of the curia and Exchequer from 11 64 
to 1191,"' and AnquetU, who attests less frequently but receives 
a Uvery as clerk of the Exchequer as late as 1 198 ; "* while another 
type appears in WiUiam Calix, a constant witness from the time 
of Richard of Ilchester, a responsible disbursing officer in .the roll 
of 1 184, and a large money-lender on his own accoimt, forfeiting 

"' M. A. N., XXX. 672 (c/. xix. 66); Round, no. 1123. 

"" Delisle, pp. 106-113, The title ' thesaurarius Rothomagensis ' (Delisle, 
p. loi; Round, no. 34) means treasurer of the cathedral (Delisle-Berger, nos. 510, 
567) rather than royal treasurer at Rouen; but Ralph de Wanneville, treasurer of 
Rouen, was also treasurer of Normandy (Round, no. 21; Stapleton, i. 110), and we 
know that the office of ducal treasurer had been combined with a canonry in the 
cathedral from the time of Henry I (supra, p.^iog f.). There are relations between 
the duke and the treasurer of Avranches (Delisle, p. 346) and the treasurer and 
chaplain of Bayeux (A. H. R., xiv. 471; Livre noir, nos. 13, 138, 27r, 275) which 
may have had some significance. For the conversion of the plate of Rouen cath- 
edral to the uses of Henry II, see MS. Rouen 1403, p. 18 (Round, no. 274). 

™- Delisle, pp. 376, 428. "* Appendix H, no. 11. 

"* Supra, note 62; Livre noir, nos. 45, 73, 128, 129, 135, 139, 182, 442; Round, 
nos. 432, 435, 437, 438, 456, 461, 485, S09, 1446, 1447, I4SI ; Delisle-Berger, no. 689; 
the Exchequer notices cited in note 125; and the list of assizes in Appendix J. 

•" Stapleton, i. 145, 225, ii. 376, 384; and the lists just cited. Cf . Osmund d'Ani 
in assizes imder Philip Augustus: CartulairedeMontmord, ed.Duhosc, nos. 34-36. 



HENRY 11 l8l 

to the crown at his death a mass of chattels and pledges ''^ which 
suggests on a smaller scale the operations of that arch-usurer 
William Cade.^'' The rolls show other ecclesiastics active in the 
business of the Exchequer, notably the king's chancellor, Ralph 
de Wanneville, later bishop of Lisieux and treasurer of Nor- 
mandy; '" but imtil Henry's faithful clerks are rewarded with the 
sees of fivreux, Lisieux, and Rouen toward the close of the reign, 
the higher clergy are less prominent in the admihistration than 
they were in his earlier years."* 

Of those who serve the king in Normandy many have served or 
will serve him elsewhere; his officers and treasure are passing to 
and fro across the Channel; his household is ever on the march, 
and some elements in it are common to the whole Plantagenet 
empire; yet Normandy has also officers of its own. Some are 
clerks, such as the treasurer,"' the subordinates in the Ex- 
chequer,!^" and the chaplains of the great castles; "^ some are 

^^ Round, no. 517, and index; Stapleton, i, pp. cli, no, 129, 130, 145, 170, 171, 
183, 194-198, 226, 228, 240, ii. 375, 379 (the countess of Richmond as a debtor), 
465-469; and the lists cited in note 133. 

"* On whom see E. H. R., xxviii. 209-227, 522-527, 730-732. 

^^ Delisle, pp. 99-103. 

138 Yet Froger, bishop of Sfez, is said to have been ordered by Alexander III to 
give up his bishopric or his place in the royal administration {Memoires de la Societe 
d' agriculture de Bayeux, viii. 244); and Nigel Wireker heard in Normandy that 
the bishops of the English realm attend curia and Exchequer so assiduously that 
they seem ordained ' ad ministerium fisci ' rather than ' ad mysteria ecclesie ' 
(Wright, Anglo-Latin Poets, i. 203). 

"' The relation of the treasurer to the chamberlain on the one hand and to the 
custody of local treasure on the other is not perfectly clear. In the rolls of 11 80 and 
following the Norman treasurer has an assured income unconnected with service 
in the king's household and consisting of the tithes of the vicomtes of Fficamp, 
Caux, Auge, Lieuvin, Roumois, and the country between Risle and Seine, and of 
the great forests of the Seine vaUey, as well as a special endowment at Vaudreuil 
(Rotuli Chartarum, p. 17; cf. Round, nos. 193, 561). Certain of these can be fovmd 
in the possession of Henry I's treasurer, and the antiquity and situation of these 
vicomtSs may point to an even earlier origin: supra, Chapter III, note 108. The 
duke's chaplain at Bayeux similarly had the tithe of the regards of the forest of 
Vemai (Stapleton, i. 5). Can this have some connection with a local treasury 
{supra, note 130) ? 

"» Supra, notes 132-135; and cf. the clerks who appear in the roU of 1180. 
Stapleton, i. 37 f ., 56-58. 

"' Ibid., i. 5, 90; RoluK Normanniae, pp. 7, 23; Rotuli Chartarum, pp. 69, 107, 
"3- 



1 82 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Serjeants, acting as ushers,^^'' money-changers,'^' scribes,'" mar- 
shals,"' pantlers,'** and larderers;"' and for local government 
there are the keepers of jails, parks and forests,"* and fairs,"' 
as well as the vicomtes, privois, baillis, and constables upon whom 
the whole system rested — in all a multitude of officials, compared 
by Peter of Blois to an army of locusts,"" with the bureaucratic 
element rapidly gaining on the feudal in a way which anticipates 
the gens du roi of the thirteenth century. Wace, himself a person 
of some knowledge of the law,"' gives us a picture of the growth of 
officialism and htigation in his own time in the complaints which 
he puts into the mouths of the peasants revolting in 996 against 
the prevSts, beadles, baillis old and new, who leave one not an 
hour's peace with their constant simimons to pleas of every sort: 

Tant i a plaintes e quereles 
E custummes viez et nuveles, 
Ne poent une hure aveir pais: 
Tute iur sunt siununs as plaiz: 
Plaiz de forez, plaiz de moneies, 
Plaiz de purprises, plaiz de veies, 
Plaiz de bies faire, plaiz de moutes, 
Plaiz de defautes, plaiz de toutes, 
Plaiz d' aguaiz, plaiz de graveries, 
Plaiz de medlees, plaiz de aies. 
Tant i a prevoz e bedeaus 
E tant bailiz, viels e nuvels, 
Ne poent aveir pais une hure, 
Tantes choses Iur mettent sure 
Dunt ne se poent derainier. '''' 

"2 Valin, p. 151, note 3; RoMi Chartarum, p. 82; Eyton, Court, Household, and 
Itinerary of Henry II, p. 9. 

1** Delisle-Berger, nos. 328, 562, 719; Stapleton, i. 77; ' Symon cambitor tunc 
prepositus Andeleii ' in cartulary of Mortemer (MS. Lat. 18369), f. 103 (1168). 

^** Hereditary ' scriptor prepositure Cadomi ' in Olim (ed. Beugnot), i. 417. 

"^ Delisle-Berger, no. 212; supra. Chapter IV, no. 13. 

"' Dehsle, Cartulaire normand, no. 14; supra, Chapter III, p. 117. 

"' Stapleton, i. 30, 99, 274, ii. 471, 572 f.; B. &. C, xi. 410, note 14. 

"' Delisle, Henri II, p. 209; Delisle-Berger, nos. 171-173, 212. On the Norman 
forests at this period see Borrelli de Serres, Recherches sur divers services publics, 
XIII' siide, pp. 406-417. 

"° Delisle, Henri II, pp. 210, 271, note, 346. 

"° Ep. 95, in Migne, ccvii. 298. "' Tardif, £tude sur les sources, i. 9, note 4. 

"' Ed. Andresen, ii, lines 841-855. Cf. the extortionate Serjeant in Tris Ancien 
Coutumier, c. 64. 



HENRY 11 183 

Normandy had its full share of the great court days of Henry's 
reign, when the king kept some great feast amid his barons and 
officials. Christmas was often spent in this way, at Bayeux, 
Bur,"' Domfront, Falaise, twice each at Cherbourg and Argen- 
tan, thrice at Caen. The most splendid of these assemblies was 
the Christmas court of 1182 at Caen. On this occasion Henry's 
barons were forbidden to hold courts of their own, and they and 
others flocked to Caen to the number, we are told, of more than a 
thousand knights. The Young King was there — his last Christ- 
mas — and his brothers Richard and Geoffrey, their brother-in- 
law, Henry the Lion of Saxony, the archbishops of Dublin and 
Canterbury, with many bishops and abbots.^^ The feudal char- 
acter of such a curia is illustrated by the episode of William of 
Tancarville, summus ex feudo regis camerarius, who pushed his 
way through the crowd to assert his hereditary right to serve the 
king and princes and to retain for himself the silver wash-basins, 
such as his father had thus received and placed in his monasteries 
of Sainte-Barbe and Saint-Georges de BocherviUe; and by the 
decision of the barons on the following day that the claim 
had been sustained and the chamberlain vindicated against the 
accusations of the seneschal and others."^ A more modem touch 
is given by the ' full assize ' held shortly afterward by the sen- 
eschal, William Fitz Ralph, and attended by barons and others 
whose names have reached us to the number of nearly eighty.^" 

Throughout the administration of justice the seneschal is the 
important figure. Something of his enhanced importance was 
doubtless due to the absences of Henry H and Richard and the 
decline of the personal justice of the sovereign, but something 
must also be ascribed to the personality of William Fitz Ralph, 
who in 1 1 78 came fresh from his experience as itinerant justice in 
England and held the office until his death in 1200, exerting an 

^'^ Cf. also the Young King's court at Bur m 1171, attended, among others, by 
more than no knights named William: Robert of Torigni, ii. 31. 

iM Robert of Torigni, ii. 117; Benedict of Peterborough, i. 291. 

166 Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium, ed. James, pp. 242-246 (ed. Wright, pp. 
232-234); cf. Round, King's Serjeants, p. 115 f.; and for the chamberlain's duties, 
Wace, lines 1873 ff., 2322 ff. 

"» Delisle-Berger, no. 638; Valin, p. 274; Round, no. 432. 



1 84 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

influence upon Norman law which may still be traced in the Tres 
Ancien Coutumier}^'' As the alter ego of the king the seneschal was 
the head of the whole judicial system, and in his sovereign's 
absence he alone could preside in the judgment of those who had 
the privilege of appearing only before the duke or his chief jus- 
ticiar."' We find him holding court, not only at Caen, where the 
traces of his activity are naturally better preserved, but at Ar- 
gentan, Bemai, Longueville, NeufchS,tel, Saint-Wandrille, and 
Rouen. With him sit such men as William de la Mare, Richard 
Giffard, Richard of Argences, and John d'Eraines, archdeacon of 
Seez, who also in groups of two or three hold assizes in various 
parts of Normandy."' With no help from the Exchequer Rolls 
and only scattered references in the charters, it is impossible to 
define the composition of these assizes or determine how often 
they were held. In the documents the hst of justices is often in- 
complete, and they are frequently indistinguishable from the 
other witnesses; yet we can identify many of them with the 
bailUs and constables who meet us in the rolls, and occasionally an 
assize is held by a group of constables covering a considerable dis- 
trict. According to the custumal of 1 199-1 200, a doubtful witness 
for our period, assizes are held once or twice a year in each 
mcomte and are attended by the ducal officers within the district 
and by the local lords, who are forbidden to hold their own courts 
during the session of the assize.^^" FuU roUs are kept of the cases 
considered and the names of the jurors, and the clerks have also 

167 Delisle, pp. 219-220, 481-483; Tardif, Tris Ancien Coutumier, p. los; Valin, 
pp. 160-163, where the fines carried in later Pipe Rolls are wrongly taken as evi- 
dence that William was justice in England after 11 78. The Norman roll of iiSo 
(PP- S6> 57) shows that he received pay for the full [year 1179-1180 and ad- 
ministered justice in a preceding year. 

1'* For examples of this privilege see Delisle, pp. 162, 219. 

"9 See the list of assizes in Appendix J. Note the assize held by the constables 
in no. 2. 

"» Trds Ancien Coukimier, cc. 25-29, 36, 37, 44, 55, 56; Robert of Torigni, ii. 117. 
R. de Fr^viUe has pointed out (Nouvelle revue historique de droit, 191 2, pp. 715-724) 
that the Tris Ancien Coutumier cannot be taken as an unmixed source for the 
judicial organization of the Plantagenet period; its statements respecting law and 
procedure are less likely to have been affected by French influence. The growing 
importance of the official element in the administration of justice in the twelfth 
century is well brought out by Frfiville (p. 682 ft,), who, however, goes too far in 



HENRY U 185 

their little parchments to record the various fines and payments."' 
The theory still survives that all chattels of offenders are forfeited 
to the duke, for " the function of the sworn affeerers is to declare 
what goods the offender has";"^ but there are maximum pay- 
ments for the various classes of society, and knight and peasant 
enjoy exemption of their arms and means of hvelihood in a way 
which suggests the well known clause of Magna Caria}^^ The 
justices have a reputation for extortion on technical pretexts,"* 
and the Exchequer Rolls show them bent on upholding the dignity 
and authority of their court by fines for contradiction and foohsh 
speaking, for leaving its session without permission, and for dis- 
regarding or transgressing its decrees."* There are fines for those 
■who go to the ecclesiastical courts against the justices' orders; "* 
and even lords of the rank of Hugh de Longchamp and Hugh de 
Goumay are heavily mulcted for neglecting the simomons to the 
regard of the forest."' 

The ordinary local courts of the vicomte and bailli are not men- 
tioned in the Tres Ancien Coutumier and have left few traces in the 
charters. Early in the reign they had been ordered to meet at 
least once a month;"* in the Avranchin the vicomte held pleas 
thrice a year in Ardevon and Genest."' In Guernsey in 1179, the 
court of the vicomte is still curia regis, and he has an official seal."" 

excluding the non-professional element, and propounds a general theory which 
inverts the real order of development. His studies of the meaning of the word 
baron in this period are worth pursuing further. 

1^ Tres Ancien Coutumier, cc. 25, 28, 29, 65. 

162 Pollock and Maitland, ii. 514. 

^^ Tris Ancien Coutumier, cc. 55, 56; Magna Carta, c. 20; and on its interpreta- 
tion, Tait and Pollard, E. H. R., xxvii. 720-728, xxviii. 117. 

'" Tres Ancien Coutumier, c. 65. 

"* Stapleton, i. 5, 16, 21, 34, 41, 51, 54, 58, 80, 86, 113, 116. 

1S5 liid,^ i. 21 (' quia ivit in curiam episcopi contra defensum iusticie '), 47, 102. 

'" Ibid., i. S9, 74. On pleas of the forest see the F6camp cartulary (MS. Rouen 
1207), f. 36V. 

1'* Robert of Torigni, ii. 180. This is also the period prescribed by Philip Augus- 
tus for his baillis in iigo: Rigord, ed. Delaborde, p. 100 f. 

i«8 Delisle, p. 346. Cf. the pleas held by Nigel, seneschal of Mortain: Stapleton, 
i, pp. kv, 11; Delisle, p. 408. 

"" ' Actum est hoc in curia domini regis in Guenerreio coram Gisleberto de Hoga 
tunc vicecomite, et quia sigillum non habebam sigillo Gisleberti de Hoga vicecomitis 
consideratione et assensu amicorum hanc cartam sigillari constitui ': original, with 
Gilbert's seal, printed in Historical MSS. Commission, Various Collections, iv. 53. 



1 86 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Once the sole agent of the duke in all departments of local ad- 
ministration, the vicomte saw his power greatly reduced by the 
development of the itinerant justices, and we have no means of 
knowing just what he still retained imder the pleas which re- 
mained a constituent element of his farm. The newer jurisdictions 
of the iailli and constable have also to be reckoned with, and 
there were probably differences of local custom as well as changes 
in the course of the Angevin period. Thus the pleas of the sword 
regularly stood outside of the local farm "^ and fell naturally to 
the itinerant justices, yet in the district of Falaise a charter of 
Henry II specifically reserves them to the baillis."^ The local 
officers also possessed a minor civil jurisdiction, as we see from a 
writ in which Henry orders the constable and bailUs of Cherbourg 
to do full justice in a certain case unless the land in question be a 
knight's fee or a burgage of more than a hundred shillings' annual 
value, in which event the matter doubtless went to the higher 
court."^ In general, however, the local writs are administrative 

i"- This is specifically stated for the Hiesmois (see the following note), for the 
Lieuvin (Rotuli Normanniae, p. ii6), for the castle of Gaillon (Delisle, Cariulaire 
normand, no. 120), and for the vicomte of Bonneville and the pr&i>8Us of Falaise and 
Domfront (ibid., no. iii). 

"2 Cariulaire de Fontenay-le-Marmion (ed. G. Saige), no. i; Delisle-Berger, no. 
701; cf. VaUn, p. 227. Later they are held here by the itinerant justices: Rotuli 
Normanniae, p. 20. For the bailli of Rouen see Henry's charter in Chfiruel, Eistoire 
de Rouen, i. 247; Delisle-Berger, no. 526 (on date, see Valin, Prlcis of Rouen Acad- 
emy, 1911, pp. 9-42)- 

™ ' H. Dei gratia rex Angl[orum] et dux Norm[annorum] et Aquit[anorum] et 
comes And[egavensium] constabulario et baiUivis suis de Cesarisburgo salutem. Pre- 
cipio vobis quod sine dilatione plenum rectum teneatis priori et canonicis Sancte 
Marie de Voto iuxta Cesarisburgum de terra que f uit Preisie apud Cesarisburgum et 
de domo quam ipsa eis dedit, quas Willelmus Pichard et uxor Richer' eis diffortiant,. 
nisi sit feodum lorice vel burgagium quod valeat plusquam .c. solidos per annum. 
Et nisi feceritis iusticia mea Norm[annie] faciat, ne amplius inde clamorem audiam 
pro defectu recti. T[este] Hug[one] Bardulf dapifero apud Bonam villam.' Original, 
with fragment of simple queue, in Archives of the Manche, H. 1963. Printed from 
a poor copy by Bigelow, History of Procedure, p. 367; Round, no. 949; Delisle- 
Berger, no. 688. This writ is interesting further as one of the rare Norman examples- 
of a writ of right, approaching more nearly the type addressed in England to the 
lord (Glanvill, bk. xii, cc. 3, 4) than that addressed to the royal officer (ibid., bk. 
xii, cc. 11-20). It is indicative of the lesser importance of the local officers in Nor- 
mandy that the justice appears in the nisi feceris clause, as in this writ (cf . those 
listed in note 46), more commonly than in similar writs in England. 

A controversy concerning a mill is settled 30 June 1175, ' in presentia W. de 



HENRY II 187 

rather than judicial,"* and throw no light on the work of the local 
courts, which are plainly less important than in England. 

With respect to the criminal jurisdiction of the duke, we have a 
list of pleas of the sword drawn up before 11 74,"* elaborated at 
certain points in the earher part of the Tres Ancien Couiumier,"^ 
and confirmed by the fines recorded in the Exchequer Rolls and 
the cases reserved by Henry in his charters."' The enumeration 
includes murder and slaying, mayhem, robbery, arson, rape, and 
the plotted assault, offenses against the peace of the house, the 
plow, the duke's highway and the duke's court, against his army 
and his coinage. In large measure this list goes back to the Con- 
queror's time, when many of these pleas had already been granted 
to the great immunists, lay and ecclesiastical, who still continued 
to retain them under Henry H."* Barons, however, whose courts 
encroach on the duke's jurisdiction must expect to be fined by his 
justices,"' as must those who seek to settle such crimes out of 

Huechon conestabularii regis ': Liwe blanc of Saint-Martin de S6ez, f. 13. Cf. the 
constable of Mortain, supra, note 72. 

"* For examples see Round, nos. 25, 26, 131, 205-207, 492 (where the original 
has ' Beiesino ' in the address), 939, 1282; Dehsle, pp. 164 f., 179 f.; supra, note 46. 

1" Tres Ancien Cotdumier, c. 70. For the date see supra, note 22. 

'™ Tres Ancien Coutumier, cc. 15, 16, 35, 53, S4i $8, 59; cf. Pollock and Mait- 
land, ii. 455. 

1" Round, nos. 375, 382; Delisle, Carkilaire normand, no. 16; id., Eenri II, 
no. 495. The charter for Cormeilles (DeUsle-Berger, no. 707; Round, no. 420) 
reserves ' incendiariorum iusticia et invasorum euntium et redeuntium ad nostram 
curiam et retrobanni et auxilio redemptionis nostre et falsariorum monete nostre.' 

"' Supra, p. 28 f.; Appendix D. Cf. Powicke, p. 80 ff.; Perrot, Les cas royaux, 
pp. 301-315. 

1" ' Pro placitis ensis iniuste captis ': Stapleton, i. 21. ' Pro duello latrocinii 
male servato in curia sua . . . pro duello de combustione male servato in curia sua' : 
ibid., i. 123. On the right of barons to hold pleas of the sword see Chapter I, notes 
103, 104; Valin, p. 220 ff.; Powicke, pp. 80-88. That the justices might sit in 
franchise courts is seen from a charter of John for William of Briouze (Rotuli Nor- 
manniae, p. 20; see Powicke, E. H. R., xxii. 18) and from the following extract from 
the cartulary of Savigny (f. 27V) : ' Fidelibus universis GiiiUeknus Avenel salutem. 
Sciatis quod Robertus pincema et GuiUelmus frater eius in presentia mea in curia 
comitis in plenaria assissa coram baronibus domini regis concesserunt monachis 
Savigneii ... in manu mea qui time eram senescallus domini comitis Moretonii.' 
Cf. the justices in the courts of the bishop of Lisieux and the count of Meulan, 
supra, notes 58, loi. The baron's jealousy of losing his court is illustrated by the 
following: ' B. de Sancto Walerico maiori et paribus communie Rothomagensis 
salutem et magnum amorem. Audivi quod vos misistis in placitum Walterum 



1 88 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

court."'" Since the early years of the reign the itinerant justices 
are proclaiming outlaws in the marketplaces,'*' and men are flee- 
ing the realm for murder, robbery, and similar offenses, which 
already bear the name of felonies,'*^ while their chattels become a 
large element in the ducal revenues.'*' Nothing is said of their 
accusation by a jury of presentment, but we have reason for 
thinking that such juries were in use after 1159,'*^ and the chattels 
of those who fail at the ordeal by water are accounted for in the 
roll of 1 180 as they are in the Pipe Rolls after the Assize of Claren- 
don.'** The pleas of the crown are viewed as a source of income 
analogous to the various portions of the ducal demesne; in the 
Avranchin, at least, they are in charge of a special officer, or 
coroner, as early as 1171.'*^ 

In civil matters the ducal courts had cognizance of disputes 
concerning church property, so far as these did not come under 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction,'*' and of such suits concerning land as 
involved the use of the recognition. From early times the prop- 

fratrem meum de masura mea que [est] iuxta atrium Beate Marie de Rothomago. 
Unde non parum miror, cum non defecerim alicui de recto tenendo. Mando igitur 
vobis quod dimittatis mihi curiam meam sicut alii barones regis vel etiam minores 
habeut, quia libenter quando requisitus fuero rectum faciam.' Cartulary of the 
chapter of Rouen (MS. Rouen 1193), f. 112; Delisle, p. 358. 

IS" Stapleton, i. 25-27, 32; cf. p. 51; Tres Ancien Coulumier, c. 36. 

"' Appendix H, no. 4. On the importance of thefora patrie in such cases see the 
Tres Ancien Coutumier, cc. 36, 37; cf. Wace, ii, line 334; Amulf of Lisieux, Ep. no. 

182 ' j^isi sijij f ugitivi de terra mea pro muldro vel furto vel alio scelere ' : charter 
of Henry for Fecamp (1162), in Valin, p. 269; Ddisle-Berger, no. 221; Round, 
no. 133, where a curious misreading of indicium makes the document relate to a 
court instead of a fair. In another charter of 1162 for F6camp we have (Delisle- 
Berger, no. 222) : ' Habeant meam firmam pacem in eimdo morando redeundo, nisi 
nominati[m] calumpniati fuerint de proditione vel felonia.' 

^ See the catalla fugitivorum in Stapleton, i. 4, 7, 10-12, 15, 16, 22, 23, 27, 29, 
32-34, 43, 49, SS, S8, 72, 89, 94; Delisle, pp. 335, 339, 340, 343; and cf. Tres Ancien 
Coutumier, cc. 36, 37. In the cartulary of La Trinitfi de Caen, MS. Lat. s^So, f. 
84V, we read in an inquest of this reign: ' De feodo Rogeri Terrici fugitivi pro 
latrocinio inquirendum est ibidem.' 

"* Infra, Chapter VI; Appendix I. 

"5 Stapleton, i. 62; and for England, Stubbs, Benedidus, ii, p. Ixii, note. 

i8« Delisle, p. 346; E. H. R., xxv. 710 f., xxvi. 326 f. For mention of coroners in 
England before 1194, see C. Gross, Coroners' Rolls, pp. xv-xix. 

'" Tris Ancien Coutumier, c. 53. Cf. supra, p. 172 f. On the prejudice of the 
author of the Tres Ancien Coulumier in favor of the Church, see Viollet, in Histoire 
lilteraire, xxxiii. 52-ss. 



HENRY II 189 

erty of churches and monasteries had been assimilated to the 
dtike's own demesne {sicut res mea dominica) , and charters re- 
peatedly declare that particular establishments shall be impleaded 
only in the king's court, in some cases only before him or his 
principal justiciar.^** The protection of possession by the duke, 
praised especially by the author of the first part of the Tres Ancien 
Coutumier as a defense of the poor against the rich and powerful, 
is secured, as in England, by recourse to twelve lawful men of the 
vicinage. The possessory assizes described in this treatise 1*' cor- 
respond to the four English assizes, and the Exchequer Rolls 
furnish abimdant evidence that they were in current use by 
iiSo.!'" On the other hand the principle that no man should 
answer for the title of his free tenement without royal writ does 
not seem to have been so broadly recognized in Normandy as in 
England, nor do we find anything which bears the name of the 
grand assize ,"i but its Nornian analogues, the Ireve de stabilia 
and breve de superdemanda, appear in the early Exchequer RoUs,"* 
as does also the writ of right."' In the few instances where com- 
parison with Glanvill is possible, the Norman writs seem to have 
preserved their individuality of form, while showing general agree- 
ment in substance. Even in the duke's court, the law of Nor- 
mandy has its differences from the law which is being made 
beyond the Channel, nor can we see that its development shows 
any dependence upon the law of England."* 

18' Brmmer, Schwurgerichte, p. 238 ff.; Delisle, pp. 162, 219. 

'" Cc. 7, 16-19, 21, 23, 57. See Bruimer, c. 15, who, however, points out that 
the Norman parallel to the assize utrum, the breve defeodo et elemosina, is a petitory 
writ. 

1'° E. g., Stapleton, i.'s, 12, 13, r9, 64, 65, 96; cf. 114, 115 (1184). Cf. Brunner, 

p. 307- 

"1 Brmmer, pp. 410-4T6. 

"* Ibid., pp. 3r2-3i7; Stapleton, i. 11, 13, 29; Delisle, p. 339; Tres Ancien 
Coutumier, c. 85, where Tardif (p. Ixxv) points out that the appearance of the sene- 
schal's name in the writs carries them back of 1204, when the office was abolished. 

i** Tres Ancien Coutumier, c. 30; and the numerous pasrments in the rolls pro 
recto habendo. For an example see supra, note 173. 

^'* Cf. the order of Henry III for the maintenance in the Channel Islands of 
' assisas illas que ibi temporibus antecessorum nostrorum regum Anglie, videlicet 
H. avi nostri, R. regis avimculi nostri, et J. regis patris nostri, observate fuerunt': 
Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1216-1225, P. 136. 



190 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

If we ask what limitations existed upon the ducal authority in 
Normandy, the answer must be that there were none, beyond the 
, force of feudal custom and the body of law and precedent which 
the ducal court was creating, and that the only sanction of these 
was rebellion. Not until 1315, however, did revolt secure a definite 
formulation of the local rights and liberties of Normandy in the 
Charte aux Normands of Louis X; '^^ the scribe who sought to pass 
off as the work of Henry II a version of Magna Carta as reissued 
in 1225, though he deceived older antiquarians, has long since been 
discredited."^ The position of the duke in Normandy required of 
him none of those chartered promises which are often regarded as 
the foundations of English liberty. Yet if, with Stubbs,"' we are 
to consider the charter of Henry I and its successors as an amplifi- 
cation of the coronation oath, we must not overlook the fact that 
the coronation oath of the dukes, with its threefold promise of 
peace, repression of disorder, and justice, is in exact verbal agree- 
ment with that of the English king as repeated since Anglo-Saxon 
times."^ When, however, we recall that both in England and in 
Normandy these obligations were explained and accepted with 
especial care and ceremony at the accession of John,"' we learn to 
attach less significance to such promises. And by the time that 
the Great Charter has declared the king below the law, England 
and Normandy have started on separate paths of constitutional 
development. 

In the twelfth century, however, the resemblances between 
Normandy and England stand out the more clearly the further we 
explore and compare their institutions. There are of course fun- 
damental differences in local government, but the essential central 
organs of finance and judicature are similarly constituted and fol- 

'"^ Ordonnances des Rois, i. 551, 587. For the revolt see Dufayard in Reeue 
historique, liv, Iv; Coville, Les Stats de Normandie, pp. 32-40. 

i'« Delisle, Henri II, pp. 312-316, who by a slip gives 1227 as the date. 

1" Select Charters, gth edition, p. 116. For the opposite view see H. L. Cannon, 
A. H. R., XV. 37-46. 

"* Compare the two forms in the MS. of Rouen cathedral: The Benedidional 
of Archbishop Robert, ed. H. A. Wilson (Bradshaw Society, 3ndv), pp. 140, 158. On 
the English coronation oath, see Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 163-165; on the 
Norman ceremony, Valin, pp. 43-45. 

"' Stubbs, i. 553 f. ; Roger of Hoveden, iv. 87 f. ; Magna Vita S. Hugonis, p. 293 f . 



HENRY II 191 

low similar methods of work. The matter would be much clearer 
were it not for the disappearance of many thousands of royal writs 
which alone could reveal the daily routine of administration on 
both sides of the Channel; but Henry II had only one chan- 
cery, and its methods show remarkable tmiformity in all of his 
various dominions and testify to similar administrative condi- 
tions throughout. The chancery was an extraordinarily active and 
effective mechanism, and we may well join with Delisle in prais- 
ing its regularity, finish, and irreproachable precision, the terseness 
and simplicity of its documents, their ' solid and severe ele- 
gance.' ^'"' Its charters and writs, like Glanvill and the Dialogus, 
tell the story of a remarkably orderly and businesslike govern- 
ment, which expected obedience and secured it. A parallel story 
of order and thrift is told in the records of the Exchequers, in the 
Norman rolls quite as expUdtly as in the EngKsh Pipe RoUs. The 
king's writ is necessary for every new disbursement; his ofl&cers 
must account for every penny of cash and every bushel of grain; 
the ' seller of justice ' must have his fee or his amercement; the 
land of the ducal castles is farmed ' up to the very walls.' ^"^ The 
thrifty detail of Henry's housekeeping is further illustrated in the 
inquest concerning his rights in the Avranchin, the only region for 
which an ofl&cial statement has been preserved. Besides the an- 
cient farm of the vicomte, the king has his monopoly of the fair of 
Saint Andrew, where even the abbot of the Mount pays his due of 
wax and pepper; he has his custom of wine in the ' Valley ' and 
his rights over the ' customary ' houses of the city, including 
fourpence from each, his meadows, and his chestnut grove; he 
has recovered by inquest an oven, a bit of land which yields ten 
quarters of grain, the treasurer's new house, and a room which has 
encroached on his demesne. The pleas of the crown are also a part 
of the demesne and have their special custodian, like the fair and 
the chestnut grove ; his men of the neighborhood must bring the 
chestnuts to the king in Normandy, and he keeps the sacks which 
they are obliged to furnish for this purpose.^"^ The sovereign who 

2»» Delisle, Benri II, pp. i f., 151. 

2»i Powicke, Loss of Normandy, p. 298. 

™ Inquest of 1171 in Delisle, pp. 345-347; cf. Appendix K. 



192 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

saves chestnut bags shows equal watchfuhiess in his own house- 
hold, wherever it journeys: its written ordinances fix the daily 
allowances of bread and wine and candle ends, and the master 
marshal requires tallies of receipt from all its officers.^"' The 
military bookkeeping is Hkewise careful: the Norman returns of 
service in 1 172 correspond to the English cartae of 1166, and the 
registers of military obligations extend to minute fractions of a 
knight's fee. Norman in origin,^"^ the military system was by 
this time as much at home in England as in Normandy, and in 
both countries it offered convincing evidence of the Norman 
capacity for methodical and efficient organization. 

What more specific elements the Normans contributed to the 
Anglo-Norman state must remain in large measure a matter of 
speculation. It would be interesting, were it possible, to ascertain 
what, in an institutional sense, Normandy had given and received 
during a century and a quarter of imion with England and par- 
ticularly during more than a generation of membership in the 
Plantagenet empire. A study of Normandy and England under 
the Conqueror suggests fields in which Norman influence was 
exerted, while the reigns of Henry I and Geoffrey show the per- 
sistence and further development of the institutions of Nor- 
mandy; but the process of change under Henry H was too rapid 
to permit of definite conclusions respecting the influence of one 
region or set of institutions upon another. Certainly the move- 
ment under him was not all in one direction. If the two chief 
figures in Norman administration in Henry's later years, Richard 
of Ilchester and WilHam Fitz Ralph, had served an EngHsh 
apprenticeship, there had earlier in the reign been Norman pre- 
cedents for Henry's English legislation. If the English mihtary 
inquest of 11 66 preceded the Norman returns of 1 172, the Assize 
of Arms and the ordinance for the Saladin tithe were first pro- 
mulgated for the king's Continental dominions. The order of 
these measures may have been a matter of chance, for to a man of 
Henry's temperament it mattered httle where an experiment was 
first tried, but it was impossible to administer a great empire 
upon his system without using the experience gained in one region 
2'» See Chapter III. s" See Chapter I. 



HENRY II 193 

for the advantage of another. There was wisdom in Geoffrey's 
parting admonition to his son against the transfer of customs and 
institutions from one part of his reahn to another,'"'* but so long as 
there was a common element in the administration and frequent 
interchange of ofl&cers between different regions, it could not be 
fully heeded. A certain amoimt of give and take there must 
inevitably have been, and now and then it can definitely be traced. 
On the other hand, it must not be supposed that there was any 
general assunilation, which would have been a still greater impos- 
sibility. Normandy preserved and carried over into the French 
kingdom its individuahty of law and character, and as a model of 
vigorous and centralized administration it seems to have affected 
the government of Philip Augustus in ways which are still dark to 
yg 206 When that chapter of constitutional history comes to be 
written, if it ever can be written, it will illustrate from still another 
side the permanent importance of the creative statesmanship of 
the Norman dukes. 

That creative work, so far as we can discern, was completed 
with the death of Henry II. It is true that no one has yet studied 
in fuU detail the law and government of Normandy under Richard 
and John,^"' and that the materials are in some respects more 
abundant than under their father. Richard's charters have not 
been coUected,^"* nor does his reign yield any new types of record, 
but the Exchequer Rolls of 1195 and 1198 are the fullest which 
have been preserved, and the first Norman customal probably 
belongs to the year following his death.'"" Under John, as is well 

206 See the quotation from John of Marmoutier at the end of the preceding 
chapter. 

206 According to Benedict of Peterborough, i. 270, Philip Augustus and the count 
of Flanders had early imitated the Assize of Arms (cf. Guilhiermoz, Origine de la 
noblesse, p. 227). Ralph of Diceto, ii. 7 f., says Phihp followed Henry's adminis- 
trative policy on the advice of his household. Cf. also supra, note 168. 

20' See, however, the discussion of military organization and finance in Powicke, 
Loss of Normandy, chs. vii and viii. 

208 The copies collected by Achille DeviUe are in MS. Lat. n. a. 1244 and MS. 
Ft. n. a. 6191. A working list of Richard's charters is given by Cartellieri, Philipp 
II. August, ii. 288-301, iii. 217-233. 

209 Tardif, Tres Ancien Coviumier, pp. Ixv-hxii; see, however, VioUet, in His- 
toire littiraire, xxxiii. 47-49. No Norman court rolls have been preserved from this 
period. 



194 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

known, Normandy has its place in the great series of continuous 
records which begin with this reign, the charter rolls, patent rolls, 
and liberate rolls, from which material a separate set of Norman 
rolls was also drawn ofif.^^" At no period are the workings of 
administration in the Norman duchy so well known as just before 
its faU. At no time, one is tempted to add, are they so little worth 
knowing, save for the illustrations they afford of the government 
of Henry II. What can be seen only fragmentarily or in outline in 
his reign is now revealed in explicit detail — the work of the 
Exchequer and camera, the activity of the royal clerks and Ser- 
jeants, the king's wines and the queen's furs, the royal prisoners 
and the royal sport, the control over trade and shipping, the 
strongholds upon which Richard lavished his treasure, the loans 
and exactions of John. The itinerant justices which had existed 
since Henry I first meet us by this name vmder John; ''^ the writs 
presupposed in the earlier Exchequer RoUs can now be read in the 
Rotuli de contrabrevibus?^ What they offer, however, is new 
examples, not new principles: there is no evidence of any change 
in the system of Henry II. The mechanism which in England 
" was so strong that it would do its work though the king was an 
absentee, "21' was in Normandy strong enough to work though the 
king was present. Even John could not destroy it or seriously 
weaken it. It would be rash to assert that the fifteen years of 
Richard and John were not in some degree years of development 
in Normandy, especially in the field of law, but there is no evi- 
dence that they were years of innovation. What was strong and 
permanent in Norman law and Norman government had been 
written in before. From an institutional point of view, the inter- 
est of these two reigns lies rather in the transition from Angevin 
to Capetian administration, and it is worthy of note that it is the 
conditions anterior to 1190, not those of 1204, which the inquests 

21" Rotuli Charlarum, 1199-1216 (1837); Rotuli Litlerarum Patentium, 1201- 
1216 (183s); Rotuli de Liberate ac de Misis et Praestitis regnante Johanne (1844); 
Rotuli Normanniae in Turri Londinensi assenati (1835); all edited by Hardy foi 
the Record Commission. The last is reprinted ia M. A. N., xv. 89-136. 

2'i Rotuli Chartarum, p. SQ! Rotuli Normanniae, pp. 20, 97. 

^^ Rotuli Normanniae, pp. xv, 22-37, 45-98. 

"' Pollock and Maitland, i, 169. 



HENRY II 195 

of Philip Augustus seek to establish."^ What the new rulers of 
Normandy preserved and imitated was the work of Henry II and 
the state-builders who preceded him.^*^ 

To their Capetian successors the Norman rulers handed over a 
t3^e of weU organized and e:^dent government such as they had 
also developed in England. In the fields of finance, judicature, 
and military organization the modem features of this state, as of 
"^its contemporaries in Aragon and Sicily, stood out in sharp relief 
against the feudal background of the twelfth century. Like theirs, 
its institutions set strongly in the direction of centralization and 
royal authority. Unlike them, it had also an element which, 
while as yet royal, possessed great importance for the future in 
the development of more popular institutions, the sworn inquest 
which was to become the jury, the jury of England and of 'king- 
less cormnonwealths beyond the seas.' The special interest of 
the jury in the history of legal procedure and representative 
government sets it apart for special treatment in the following 
chapter. 

^" See Delisle, Cartulaire normand, nos. iii, 120, 124; H. F., xxiv, preuves, nos. 
10, 21, 22, 39, 69. 

^^ H. Jenkinson's valuable paper on The Financial Records of the Reign of King 
John (fa Magna Carta Commemoration Essays, 191 7, pp. 244-300) reached me too 
late for discussion in this chapter. It makes new suggestions concerning the proc- 
esses ol the Norman Exchequer, touching upon the problems of Thomas Brown 
and Richard of Ilchester, and ascribing noteworthy administrative changes to the 
reign of John. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE EARLY NORMAN JURY' 

The Continental derivation of the institution of trial by jury is 
now generally accepted by scholars. First demonstrated in 1872 
by Brunner in his masterly treatise on the origin of juries,^ this 
view has at length triumphed over the natural disinclination of 
Englishmen to admit that the palladium of their liberties " is in its 
origin not English but Prankish, not popular but royal." ' What- 
ever one may think of the Scandinavian analogies, there is now no 
question that the modem jury is an outgrowth of the sworn 
inquests of neighbors held by command of the Norman and 
Angevin kings, and that the procedure in these inquests is in all 
essential respects the same as that employed by the Frankish 
rulers three centuries before. It is also the accepted opinion that 
while such inquests appear in England immediately after the Nor- 
man Conquest, their employment in lawsuits remains exceptional 
imtil the time of Henry II, when they become, in certain cases, a 
matter of right and a part of the settled law of the land. From 
this point on, the course of development is reasonably clear; the 
obscure stage in the growth of the jury lies earlier, between the 
close of the ninth century, when ' the deep darkness setties down ' 
over the Frankish empire and its law, and the assizes of Henry II. 
Information concerning the law and institutions of this interven- 
ing period must be sought mainly in the charters of the time, and 

' Revised and expanded from A. E. R., viii. 613-640 (1903). 

2 H. Brunner, Die Enisiehung der SchwurgericMe (Berlin, 1872). Brunner's re- 
sults are accepted by Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 652 ff.; Pollock and Mait- 
land, History of English Law, i. 138 ff.; J. B. Thayer, Development of Trial by Jury, 
ch. ii; cf. W. S. Holdsworth, History of English Law, i. 145 f.; J. Hatschek, Englische 
Verfassungsgeschichte (Munich, 19J3), p. 123 f. Valm, Ledtic deNormandie (igro), 
pp. 194-220, uses Pollock and Maitland and a few new documents, but makes no 
use of Brunner or of this chapter as first published in 1903. M. M. Bigelow, The 
Old Jury, in Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xlix. 310-327 (1916), 
deals with other questions. Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, 
pp. 6-8, emphasizes the Scandinavian element in the jury of presentment. 

' Pollock and Maitland, i. 142. 

196 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 1 97 

it is upon their evidence that Brunner based his conclusions as to 
the persistence of the Prankish system of inquest in Normandy. 
Unfortunately this great historian of law was obliged to confine 
his investigations to the materials available at Paris, and while 
further research tends to confirm most of the iaferences which his 
sound historic sense drew from the sources at his disposal, it also 
shows the need of utilizing more fully the docxunents preserved in 
Norman libraries and archives. For the jury, as for other aspects 
of Norman institutions, these are not abundant, but they enable 
us to determine some questions which Brunner raised and to 
illustrate more fully the earlier stages in the development of recog- 
nitions. The most important body of evidence, the cartulary of 
Bayeux cathedral known as the Livre noir, is now accessible in 
print,* though imfortunately in an edition marred by many inac- 
curacies of transcription and defects in dating the docmnents, so 
that its evidence can now be subjected to careful analysis and 
verification. 

* AntiqiMS Cartulanus Ecdesiae Baiocensis (Liwe noir), edited by V. Bourrienne, 
(Sod6t6 de I'Histoire de Normandie, Rouen and Paris, 1902-1903). Through the 
courtesy of the abb6 Deslandes I had ample opportunity to examine the MS. at 
the cathedral in 1902 and again in 1905. A defective analysis of the cartulary was 
published by Lfichaudfi d'Ardsy, M. A. N., viii. 435-454, and extracts from it are 
in his papers at the Bibliotheque Nationale (MS. Lat. 10064) and in the transcripts 
made by him for the English government and preserved at the Public Record Office 
(' Cartulaire de la Basse Normandie,' i. 46-53). It would be hard to find anything 
more careless and unintelligent than this portion of L6chaud6's copies, which form 
the basis of the analyses in Round's Calendar (no. 1432 ff.). As a specimen may be 
cited his account of nos. 34 to 42 of the cartulary: " Suivent neuf autres brefs du 
mfime roi Henry 11 qui n'oEErent maintenant pas plus d'int&fit que les vingt-six 
prfic&ientes." As a matter of fact only three of these documents emanate from 
Henry II, three being of Henry I, one of Geoffrey, one of Robert, earl of Gloucester, 
and one of Herbert Poisson; while three of the documents are of decided impor- 
tance in relation to the Norman jury. Some use was made of the Liwe noir by 
Stapleton in his edition of the Exchequer Rolls and by DeUsle in his essay on Nor- 
man finance in the twelfth century (5. ^. C, x-xiii). Brunner used Delisle's copies, 
from which he published numerous extracts in his Sckwurgerichte. Sixteen of the 
documents of most importance for the history of the jury are printed from the Lon- 
don copies by M. M. Bigelow in the appendix to his History of Procedure (London, 
1880), nos. 40-55, but without any serious effort to determine questions of date and 
authorship (cf. Brunner in Zeitschrift der SavignySHftung, Germ. Abt., ii. 207). 

The other Bayeux cartularies preserved at Bayeux {Livre noir de I'SvlchS, MSS. 
206-208) and Paris (MSS. Lat. n. a. 1828, 1925, 1926, the last two formerly at 
Cheltenham) throw no further light on the jury. 



198 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

One of the most interesting problems in the history of the jury 
is to determine how and when the procedure by recognition 
ceased to be an exclusive privilege of the king and became part of 
the regular system of justice. This extension of the king's preroga- 
tive procedure may have been made " bit by bit, now for this 
class of cases and now for that," ^ but Brunner believes it can have 
been accomplished only by a definite royal act or series of acts.* 
The jurists refer to the recognition as a royal favor, an outgrowth 
of equity, a relief to the poor, while the very name of assize by 
which the recognition came to be known points to the royal ordi- 
nance, or assize, by which it was introduced. The author of this 
ordinance he considers to have been Henry II. The whole ma- 
chinery of the various assizes appears in well developed form in the 
treatise ascribed to GlanviU and written near the close of Henry's 
reign, whereas none of them has been traced in England back of 
1 164, when the assize utrum makes its appearance in the Constitu- 
tions of Clarendon. A charter of King John seems to place the 
introduction of recognitions in his father's reign, and one of 
Henry's own writs refers to the grand assize as ' my assize.' The 
English assizes cannot, then, be older than Henry's accession in 
1 1 54; they may be somewhat yoimger. When we turn to Nor- 
mandy, we find likewise a full-grown system of recognitions in 
existence in the later years of the twelfth century, as attested by 
the earliest Norman customal,the Tres Ancien Coutumier, and the 
numerous references to recognitions contained in the Exchequer 
Rolls of 1 180 and the following years.' Between these records and 
GlanviU there is Uttle to choose in point of time, and priority 
might be claimed for England or for Normandy with equal 
inconclusiveness. 

Brunner, however, discovered in the Bayeux cartulary three 
docimients which not only antedate any mention of assizes so far 
noted in English sources, but also, he maintained, afford clear 
proof that the regular establishment of the procedure by recogni- 
tion was the work of Henry II as duke of Normandy before he 

° Pollock and Maitland, i. 144. 

' Ch. xiv, " Die EinfUhrung des ordentlichen Recognitionsprocesses." 

' Supra, Chapter V, note igo. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 1 99 

ascended the EngKsh throne. One of these documents, issued in 
the name of Henry as king and belonging to the year 1156, orders 
William Fitz John to hold a recognition, by means of the ancient 
men of Caen, with reference to the rights of the bishop of Bayeux 
at Caen, and to do the bishop fuU right according to Henry's 
assize (secundum assisam meam).^ The other two writs rim in the 
name of a duke of Normandy and count of Anjou whose name is 
left blank in the cartulary. One of them ' directs two of the duke's 
justices to determine by recognition, secundum asisiam meam, 
who was seized of certain fiefs in the time of Henry I; the other 
commands another justice to hold recognition throughout his dis- 
trict, secundum assisiam meam, concerning- the fiefs of the bishop 
of Bayeux, and at the same time threatens one of the bishop's 
tenants with such a recognition unless he gives up a knight's fee 
wrongfully withheld from the bishop.*" While the author of the 
second and third of these docimients (nos. 25 and 24) is not 
named, the style of duke of Normandy and count of Anjou was 
used only by Geoffrey Plantagenet and by Henry 11 between his 
father's death in 1151 and his coronation as king in 1154." That 
the duke in question was not Geoffrey, Brunner was led to main- 
tain from the recurrence of the phrase assisa mea in the writ of 
Henry relating to Caen; if ' my assize ' meant Henry's assize in 
the one case, it must have meant his assize in the other.*^ Inas- 

' Liwe noir, no. 27; Bigelow, History of Procedure, p. 393, no. 48; La Rue,. 
Essais historiques sur la vUle de Caen, i. 37s; Brunner, p. 302, no. i; Round, Calen- 
dar, no. 1443; Delisle-Berger, no. 21. Brunner places the document between 1156 
and 1159; the king's itmerary fixes it in October 1156. For the text and a fuller 
discussion of this and the two other documents see below, pp. 209-214. 

' Livre noir, no. 25; Bigelow, p. 393, no. 47; Brunner, p. 302, no. 2; Dellsle, 
Henri II, p. 138, no. 6 ; not in Round. 

" Livre noir, no. 2^; Bigelow, p. 392, no. 46; Brunner, p. 302, no. 3; Round, no., 
1439; Stapleton, Magni Rotuli, i, p. xxxiv; Delisle, p. 137, no. s- 

" Henry received the duchy of Normandy from his father in 1150 and became 
count of Anjou on his father's death, 7 September ri5i. His marriage with Eleanor 
in May 1152 gave him the additional title of duke of Aquitaine, but he did not take 
this style in his charters until 1153, so that its absence does not prove a doctmient 
to be anterior to his marriage: seeDelisle, pp. 120-133. Nos. 24and2S,ifof Henry, 
would fall between 1151 and 1153; Brunner places them between 1150 and 1152. 

^ Schwurgerichle, p. 303 and note, where the silence of no. 39 in the Livre noir is 
also urged. Brunner's conviction seems to have been fortified by the authority of 
Delisle (see Zeitschrift der SamgnySlifUmg, Germ. Abt., ii. 207), although Delisle 



200 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

much as the assize referred to is obviously a general ordinance 
concerning the procedure by recognition, the introduction of this 
form of procedure is to be ascribed to its author, the young duke 
Henry II. 

Such is the essence of Bruimer's argiunent, which hinges upon 
two points: the meaning of the phrase assisa mea, and the author- 
ship of the two anonymous writs, nos. 24 and 25. In the matter 
of authorship Brunner, while confident of his interpretation — and 
his confidence seems to have grown into certitude after the pub- 
lication of the Entstekung^^ — stiU admitted that a final decision 
was impossible before the rich treasures of the Livre noir should be 
accessible in print. Now that the published cartulary lies before 
us, it appears that while the editor follows Bnumer in ascribing " 
the critical documents to Henry II, he brings no new evidence to 
Kght; the name of the duke does not appear in the printed text. 
Fortunately, however, a close examination of the manuscript of 
the cartulary reveals something more. Those familiar with the 
habits of mediaeval scribes are aware that when, as here, the 
initial letter was left blank for the rubricator, it was usual to give 
him some indication of the omitted letter by marking it lightly 
in the blank space or on the margin." Now an attentive examina- 
tion of the well thumbed margins of the Livre noir shows that the 
initial was clearly indicated in a contemporary hand, and that not 
only in nos. 24 and 25 but in ten other documents left anonymous 
in the edition '* the initial is G. The author of the writs in ques- 

had formerly assigned no. 24 to Geoffrey (B. £. C, x. 260, note 2) and in his last 
work {Henri II, p. 137 f .) comes out decisively for Geoffrey's authorship. Round, 
who does not calendar no. 25, ascribes no. 24 to Geoffrey {Calendar, no. 1439). 

" In 1896 in a review of Pollock and Maitland he says: " Nach Lage der Urkun- 
den des Liber niger capituli Baiocensis ist es zweifeUos, dass die Einfuhrung der 
Recognitionen in der Normandie 1150-1152 stattfand." Zeilschrift der Savigny- 
Stiftung, Germ. Abt., xvii. 128. Cf. ibid., ii. 207; Holtzendorff, EncydopMie der 
Rechtswissenschaft, edition of 1890, p. 325; Political Science Quarterly, xi. 537; 
Brunner, GeschicMe der engUschev Rechtsquellen (1909), p. 65. 

" Where they have often been cut off in binding. 

" Nos. 16, 17, 18, 19, 39, 43, 44, 89, 90, 100. Throughout the cartulary the 
initial letter of charters is again and again indicated in this way, only in most of the 
other cases the rest of the first word was written out in the text, so that the missing 
letter could readily be supplied without recovirse to the margin. The charters of 
Henry II regularly (no, 436 seems to be the only exception) have somethmg more 



TEE EARLY NORMAN JURY 20I 

tion was accordingly not Henry, but his father Geoffrey. ' My 
assize ' was Geoffrey's assize io the first instance, even if the ex- 
pression was later adopted by Henry; and if Brunner's contention 
is sound as to the conclusion to be drawn from the phrase, it was 
Geoffrey Plantagenet who first established the recognition as a 
regular form of procedure in Normandy. In continuing the em- 
ployment of this procedure in Normandy and in extending it to 
England Henry II was simply carrying out the policy begim by 
his father. This conclusion necessarily follows if we accept Brun- 
ner's premises, but one of them, the phrase assisa mea, requires 
further investigation. Before undertaking, however, to analyze 
in detail the writs in which this expression is found, it is necessary 
to place them in their proper setting by tracing the history of the 
htigation concerning the rights and possessions of the bishop of 
Bayeux and by examining, as carefully as the material at hand 
permits, the procedure employed in the bishop's behalf. 

The see of Bayeiix, which had occupied a position of wealth 
and importance in the eleventh century, especially in the days of 
Bishop Odo, the famous half-brother of WilHam the Conqueror, 
suffered serious losses from the weakness and neglect of Odo's 
immediate successors, Thorold and Richard Fitz Samson.'* After 
Richard's death in Easter week, 1133,'' "in order that the church 

of the duke's name than the initial. In all the charters of Geoffrey, as well as in 
many others, there is also a marginal ' sic ' in what appears to be a somewhat later 
hand, evidently that of a mediaeval collator. In the Livre rouge (MS. Lat. n. a. 1828, 
f. 154) no. 17 of the Liwe noir likewise appears with the initial G indicated, this 
time in the blank space itself. 

M. Henri Omont, head of the department of manuscripts of the Bibliotheque 
Nationale, who happened to visit the chapter library just as I had finished examin- 
ing the manuscript of the Liwe noir in August 1902, had the kindness to verity my 
reading of the marginal initials. So now Delisle, Henri II, p. 137, supplemented 
by Berger, i. 3. In the corrections at the end of the second volume of his edition 
(1903) Bourrienne ascribes nos. 16-19, 24, 25, 89, and 90 to Geoffrey, but without 
giving any reason for changing his opinion and without referring to the marginal 
initials, to which the archivist had called his attention after my visit. The same 
silence is observed in his articles in the Reime catholique, xix (1909) , in which con- 
siderable use is made of the article inA.H. JR., viii. Valin, p. 209 f ., overlooks these 
corrections as well as my readings. 

'* On the history of the possessions of the see cf . Bourrienne's introduction to his 
edition of the Livre noir, p. zxziii ff.; and his articles on Phihp d'Harcourt in the 
Revue catholique, xix ff. " Ordericus Vitalis, v. 31, 



202 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

of Bayeux might not be utterly ruined," Henry I ordered an in- 
quest to be held, on the oath of ancient men who knew the facts, 
to ascertain the holdings of the church as they had existed in 
Odo's time, with respect both to the demesne and to the fiefs of 
knights, vavassors, and rustics. Accordingly "all these were 
sworn and recognized and by the king's command restored to the 
said church," which was confirmed in its possessions by a royal 
charter. 18 -phe writ directing this inquest, the record of the returns 
from the bishop's demesne," and the confirmatory charter are 
referred to in documents of Geoffrey and Henry II, but they have 
not come down to us. Fortunately, however, the returns of the 
inquest relating to military tenures have been preserved and give 
an idea of the procedure employed. The recognition was held 
before the king's son, Robert, earl of Gloucester, sent to Bayeux 
for this purpose immediately after the death of Bishop Richard. 
Twelve '"' men were chosen, and sworn to tell the truth concerning 
the fiefs and services ; and their returns, besides stating the mihtary 
obligations of the bishop and the customary reliefs and aids due 
Mm, cover in detail the holdings and services of his knights and 
vavassors, beginning with the principal tenant. Earl Robert him- 
self, whose statement is incorporated verbally into their report.^^ 

1' ' Ne f unditus ecclesia predicta destrueretur, provide Henricus rex, avus meus, 
instituit ut iutamento antiquorum hominum qui rem norant recognoscerentur 
tenedure iam dicte ecclesie sicut f uerant in tempore predict! Odonis, tam in domini- 
cis quam in feodis militum, vavassorum, et rusticorum. Ipsius equidem tempore hec 
omnia iurata simt et recognita et sepe dicte ecclesie precepto eius resignata et 
munimine carthe sue, quocumquemodo a possessione ecclesie alienataessent.reddita 
sunt et confinnata.' Writ of Henry II, Livre noir, no. 14; Brunner, p. 264; Bige- 
low, p. 389; Delisle-Berger, no. 33*- The inquest of Heniy I is also mentioned 
in a bull of Lucius II (Livre noir, no. 206) and in a later writ of Henry II {Und., no. 
32). The date is fixed by a document of Geoffrey {ibid., no. 39): 'post mortem 
Ricardi episcopi, filii Sansonis.' 

" ' Recognitum est sicut continebatur in scripto quod factum fuerat secundum 
iuramentum quod rex Henricus antea fieri preceperat.' Livre noir, no. 39; Bigelow, 
p. 395. That this scriptum was not the same as the carta seems probable from the 
different word used and from the preservation of a separate record of the military 
tenures. 

*» Only eleven are given in the returns, but twelve are named in the Red Book 
of the Exchequer, the name of Helto the constable having been omitted from the 
Bayeux text. 

^ The document was first published by Lfichaudfi from a private copy (now MS. 
Lat. 10064, f. 3) made from a register formerly in the episcopal archives: M. A. N., 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 203 

How much was accomplished by these proceedings toward the 
recovery of the bishop's rights, we have no means of knowing. 
That they were for a time more carefully observed may perhaps be 
inferred from the fact that the profits of the see would naturally 
fall to the king during the interval of two years which elapsed 
before Henry's nominee to the vacant see could be consecrated,^^ 
and that during this period the king remained in Normandy.^' 
However, the new bishop, Richard of Kent, was a son of Robert, 
earl of Gloucester, and in the stormy times that followed the see 
seems to have been at the mercy of his father, who soon succeeded 
in usurping the greater part of its property.^* The reestablish- 
ment of the bishop's fortunes was the work of Richard's succes- 
sor, Philip d'Harcourt, bishop from 1142 to 1163, within whose 
episcopate the evidence of value for the early history of the Nor- 
man jury is chiefly found. ' Wise in the wisdom of this world 
which is foolishness with God,' as the contemporary abbot of 
Mont-Saint-Michel describes him,^^ Philip seems to have begun 
his arduous struggle for the recovery of his possessions imme- 
diately upon his accession, and to have sought from the beginning 
the support of the papacy. When his sentences of excommunica- 
tion proved ineffective in spite of papal sanctions,^^ he made in 
1 144 the first of a nimiber of journeys to Rome," and 16 May of 

viii. 425-431 ; also in Eeziers, Mimoires pour servir d I'Hat historique et gSographique 
du diocese de Bayeux, i. 142; and in H. F., xxiii. 699-702, which furnishes the best 
text. These returns are abo found in L6chaud6's copies in the PubUc Record Office 
(' Cartulaire de la Basse Normandie,' i. 53), but are not mentioned in Round's 
Calendar. Upon them is based the summary of services due from the bishop of 
Bayeux contained in the Red Book of the Exchequer (ed. HaU, pp. 645-647; E. F., 
xxiii. 699). On the importance of these returns for feudal tenure, see Chapter I, 
supra. 

^ Ordericus, v. 31, 45. ^ See Appendix G. " Livre noir, no. 190. 

2* Robert of Torigni, i. 344. Cf . also H. F., xiv. 503 ; and the Epistolae of Amulf 
of Lisieux (Migne, cci) , no. 6. The various possessions recovered by Philip's efforts 
are enumerated in a bull of Eugene III of 3 February 1153, Livre noir, no. 156. 

^^ BuU of Innocent II, 18 June 1143 (probably), ibid., no. 195; bull of Celestine 
II, 9 January 1144, ibid., no. 179. 

" He appears in the Pope's presence three times under Eugene III, in 1145 
{ibid., no. 173), in 1146 {ibid., no. 207), and in 1153 {ibid., no. 200). His presence 
at Rome when the bulls were obtained from Lucius II is also attested by a bull of 
IS May, in which he appears as a witness: Martfine and Durand, Thesaurus, iii. 
S87; Jaflfe-Lowenfeld, Regesta, no. 8609, 



204 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

that year obtained from Pope Lucius 11 three important bulls 
which mark a turn in the fortunes of the church of Bayeux. One, 
addressed to Philip himself, emunerated and confirmed the 
ancient privileges and possessions of the see.^' The second com- 
manded the clergy and people of the diocese to render due 
obedience to the bishop, and, after annulling all grants and sales 
of church property made since the time of Bishop Odo, ordered 
its restitution to the church of Bayeux on the tenure by which it 
should be proved, on the oath of lawful witnesses, to have been 
held in Odo's time.''' The third bull was addressed to Geoffrey, 
count of Anjou, who had just succeeded in making himself master 
of Normandy, and directed him to cause the possessions of the see 
of Bayeux to be declared by the sworn statement of lawful men 
of the region, in the same manner as they had been recognized in 
the time of his father-in-law, Henry I.^" These bulls were re- 
issued in March 1145'^ by the successor of Lucius, Eugene III, 
who also rebuked the encroachments of various monasteries and 
individuals upon the rights of the bishop j'^ but from this point on 
we need concern ourselves no longer with the acts of the popes, 
but can turn our attention to the machinery of secular justice 
which they seem to have set in motion. 

For a study of the recognitions held> concerning the lands of the 
bishop of Bayeux imder Duke Geoffrey the evidence in the Liwe 
noir consists of ten documents emanating from Geoffrey or his 
justices,^' and a number of references to these and to others made 
in documents of Henry 11.'^ The inquests to which these writs 

'* Livre noir, no. 154. 

''' Ibid., no. 157; Jafffi-Lowenfeld, no. 8612. 

"> Liwe noir, no. 206. 

" Only the reissues of the first two have come down to us {ibid., nos. 155, 173), 
but it is implied in no. 39 that the bull to Geoffrey was likewise repeated. 

'2 Ibid., nos. 190, 159 (the Pope's itinerary makes it clear that these are of 
1145); 186, 199 (these two may be of either 1145 or 1146); 198 (clearly of 1146); 
191 (of 1 147 — cf. the Pope's itinerary and no. 41); and 192. 

" Nos. 16, 17, 19, 24, 25, 39, 43, 44, 89, 90. Bigelow, History of Procedure, 
p. 390 £f., nos. 43-47, 51-55- Cf . Brunner, Schwurgerichte, pp. 265 ff., 302. The first 
letter of each of these is in blank in the cartulary, but in every case G appears, 
on the margin. 

" Nos. 9, 12, 14, 32, 36; Delisle-Berger, nos. 33*, 13, 14, 72, 228. Of these only 
nos. 14 and 32 of the Liwe noir are in Bigelow (nos. 42 and 49). 



TEE EARLY NORMAN JURY 205 

and charters relate are of course subsequent to the conquest of 
Normandy by Geoffrey in 1 144 and anterior to his relinquishment 
of the duchy to his son Henry in 1150,^^ and it is altogether likely 
that they fall after the bulls of Eugene III of March 1145.='' The 
documents are issued at various places — Rouen, Le Mans, 
Bayeux — and witnessed by various of the duke's followers, but 
none of them are dated, and our knowledge of the itineraries of 
Geoffrey and his justices is not sufl&cient to permit of drawing 
close chronological limits. It is, however, probable that the proc- 
ess of recovering the bishop's possessions began soon after the 
papal bulls were received, and there is some reason for placing at 
least two of the docimients before the summer of 1147.'' Clearly 
the material which has reached us from these inquests is only a 
portion of what once existed, but it illustrates the different stages 
in the process of recognition and gives a fair idea of the procedure 
employed. Apart from the general order to try by sworn inquest 
all disputes which might arise concerning the bishop's fiefs,'* a 
document to which we shall return later, the duke must have pro- 
vided for a general recognition of the rights and possessions of the 
see, similar to the one which had been held under Henry I and to 
that which was afterward ordered by Henry II.'' This was 

" For these dates see Chapter IV, supra. 

" 'Predictorum patnim nostrorum Lucii pape et Eugenii litteris commoniti': 
Liwe noir, no. 39. 

" Galeran, count of Meulan, who appears as witness in no. 16 and as the justice 
who makes the return in no. 89, took the cross at Vfeelay in 1146 and followed 
Louis Vn on the second crusade (Robert of Torigni, i. 241 ; Chronicon Valassense, 
ed. Sommfinil, Rouen, 1868, pp. 7-9), so that he was away from Normandy from 
the summer of 1147 until 1149 or thereabouts. The bulls of Eugene III and other 
documents in the Liwe noir indicate that the active period in the recovery of the 
bishop's rights Ues between 1145 and 1147. See nos. 159, 189, 190, 199, 186, 207, 
198, 191, r92 for the papal bulls, and for the other documents nos. 41, 52, 100-104. 

C. Port, in his Dictionnaire historique de Maine-et-Loire, ii. 255, says that Geof- 
frey himself went on the crusade in 1147, but I have found no authority for the 
statement. Geoffrey issued a charter for Mortemer at Rouen, 11 October 1147, 
whereas the crusaders started in June: Bulletin de la SociiU des Antiquaires de 
Normandie, xiii. 115, no. 2; Round, Calendar, no. 1405; supra, p. 134. 

" Liwe noir, no. 16. 

" The order of Geoffrey for a general recognition has not been preserved, but 
is clearly presupposed in his charter describing the results of the inquests (no. 
39) and in the similar order of Henry II (no. 14). 



206 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

supplemented, at least in some cases, by special writs issued to 
individual justices and relating to particular estates.*" After 
holding the local inquest each justice made a written return 
to the duke,*' and the results were finally embodied in ducal 
charters.*'' 

The course of procedure can be followed most clearly in the 
various documents relating to the rights of the bishop of Bayeux 
in the banlieue of Cambremer, a privileged portion of an enclave 
of his diocese lying within the limits of the diocese of Lisieux.*' 
The duke issued a writ to Reginald of Saint-Valery, Robert de 
Neufbourg, and aU his justices of Normandy, ordering them to 
hold a recognition on the oath of good men of the vicinage con- 
cerning the limits of the banlieue, its customs, forfeitures, and 
warren, and to put Bishop PhiKp in such possession of them as his 
predecessors had enjoyed imder WiUiam the Conqueror and 
Henry I." The inquest was held by the duke's justices, Robert 
de Neufbourg and Robert de Courcy, in the church of Saint- 
Gervais at Falaise. The jurors were chosen from the old and 
lawful men residing within the district in question, some of 
whom had been ofi&cers {servientes) of the banlieue in the time of 
King Henry, and care was taken to svimmon a larger nimiber than 
the justices ordinarily called, eighteen *^ in all, and to see that 
they represented the lands of different barons. On the basis of 
what they had heard and seen and knew the recognitors swore to 
the boundaries of the banlieue and to the bishop's toUs, fines, 
warren, and rights of justice. The justices then drew up returns 
addressed to the duke, stating the verdict found and the names of 
the jurors,** and on the basis of these the duke issued a charter 

*" Nos. 17, 24, 25. Similar writs are presupposed in nos. 89 and 90 and in no. 36. 

« Nos. 43, 44, 89, 90. 

^2 Nos. 39 (cf. nos. 9, 12, 32), 19 (cf. 18); reference to such a charter in no. 36. 

^ On the banlieue (leugata) in Normandy see supra, p. 49. On the enclave of 
Cambremer, B^ziers, M6moires sur le diocese de Bayeux, i. 28, iii. 152. 

" Liwe noir, no. 17; Liwe rouge, no. 401. 

*' Eighteen, according to the return of Robert de Neufbourg, but only seventeen 
names appear in the lists. 

^« Nos. 43, 44 (cf. 32). There are some differences in the two returns: Bour- 
rienne, in Reime cathoUque, xix. 269 f . Each of these returns is in the name of both 
justices, but in one case the name of Robert de Neutbouig, and in the other that of 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 20J 

embodying the results of the recognition.*' The inquest concern- 
ing the other manors of the bishop was held in the choir of the 
cathedral at Bayeux by Richard de la Haie, Robert de Neufbourg, 
Robert de Courcy, and Enjuger de Bohun, specially deputed by 
the duke for this purpose. The evidence of the recognitors, com- 
prising several ancient and lawful men from each manor, was 
found to be in entire agreement with the written returns of the 
inquest held under Henry I, and a statement to this effect was 
embodied in a charter of the duke, which further specified as 
belonging to the bishop's demesne the estates of Carcagny and 
Vouilly, the fosse of Luchon, and " the Marsh and its herbage, 
including the reeds and rushes."*' A special charter was also 
issued for Carcagny and Vouilly.*' The bishop's forests were like- 
wise the object of an inquest, but the writ and charter issued in 
this case, though cited by Henry H,^" have not come down to us. 
It win be observed that all the documents so far examined re- 
late to the bishop's demesne, and that, while the preservation of a 
larger body of material from Geoffrey's time enables us to see 
more clearly the different stages in the process of recognition, 
there is no indication that the procedure differs in any way from 
the practice of Henry I's reign, which it professes to foUow. In- 
deed, so long as the subject-matter of the inquest is the bishop's 
demesne, it is not likely that there will be much advance in the 
direction of the trial jury; except that the rights in question are 
claimed for the bishop instead of for the king or duke, such recog- 
nitions as have been described show no significant difference from 
a fiscal inquest, such, for example, as the Domesday survey. The 
application of the inquest to the feudal possessions of the bishop, 

Robert de Courcy appears first. Brunner (p. 266) suggests the natural explanation 
that in each case the document was drawn up by the justice whose name appears 
first. The similar reports of the recognition in regard to Cheffreville (nos. 89, 90) 
are made by the justices individually. 

*' No. 39, where the facts with regard to Cambremer are set forth at length along 
with the returns from other domains, the two justices appearing among the witnesses. 
References to this recognition are also made in nos. 9, 12, 32, and> 156. 

*8 No. 39, end. 

*' No. 19; Brunner, p. 268. Cf. also the notification in no. 18 of the quitclaim 
of the fosse of Luchon. 

«» No. 36; Ddiale-Beiger, no. 14. 



208 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

on the other hand, brings us a step nearer the later assizes. There 
is, it is true, no distinction in principle between recognizing the 
bishop's demesne and recognizing his fiefs; but inasmuch as dis- 
putes between lord and tenant constitute a large proportion of the 
cases arising under the later assizes, the submission of any such 
controversy to the sworn verdict of neighbors is a movement 
away from the inquest that is primarily fiscal, and toward the 
general application of the inquest to suits concerning tenure. 
Whether Geoffrey also imitated the example of Henry I in order- 
ing a general inquest with regard to the fiefs of the bishop does not 
clearly appear. Henry H indicates that such was the case," and 
an extant writ directs one of the duke's justices to have the 
bishop's fief in his district recognized,'" but no set of returns for 
the fiefs has been preserved, and the compiler of the list of the 
bishop's tenants in the Red Book of the Exchequer went back to the 
returns of the inquest of Henry I.^' There is, however, another 
writ of Geoffrey relating to the bishop's fiefs which deserves care- 
ful attention. It is addressed to all his barons, justices, bailiffs, 
and other faithful subjects in Normandy, and provides that " if 
a dispute shall arise between the bishop and any of his men con- 
cerning any tenement, it shall be recognized by the oath of lawful 
men of the vicinage who was seized of the land in Bishop Odo's 
time, whether it was the bishop or the other claimant; and the 
verdict thus declared shall be firmly observed unless the tenant 
can show, in the duke's court or the bishop's, that the tenement 
came to him subsequently by inheritance or lawful gift."" Here 

" Livre noir, no. 14. '' Ibid., no. 24. 

'^ Pp. 645-647; H. P., xxiii. 699. 

" ' Yolo et predpio quod si de aliqua tenedura orta fuerit contentio inter episco- 
pum et aliquem de suis homrnibus, per iuramentum legitimonim hominum vidnie 
in qua hoc fuerit sit recognitum quis saisitus inerat tempore Odonis episcopi, vel ipse 
episcopus vel ille cum quo erit contentio; et quod inde recognitum fuerit firmiter 
teneatur, nisi ille qui tenet poterit ostendere quod tenedura ilia in manus suas postea 
venerit iure hereditario aut tali donatione que iuste debeat stare, et hoc in curia 
episcopi vel in mea.' Livre noir, no. 16; Bigelow, p. 390, no. 43; Brunner, p. 265. 
It is also provided that no officer shall enter upon the bishop's lands, for judicial or 
other purposes, except in accordance with the practice of King Henry's time. The 
writ is witnessed at Rouen by the count of Meulan, so that it must be anterior to 
the summer of 1147 or, what is much less likely, subsequent to his return from the 
East in 1149 or thereabouts. 



TEE EARLY NORMAN JURY 209 

we have something new, so far as existing sources of infonnation 
permit us to judge. Instead of a general inquest to be held once 
for aU by the king's officers to ascertain the tenure of the bishop's 
fiefs, the writ in question confers a continuing privilege — in any 
controversy that may arise between the bishop and any of his 
men the procedure by sworn inquest shall be applied. The remedy 
is designed for the benefit of the bishop, not of his tenants; no 
attempt is made to deprive the bishop of his court or extend the 
competence of the court of the duke; but the establishment of the 
principle that, not merely in this case or in that case, but in any 
case between the bishop and one of his tenants the oath of lawful 
neighbors shall decide, is a considerable advance in the extension 
of the dtike's prerogative procedure to his subjects.** 

It is in the light of this document that we should read the two 
writs of Geoffrey which make mention of the duke's assize. As 
they were both witnessed at Le Mans by Payne de Clairvaux** 
and appear together in the cartulary, it is probable that they were 
issued about the same time. One of them, resembling the later 
Praecipe quod reddat, is directed to Enjuger de Bohun, this time 
not as one of the king's justices but as in wrongful possession of 
two fiefs of the bishop of Bayeux at VierviUe and Montmartin. 
He is ordered to relinquish these to the bishop and to refrain from 
further encroachments; unless the fiefs are given up, Geoffrey's 
justice Richard de la Haie is directed to determine by recognition, 
in accordance with the duke's assize, the tenure of the fief in King 
Henry's time and to secure the bishop in the possession of the 
rights thus found to belong to him. The writ adds: " I likewise 
command you, Richard de la Haie, throughout your district *^ to 

^ In such cases, too, the writ could be issued in the duke's name without the 
necessity of his initiative in every case. 

" An Angevin knight, who was one of Geoffrey's favorite companions (Halphen 
and Poupardin, Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou, pp. 178, 207) and frequently ap- 
pears as a witness to his charters, e. g., Roimd, Calendar, no. 1394; MSS. Dom 
Housseau in the Bibliotheque Nationale, iv, nos. 1503, 1567, 1387, 1614; Delisle, 
Henri II, p. 410. 

" The proof that Geoffrey is the author of this writ is of importance in connec- 
tion with this passage because of its bearing upon the date of the institution of 
bailiae in Normandy. For the discussion on this point see Stapleton, i, p. xxriv; 
Delisle in B. £, C, x. 260; Brunner, p. 157; supra, Oiapter IV, note 117. 



2IO NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

have the bishop's fief recognized according to my assize and to see 
that he possesses it in peace as it shall be recognized according to 
my assize."^ The other writ is addressed by Geoffrey to his jus- 
tices Guy de Sable and Robert de Courcy, and directs them to 
ascertain by recognition, according to his assize, who was seized 
of the fief and service of William Bersic in King Henry's time, and 
if it is recognized that the bishop of Bayeux was then seized 
thereof, to secure his peaceful possession. They are also com- 
manded to determine by recognition, according to the duke's 
assize, who was seized of the land of Cramesnil and Rocquancourt 
in Henry's time, and if it be recognized that Vauquelin de Cour- 
seulles was then seized of it, to secure him in peaceful possession 
and prohibit Robert Fitz Emeis and his men from doing him injury, 
at the same time compelling them to restore anything they may 
have taken from the estate since the duke issued his precept in 
relation thereto.'' 

" ' G. dux Normannorum et comes Andegavie E[ngengero] de Buhvin salutem. 
Mando tibi et precipio quod dimittas episcopo Baiocensi in pace feudum militis 
quod Robertas Marinus de ipso tenebat Wirenille et feudum suum quod Willelmus 
de Moiun de ipso apud Mmunartin tenere debet, quod hue usque iniuste occupasti; 
quod nisi feceris, precipio quod iusticia mea R[icardus] de Haia secundum assisiam 
meam recognosci faciat predictimi feodum episcopi quomodo antecessores sui 
tenuerunt tempore regis Henrici, et sicut recognitum fuerit ita episcopum in pace 
tenere faciat. Et te, Engengere, precor ne de aliquo iniuste fatiges episcopum, quia 
ego non paterer quod de iure suo aliquid iniuste perderet. Tibi etiam, Ricarde 
Lahaia, precipio quod per totam bailiam tuam, secundum assisiam meam, recog- 
nosci facias feudimi episcopi Baiocensis, et ipsum in pace tenere sicut recognitum 
fuerit secundum assisiam meam. Teste Pag[ano] de Clar[is] Vallpbus], apud Ceno- 
manos.' iinre woir, no. 24; Stapleton, i, p. xxxiv; Brunner, pp. 80, 302 ; Bigelow, 
p. 392, no. 46; Round, Calendar, no. 1439. 

'' ' G. dux Norm[annorum] et comes Andegavie G[uidoni] de Sableio et R[oberto] 
de Curc[eio] iusticiis suis salutem. Mando vobis quod sine mora recognosci fadatis, 
secundum asisiam meam, de feodo Guillelmi Bersic et de servicio eiusdem quis inde 
saisitus erat tempore regis Henrid; et si recognitum fuerit quod episcopus Baiocensis 
inde saisitus esset vivente rege Henrico, ei habere et tenere in pace f aciatis. Preterea 
vobis mando quod recognosd faciatis, secundum asisiam meam, de terra de Cras- 
mesnil et de Rochencort quis inde saisitus erat tempore regis Henrici; et si recog- 
nitimi fuerit quod Gauquelinus de Corceliis inde saisitus esset eo tempore, ei in pace 
tenere faciatis et prohibete Roberto filio Emeis ne aliquid ei forifaciat neque sui 
homines; et si Robertus filius Emeis sive sui homines aliquid inde ceperint, post- 
quam precepi in Epipphania Domini quod terra esset in pace donee iuraretur cuius 
deberet esse, reddere faciatis. Teste P[agano] de Clar[is] Vallpbus], apud Ceno- 
manos.' LivrenoW, no. 2$; Brunner, p. 302; Bigelow,p. 393, no. 47; not in Round. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 211 

If we compare these writs with the only other special writ of 
Geoffrey in the Livre noir, that directing the recognition concern- 
ing the banlieue of Cambremer,*" we find the essential difference 
to be that whereas in the case of Cambremer it is expressly pro- 
Added that the facts shall be ascertained by the oath of good men 
of the vicinage (faciatis recognosci per sacramentum proborum 
hominum de ■uicinio), in the two other writs no statement is made 
regarding the procedure except that the facts are to be found 
according to the duke's assize (recognosci faciatis secundum 
asisiam meavi). The same difference appears in the writs of 
Henry II for Bayeux; indeed, in a single doctunent provision is 
made for the determination of one question by the verdict of 
ancient men, and of others in accordance with the assize." The 
absence from the cartulary of any returns from the justices who 
were instructed to proceed in accordance with the assize precludes 
our comparing the procedure; the analogy of the practice in re- 
gard to the bishop's demesne and in the matter of his feudal 
rights at Cheffreville ^^ leads us to look for the sworn inquest of 
neighbors in these cases as well. The word ' assize,' as Littleton 
long ago pointed out,'' is an ambiguous term. It seems to have 
meant originally a judicial or legislative assembly, from which it 
was extended to the results of the deliberations of such an assem- 
bly, whether in the form of statute or of judgment, and was then 
carried over from the royal or ducal assizes which established the 
procedure by recognition to that form of procedure itself.** In 
the writs in question ' my assize ' may refer to an ordinance of 
Geoffrey regulating procedure, it may denote the procedure so 

» No. 17. 

'^ No. 27; Delisle-Berger, no. 21. 

^ Nos. 89 and go (Bigelow, pp. 398, 399, nos. 54, 55; Brunner,p. 269, ascribing 
them to Henry 11), the returns made by the duke's justices, Galeran of Meulan and 
Reginald of Saint- Valery, of an inquest held in regard to the respective rights of the 
bishops of Bayeux and Lisieux at Cheffreville. The bull of Eugene III (no. 156) 
which enumerates the possessions recovered by Philip d'Harcourt mentions the 
recovery of fiefs at Ducy and LouviJres by judgment of Geoffrey's coiu-t, but noth- 
ing is said of the procedure and none of the documents are preserved. 

"^ Tenures, c. 234. 

" Brunner, p. 299. Cf. Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. 614; Murray's Dic- 
tionary, s. 11. 



212 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

established, or it may conceivably mean only the prerogative pro- 
cedure of the duke — his not in the sense of origination but of 
exclusive possession. Brunner's contention, that the phrase can 
refer only to an ordinance by which a particular sovereign intro- 
duced the procedure by recognition as a regular remedy through- 
out Normandy, involves a number of assimiptions which need 
proof. Even if it be admitted that the assize here mentioned was a 
ducal ordinance, the use of the same expression by Geoffrey and 
Henry 11 stands in the way of ascribing the exclusive credit for 
the act to either of these rulers, while it is still unnecessary to 
assume that the supposed ordinance covered the whole duchy. 
There is nothing in either of the writs which goes beyond the 
sphere of the bishop's interests,^^ and unless new evidence can be 
brought forward for other parts of Normandy, we have no right 
to conclude that the supposed ordinance affected any one except 
the bishop of Bayeux. Now we have just such a special privilege 
for the bishop in the writ providing for the use of the sworn in- 
quest in disputes between the bishop and his men concerning any 
tenement.*^ This covers exactly the sort of cases which appear in 
the two special writs that mention the duke's assize, and may well 
be the assize to which they refer.*' So far the hypothesis that the 
general writ preserved in the cartulary is the much-discussed 
assize of Geoffrey seems to meet the conditions of the case, but 
it is subject to modification when we examine the documents in 
which the word assize appears under Henry 11. 

*' It is not specifically stated in no. 25 that Cramesnil and Rocquancourt were 
fiefs of the bishop, but we know from other sources that Cramesnil was, and they 
were evidently connected. See the inquest of Henry I (M. A. N., viii. 427; H. F., 
xxiii. 700; Bfoiers, Memoires, i. 144); also B£ziers, i. 153; and C. Hippeau, Dk- 
iionnaire topographique du Calvados, p. 90. 

«« No. 16. 

" There is, it is true, a discrepancy in the periods set as the basis of the recogni- 
tion; in no. 16 the lands are to be held as in Bishop Odo's time, while in nos. 24 and 
25 the tenure of Henry I's time is to be established. The difference is, however, of 
no special importance; the documents in the cartulary do not appear to make any 
sharp distinction between the two periods, and the writs may well have varied ac- 
cording to circumstances. The returns concerning the feudal rights at Cheffreville 
(nos. 89, 90) go back to the tenure of Henry's time, those relating to Cambremer 
mention both his and Odo's, while in the latter portion of no. 16 the practice of 
Henry's time is to be observed in regard to the immunity of the bishop's lands. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 213 

For the reign of Henry II the Livre noir yields much less than 
for that of Geoffrey, under whom the bishop would seem to have 
succeeded in regaining the larger part of his lands and privileges. 
The use of the sworn inquest continues — indeed Henry was 
compelled to employ it repeatedly for the recovery of his own 
ducal rights, which had suffered severely during the anarchy 
imder Stephen,*^ so that we hear of inquests held in the early 
years of his reign to ascertain the duke's demesne and customs at 
Bayeux *' and in the Bessin." On behalf of the bishop of Bayetix 
Henry issued not later than 1153 a general precept, which, after 
reciting the proceedings imder Henry I and Geoffrey, directed the 
recognition of the bishop's demesne, fiefs, Uberties, and customs by 
the oath of ancient and lawful men acquainted with the facts, as 
they had been sworn to in the time of his father and grandfather.'^ 
In 1 1 56 a similar writ was issued with reference to the bishop's 
forests,'" and while no new recognition seems to have been held 
for the banlieue of Cambremer, the justices were repeatedly in- 
structed to secure the observance of the bishop's rights there as 
defined in Geoffrey's timeJ' The bishop's multure at Bayeux 
and his rights in the ducal forests of the Bessin were likewise the 
object of a recognition in 1156,'* and still other inquests related 
to his rights at Isigny and Neuilly '^ and his possessions at Caen. 
The only matter deserving special remark among these various 
inquests is foxmd in the writ of 11 56 touching the rights at Caen, 
which, like the others, is addressed to the chief local officer, 
William Fitz John, and runs as follows: " I command you to 
have recognized by ancient men of Caen from how many and 
which houses in Caen the bishops of Bayeux were wont to have 

«8 Cf. Robert of Torigni, i. 284. 

" Livre noir, nos. 13, 138; Delisle-Berger, nos. 68*, 76*; M. A. N., vii. 179. 

"• Liwe noir, no. 35; Delisle-Berger, no. 38. 

" Livre noir, no. 14; Bigelow, p. 389, no. 42; Brunner, p. 268; Delisle-Berger, 
no. 33*. 

'" Livre noir, no. 36; Delisle-Berger, no. 14. 

" Livre noir, nos. 9, 12, 32; Delisle-Berger, nos. 13, 72, 228. 

" Livre noir, nos. 28, 35; Delisle-Berger, nos. 22, 38. Cf. Chapter V, note 19, 
supra. 

'' Livre noir, no. 46 (also in Livre rouge, no. 46), subsequent to the accession 
of Bishop Henry in 1165. 



214 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

rent and profits in the time of King Henry, my grandfather, and 
what services and customs they had from them. And you shall 
cause Philip, bishop of Bayeux, to possess the houses fully and 
justly and in peace according as the recognition shall determine. 
And you shall do him full right, according to my assize, in respect 
to the land where the bishop's bams used to stand, and full right 
in respect to the arable land by the water, according to my assize, 
and full right in respect to the tithes of woolens at Caen, accord- 
ing to my assize." '* Here we have again, and three times, the 
puzzling words secundum assisam meam, and Brunner drew from 
them the conclusion that Henry was the creator of recognitions 
in Normandy." The phrase is not found in the writ which seems 
to have been issued at the same time for the recognition of the 
bishop's multure and his rights in the forests of the Bessin, where, 
however, there is the difference that the rights in question 
touched the king's own privileges and were recognized by the 
Jurors specially appointed to swear to Henry's customs and 
demesne in the Bessin.'* No other Bayeux document referring to 
the duke's assize has been found, and there is nothing in this one 
to show that the assize included anything outside of the bishop's 
possessions or involved any method of procedure different from 
" the oath of old and lawful men who know the facts," as pre- 
scribed in the general order for the recognition of the bishop's 

" ' Henricus rex Anglie et dux Normannie et Aquitanie et comes Andegavie Wil- 
lelmo filio lohaiinis salutem. Precipio tibi quod facias recognosci, per antiques 
homines Cadomi, quot et quarimi domonmi in Cadomo episcopi Baiocenses solebant 
habere censum et redditus tempore Henrici regis avi mei, et que servicia et quales 
consuetudines inde tunc habebant; et sicut fuerit (MS. fuerat) recognitum, ita in 
pace et iuste et integre eas facias habere Philippo episcopo Baiocensi. Et plenum 
rectum ei facias de terra ubi grangee episcopi esse solebant (MS. esse bis) , secundum 
assisam meam; et plenum rectum ei facias de terra arabili que est iuxta aquam, 
secundum assisam meam; et plenum rectum ei facias de decimis (blank in MS.) 

et lanifeciorum de Cadomo, secundum assisam meam. Et nisi f eceris, Robertus de 
Novo Burgo faciat. Teste Toma cancellario apud Lemovicas.' Litre noir, no. 
27; La Rue, Essais historigues sur la mile de Caen, i. 37s; Bigelow, p. 393, no. 
48; Brunner, p. 302; Round, no. 1443 (incomplete); Delisle-Berger, no. 21. 

" Schwurgerichte, p. 303. 

" Writ in Livre noir, no. 28; returns, ibid., no. 33: ' per sacramenta iuratorum 
qui sunt constituti ad iurandas consuetudines meas et dominica mea de Baiocensi.' 
Delisle-Berget, nos, 2s, 38- 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 21 5 

rights which was issued by Henry before he became king7' This 
general precept may not be the assize in question, but it certainly 
covers the ground of the special writ for Caen, and we are not 
obliged to infer that anything broader was meant by Henry's use 
of the term assize. Whether he also issued a general writ similar 
to that of Geoffrey providing for the regular use of the sworn 
inquest in suits between the bishop and his tenants, it is impos- 
sible to say. No such document has been preserved, nor do any 
of the documents of Henry's time in the Lime noir relate to cases 
where the fiefs of the bishop are concerned. 

Taken in themselves and interpreted in their relations to the 
other Bayeux dociunents, the three writs which contain the 
phrase secundum assisiam meam do not demonstrate Brimner's 
thesis that a system of recognitions was created throughout Nor- 
mandy by a ducal ordinance, whether of Henry II or of his father, 
for they do not necessarily take us beyond the bishopric of Bayeux 
and its possessions. On the other hand, there is nothing in the 
writs inconsistent with such a general ordinance, and any men- 
tion of a ducal assize elsewhere in Normandy would point clearly 
toward some more comprehensive measure establishing procedure 
by recognition. Such a reference to an assize meets us early in the 
reign of Henry II in connection with the monastery of Saint- 
fitienne de Caen. For this favored foundation of the Norman 
dukes a series of documents, unfortunately less numerous and less 
detailed than those extant for the see of Bayeux, records various 
recognitions held in the period between Henry's coronation as 
king and 1164. In two cases we have the reports of the justices 
who held the recognition,*" in others only the royal charter con- 
firming the results.'^ Thus in 1157 an inquest was held at Caen by 

" Livre noir, no. 14; Delisle-Berger, no. 33*. 

"' The charter of Robert de Neufbourg notifying the inquest at Dives (Valin, 
p. 267; cf. Deville, Analyse, p. 42), and the charter of Rotrou of fivreux and Regi- 
nald of Saint-Valery relating the recognition at Bayeux {M. A. N., xv. 197; Valin, 
p. 270). Robert's report on the inquest at Avranches was preserved in the lost 
cartulary summarized in Deville, Analyse, p. 18. On these justiciars see supra. 
Chapter V. 

" Charter of Henry II issued at Caen between 1156 and 1161: Delisle-Berger, 
no. 153; extracts in Valin, p. 268. There is also a parallel writ of the king, issued 
doubtless at the same time, in Delisle-Berger, no. 104; M, A. N., xv. 198. The 



2l6 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

the seneschal of Normandy, Robert de Neufbourg, to determine 
the obligation of the abbey's men, with those of others, to carry 
in the king's hay at Bretteville and Verson.*'' Before his retire- 
ment in 1 1 59 the same seneschal held a detailed recognition at 
Dives-sur-Mer, on the oath of ten lawful men, respecting the 
rights of the abbot at Dives and Cabourg;*' a recognition at 
Avranches, " by the lawful men of the province," respecting 
freedom from toll in that city; *^ and a recognition concerning 
the abbey's rights and possessions at Rouen.** Before 1161 the 
bishops of fivreux and Bayeux and other justices hold an inquest 
concerning the abbey's rights over houses in its bourg at Caen,** 
and between 1161 and 1164 it was determined by recognition 
before the king's justices, in an assize at Bayeux, that various 
lands in Cristot and elsewhere were fiefs of Saint-£tienne.*' 

The subjects of these inquiries do not differ from those held for 
the bishop of Bayeux and others, nor is the procedure in any 
instance described specifically. One case, however, challenges our 
special attention. At Rouen " it was recognized that the monks 
should hold quit their meadows of Bapeaume, with respect to 
which William, son of Thetion de Fonte, who claimed the right to 
them {ius), failed as regards his claim and the decision of right 
before Robert and the barons of Normandy in the king's curia 
and as regards the assize which he had demanded with respect 
thereto." ** The account is brief, all too brief, for we have only 

argument of the editors that this is anterior to the death of Robert de Neufbourg 
in 1 159 applies equally to the longer charter. 

^ Robert of Torigni, ii. 250, no. 34. 

** Valin, p. 267; Deville, Analyse, p. 42. 

8* ' Recognitum etiam fuit in plena assisia apud Abrincas per legales homines 
provincie ': Delisle-Berger, no. 153; Valin, p. 268; Deville, Analyse, p. 18, where 
it appears that the inquest was held by Robert. 

86 Delisle-Berger, no. 153; Valin, p. 268. 

"' Delisle-Berger, no. 153; Valin, p. 268; Legras, Le hourgage de Cam, p. 75, 
note I. 

" M. A. N., rv. 197; Valin, p. 270. The original, with incisions for the seals 
of the two justiciars, is in the Archives of the Calvados, H. 1883. The date is fixed 
by the mention of Achard of Avranches (1161-1171) and Rotrou of fivreux, who 
was translated to Rouen in 1164 or 1165. 

8' ' Et recognitum fuit quod predictis monachis remanserunt sua prata de 
Abapalmis quieta unde WiUelmus filius Thetionis de Fonte, qui in illis clamabat 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 217 

the summary of the case in a royal charter of confirmation, and 
language so condensed cannot be rigorously interpreted. We 
should naturally interpret ius in the sense of ultimate right or 
title (maius ius) which it bears in the writs of the period; but it is 
clearly the claimant, William Fitz TMtion, who demands the 
assize, and there was no way known to the Anglo-Norman pro- 
cedure by which the plaintiff could demand an assize on the ques- 
tion of right.*' If title was the question at issue here, assisia 
might refer to the jury which the claimant might secure after the 
tenant had put himself upon the assize, the jury then rendering 
its verdict in spite of the claimant's default. It seems simpler, 
however, to hold, with Valin, that ius is here employed in a 
general rather than a technical sense, and that the question was 
one of possession. In any case the essential point is that the party 
which demanded the assize was the lay claimant, not the monas- 
tery, as in the other recognitions for Saint-fitienne. The assize 
in this instance, therefore, cannot be a special privilege enjoyed 
by an ecclesiastical establishment, since it is demanded against 
the monks, nor could such a claimant have put himself upon the 
assize imless this was a regular method of trial, such as the term 
comes to denote in England. This assize may, of course, be quite 
different from the assisia mea of the Bayeux docimients, for there 
is nothing to exclude the issuance of more than one ducal ordi- 
nance on the subject or, if we take assize merely in its procedural 
sense, the existence of more than one form of trial established by 
ducal initiative. Whatever the Bayeux assizes may have been, 
the assize in the case of Saint-Etienne is more significant, since it is 
clearly open to the ordinary lay claimant, even against a rehgious 
establishment protected by the duke. So far as it goes, it affords 
conclusive evidence that by 11 59 the prerogative procedure has 
been extended to subjects, at least for one class of cases, much as 
in the Enghsh assize of novel disseisin instituted in 1166. 

ius, defecit se de iure et de consideratione recti coram Roberto et coram baronibus 
Normamiie in curia regis et de assisia quam inde requisierat ': Valin, p. 268; 
Delisle-Berger, no. 153, from Carkdaire de Normandie, f. 2iv. 

" Glanvill, bk. ii; Tres Ancien Coutumier, c. 85; Brunner, Schwurgerichte, 
pp. 312-314; Valin, p. 213 f. Professor G. B.Adams has convinced me that Valin 
is probably correct in interpretmg ius in this passage as meaning possession only. 



2l8 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

Another instance of what is apparently the ordinary and regular 
use of the recognition is found, but without any mention of an 
assize, in 1 159, when, in the king's court at Gavray, Osmimd, son 
of Richard Vasce, " on the oath of lawful men, proved his right ta 
the presentation of Mesnil-Drey and two sheaves of its tithe as his 
ancestors had always had them." Neither Osmimd nor his op- 
ponent, Ralph de la Mouche, was a privileged person, and this 
method of trial seems to have been resorted to in the king's court 
as a matter of course, and hence of right. The probability of 
some regulation of such suits in Normandy is rendered stronger 
by the discovery of traces of legislation by Henry in England, 
between 1154 and 1158, with reference to advowson and presen- 
tation.'" If we could accept the evidence of a charter of Henry 
for Saint-Evroul, apparently given between 11 59 and 1162," the 
existence of a form of recognition corresponding to the assize 
utrum would be established for Normandy in this period, at least 
two years before it appears in England. This document, however, 
which is suspicious in form,'^ does not correspond to the report of 
the case by the justiciar Rotrou,'* given between 1164 and 1166, 

90 The notice of the suit is in Robert of Torigni, ii. 259; cf. supra, Chapter V, 
note 88. ' Sacramento legalium hominum ' may conceivably mean party witnesses^ 
but by this time it has become the usual phrase for the sworn inquest. For Ralph 
de la Mouche cf. a charter of 1158 in Pigeon, Le diocese d'Avranches, ii. 672. On 
Henry's early English legislation, see Appendix I. 

'^ Printed by me, from an incorrect copy from the cartulary of Saint-fivroul, MS. 
Lat. 1 loss, no. 24, in ^ . H. R., viii. 634. Also in the Registres du Trfisor des Chartes, 
JJ. 69, no. 194; Round, no. 641; Delisle-Berger, no. 214, where the date of Abbot 
Robert's accession, 1159, is overlooked in dating the docimient. 

92 The charter combines the king's style of the latter half of the reign with a 
witness who caimot be later than 1162, and contains the suspicious phrase teste 
me ipso, which appears in two other fabrications of this period from Saint-fivroul 
(Delisle, nos. 347, 362; see pp. 226, 316 f.) and has not yet been found in an origi- 
nal charter of this reign (ibid., p. 226, where too much is made of the occurrence 
of the phrase in charters for different monasteries, since copyists or forgers might 
easily carry back a formula common in the succeeding reign). The language of the 
document is also unusual, quite unlike that of Rotrou's charter, which speaks of 
but five knights and reports the determination of more limited questions of title. 
As Henry's charter is also found in a vidimus of Matilda, daughter of the monas- 
tery's adversary in the suit (cartulary of Saint-£vroul, no. 426; Collection Lenoir, 
at Semilly, Ixxu. 17, Ixxiii. 467), its fabrication or modification cannot be placed 
more than a generation later. 

" ' Rotrodus Dei gratia Rothomagensis aichiepiscopus omnibus ad quos presens. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 219 

and I believe it to contain a somewhat modernized version of the 
transaction, prepared in the later years of the twelfth century. 
Rotrou's charter says nothing of the question of lay fee or ahns, 
but adjudges to the monks, after sworn inquest, full right to the 
presentation, tithes, and lands belonging to the church in question. 
The conclusion that the employment of the recognition was 
extended and regularized by definite legislative act, rather than 
by a process of gradual development, is rendered probable, not 
only by the use of the word assize, but also by evidence of actual 
legislation in this same period with reference to the sworn inquest 
in other matters. In 1159 at his Christmas court at Falaise 
Henry, besides providing that the testimony of the vicinage 
should be required in support of charges brought by rural deans, 
commanded his own officers, in the monthly meetings of the local 

scriptum pervenerit et precipue ballivis domini regis salutem. Sciatis quod ex 
precepto domini regis quando per eum per totam Nonnaimiam iusticiam secularem 
exercebamus, miseratione divina time temporis Ebroicensem episcopatum regentes, 
in plena assisia apud Rothomagum dieJesto Sancte CecUie Garinus de Grandivalle 
ct Ricardus Faiel et Rogerus de Moenaio et Rogerus Goulaf re et Robertus Chevalier 
iuraverunt quod ecclesia Sancti Ebrulfi et abbas et monachi eius anno et die quo H. 
rex Alius Willebm regis fuit vivus et mortuus et postea usque modo presentationem 
beati Petri de Sap pacifice et quiete habuit in demosLaam cum omnibus decimis et 
aliis pertinenciis suis et masnagium Willelmi filii Hugonis cum omnibus pertinenciis 
suis tarn in terris quam in aliis rebus possedit. Ipsi vero milites se fecerunt ignorantes 
utrum cultura que Ardeneta noncupatur ad ius Sancti Ebrulfi vel ad ius domini de 
Sap verius pertineret, et tamen quandam acram terre in eadem cvdtura per eccle- 
siam Sancti Ebrulfi cultam fuisse per sacramentum se vidisse testati sunt. Post 
obitum veropredicti H. regis residuum predicte culture per abbatem Sancti Ebrulfi 
cultum fuisse prefati milites necnon et totam illam culturam ad abbatiam Sancti 
Ebrulfi pocius quam ad dominum de Sappo secundum oppinionem suam pertinere 
iuraverunt. Nos autem domini regis adimplentes mandatum de consilio baronum 
ipsius qui presentes erant presentationem predicte ecclesie cum decimis et aliis 
pertinenciis suis necnon et masnagium iam dictum cum cultura de Ardeneta et aliis 
omnibus, que sicut dictum est secundum formam regii mandati abbati et monachis 
eius recognita fuerunt, eisdem de' cetero in pace et quiete habenda et possidenda, 
licet nunquam amisissent, adiudicavimus. Testibus Amulto Lexoviensi episcopo, 
H[enrico] abbati Fiscannensi, Victore abbate Sancti Georgii de Bauchervilla, Gale- 
ranno comite Mellenti, comite Patricio, camerario de TancarviUa, Hugone de 
Gomaco, Roberto filio Geroii, Nicholao de StoteviUa, Godardo de Vallibus, Roberto 
filio Hamerid, Roberto de Varvic, Raginaldo de lerponvilla, Ricardo Beverel, 
Adam de Walnevilla.' MS. Lat. iioss. no- 172- A. H. R., xx. 38, note 93; now 
also in Delisle-Berger, i. 353. The discovery of this document led me to modify 
the view regarding an assize utrum which I had expressed in A. H. R., viii. 633 f. 
(1903). 



220 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

courts, to " pronounce no judgments without the evidence of 
neighbors." '* The exact meaning of this comprehensive language 
does not appear from the paraphrase in our only source of infor- 
mation, the Bee annalist; it seems, not only to require such use 
of the accusing Jury in ecclesiastical courts as is prescribed in the 
Constitutions of Clarendon, but also to give it wider scope in the 
ducal courts, very likely by extending it to criminal accusations 
before the duke's local judges. Indeed from the language used {de 
causis similiter quorumlihet ventilandis) it is quite possible that the 
evidence of neighbors was there prescribed in civil cases as well. 
That the justices of Geoffrey and Henry II had by this time 
become familiar with this method of procedure appears from vari- 
ous scattered docmnents of the period. Thus a charter of Geoffrey 
in favor of Algar, bishop of Coutances, confirms the verdict of six 
jvirors rendered in accordance with the duke's writ at his assize at 
Valognes, to the effect that Robert Fitz Neal and his predeces- 
sors had held of the bishop and his predecessors whatever rights 
they had enjoyed in the churches of Cherbourg and Tourla- 
ville and their appurtenances.'* Another example of a recog- 

'^ ' De causis similiter quonimlibet ventilandis instituit ut, cum iudices singu- 
larum provinciarum singulis mensibus ad minus simul devenirent, sine testimonio 
vicinorum nichil iudicarent ' : Robert of Torigni, ii. i8o. Cf . Pollock and Maitland, 
i. 151. Stubbs says {Benedict of Peterborough, ii, p. lix): " This looks very like an 
instruction to the county court." On the ecclesiastical procedure, see infra, p. 226 f ., 
and Appendix I. 

" ' [G.] dux Normannie et comes Andegavie H. archiepiscopo et omnibus 
episcopis Normannie, baronibus, iusticiis, et omnibus suis fidelibus, salutem. No- 
tum sit vobis atque omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris quod in tempore meo et 
Algari Const[anciensis] episcopi fuit iuramento comprobatum per meum preceptum 
in assisia mea apud Valonias quod Robertus (MS. vob') filius Nigelli et omnes prede- 
cessores sui ab Algaro Constanciensi et ab aliis predecessoribus suis Constan[ciensi- 
bus] episcopis tenuerant quicquid in ecclesiis de Cesariburgo et de Torlavilla et 
in omnibus possessionibus ad iUas ecclesias pertinentibus habuerant. Hoc vero 
iuraverunt Ricardus de WauviUa, Willelmus monachus, Willelmus de Sancto Ger-' 
mano, Willelmus de Brioquevilla, Ricardus de Martinvast, Rob[ertus] de Valonis. 
Quare ego concedo quod hoc secimdum illorum iuramentum ratum sit et perpetuo 
teneatur. Testes vero huius concessionis sunt: R[icardus] cancellarius, Willelmus 
de Vernon, Engelg[erus] de Bouhon, Alexander de Bouhon, Jordanus Taysson, 
Robertus de Novo [Burgo], Robertus de Corceio, Joisfredus de Tur[onibus], G[au- 
fredus] de Cleer, P[ipinus] de Tur[onibus]. Apud Sanctum Laudum.' Cartidary B 
of the cathedral of Coutances, p. 350, no. 286. Here, as in most of the other docu- 
ments in this cartulary, the initial is left blank and not indicated, but in this case 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 221 

nition in the duke's court, probably under Geoffrey and certainly 
before 1 153, is found in a ducal charter for the dean and chapter 
of Rouen declaring that their rights in the forest of AUermont, 
as in the time of Henry I, had been established before the duke 
by the oath of lawful knights, three of whom are mentioned 
by name.'* Between 1151 and 1153 we have a writ of Duke 
Henry ordering his justiciar, AmuK of Lisieux, and Robert of 
Montfort to cause the appurtenances of the church of Saint- 
Ymer to be recognized by lawful men.'' Another indication of 
the prevalence of this method of proof appears, along with clear 
evidence of the continued use of trial by battle,'* in the charters of 
Geoffrey and Henry for the town of Rouen, where, in providing 
that no citizen shall be held to wage combat against a hired cham- 
pion, it is prescribed that the fact of the champion's professional- 
ism shaU be determined on the oath of ten citizens of Rouen 
selected by the justice." With regard to the abbey of Savigny, 

it is supplied by a vidinvus of Philip Augustus in the same cartulary (p. 351, no. 
288), printed in Delisle, Carkdaire normand, no. 162, which refers to this charter 
as ' autenticum G. ducis Kormannie, cuius mandato fuit recognitum in assisia apud 
Valonias.' This, the only surviving cartulary of Coutances, was still in the episcopal 
archives when I was permitted to examine it in 1902, but it has since been transferred 
to the departmental archives at Saint-Ld. 

By following L€chaud€ and overlooking the vidimus Roimd (Calendar, no. 960) 
was led to ascribe this charter to Henry II; so also Bigelow, History of Procedure, 
p. 367, no. 9. The treatment of this document affords a good illustration of L€- 
chaudd's carelessness. Not only does he omit the last foiu: witnesses, but he quietly 
inserts Henry's name in his copies — " Henricus &" " in the ' Cartulaire de la Basse 
Nonnandie,' i. 129; " Henricus R." in MS. Lat. 10068, f. 88, no. 57. Brunner, p. 
269, prints the essential portion of the charter and recognizes Geoffrey as its author; 
so now Delisle, Henri II, p. 509, no. 17* A; Delisle-Berger, i. 2. The lost cartulary 
A, of which a partial analysis is preserved in the archives, contained a copy of the 
vidimus which interpreted G as the initial of a duke William; the text as printed in 
Dupont, Histoire du Cotenlin, i. 466, is apparently derived from this soiu"ce. 

»« Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, G. 7, p. 793; Valin, p. 266, where it is as- 
cribed to Henry 11; Delisle-Berger, no. 39*, where the possibility of Geoffrey's 
authorship is admitted. For the reasons for attributing this charter to Geoffrey, 
see supra, p. 134. For the charter of Heniy I, see Appendix F, no. 17. 

" Cartulaire de S.-Ymer, ed. Brfiard, no. 6; Delisle-Berger, no. 34*. 

" Examples of the duel in the duke's court will be found in 1155 in Robert of 
Torigni, ii. 241; and in 1157 in MS. Rouen 1193, f. 47, where we find among the 
witnesses ' Mauricio pugile.' 

" Charter of Geoffrey as confirmed by Henry II soon after he obtained the 
duchy: Delisle-Berger, no. 14*; supra, p, 134, 



222 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

trial by lawful men of the villa is prescribed by a writ of the 
Empress Matilda in the case of offenses committed against the 
monastery by the foresters or their servants, i"" On behalf of the 
duke himself we have no examples of the employment of the in- 
quest under Geoffrey, but numerous instances under Henry II, 
early in his reign at Bayeux and in the Bessin, later in the syste- 
matic inquiries held by his justices in 1 163 and 11 71 throughout 
the whole of Normandy.'"^ 

That Geoffrey's reign begins a new stage in the development of 
the jury in Normandy may also be argued from such rare in- 
stances of the sworn inquest as we find imder his predecessors. 
The great Bayeux inquest of 1133 is essentially a fiscal inquest, 
since the see was then in the duke's hands and its revenues were 
accordingly a matter of interest to him."^ The same holds true 
of a writ of William Rufus freeing from bernagium a domain of 
Bee donee ego inquiram quomodo fuii tempore patris mei: ^"^ if, as 
seems probable, the inquiry was to be made by sworn inquest, it 
was to determine a fiscal obligation. When we leave these fiscal 
inquiries, we no longer find clear examples of inquests of the later 
type. The nearest approach is the case of the abbey of Fontenay 
tmder William the Conqueror, who ordered the possessions of the 
monastery recorded on oath by the barons of the honor, four of 
whom brought testimony of the record to the king's court at 

i"" ' M. imperatricis (sic) regis H. filia, F. de Tenechebrai salutem. Mando tibi 
et precor atque precipio quod permittas senioribus de Savigneio habere et tenere 
suam fabricam et alia omnia que ad eos pertinent de elemosina predecessoris mei 
regis H. ita libera et quiete sicut ea habuerunt et tenuerunt tempore ipsius regis. Si 
autem forestarii vel aliquis alius famulorum eos (MS. eorum) in quoquam forte 
molestaverint et inquietaverint, fac inde tractari causam iuste per homines legales 
ipsius vUle, ita ne amplius inde clamorem audiam pro recti penuria. Si vero alius 
aliquis iniuriam eis in aliquo fecerit, manuteneas eos ubique et protegas sicut nos- 
trum dominicum quod habemus protegere ut nostram elemosinam. Teste Roberto 
de Curc[eio], apud Falesiam.' Cartulary in the Archives of the Manche, no. 280; 
in part in Brunner, p. 241; Delisle, Henri II, p. 141, no. 5. 

"1 Livre noir, nos. 13, 35, 138; Delisle-Berger, nos. 68*, 76*, 38; Robert of 
Torigni, i. 344, ii. 28; cf. supra, p. 159 f.; infra, Appendix K.. The inquests for 
F6camp in 1162 (Delisle-Berger, no. 223) and forMortemer {H. F., xiv. 505) also 
touch the rights of the duke. 

'" Supra, notes 16-23. Note, however, that Hetuy's Nostell writ in note 153 
was issued in Normandy. 

»<» Supra, p. 82; Valin, p. 200, note 2. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 223 

Caen."* In other instances of this period the men who swear are 
party witnesses, rather than recognitors who render a verdict as 
representing the knowledge of the community."^ Even under 
Henry I the only ducal writ which has reached us (1106-1120) 
defining the mode of procedure in an inquiry upon oath leaves the 
monks of Saint-Pere de Chartres free to produce their own wit- 
nesses or to choose the witnesses for the opposing party: 

H. rex Angl[orum] Wigero de Sancta Maria Ecclesia salutem. Precipio 
ut teneas rectum monachis Sancti Petri Carnotensis de terra eorum ita: 
siquis earn clamaverit monachi f adant earn probare per suos probos homines, 
vel illi qui earn clamaverint probare earn faciant per illos quos monachus 
elegerit. Teste WUlehno de Pirou apud Cadomimi."" 

From the time of Geoffrey no writs have come down prescribing 
such a procedure. 

It would be interesting to know just what Lucius 11 and 
Eugene III had in mind when they directed Geoffrey to have the 
possessions of Bayeux established ' on oath by lawful witnesses,' 
for the church had its traditions in such matters, as well as the 
state, and the influence of canonical ideas of proof cannot be 
wholly ignored as a possibility in tracing the genesis of civil pro- 
cedure. It is accordingly a matter of some interest to examine the 
evidence which has reached us respecting the sworn inquest in the 
ecclesiastical jurisdictions of Normandy in this period.'^"' Taking 
once more the diocese of Bayeux as our point of departure, we 
find Bishop Philip intervening in a controversy over the limits 
of certain lands held in alms, in order to secure the consent of 
the parties to its submission to the verdict of the countryside. 
" There was a dispute between the canons of Bayeux and Luke, 
son of Herv6, priest of Douvres, as to what pertained to the ahns 
of the church of Douvres and what to the fief of Luke." After 
much discussion it was agreed to submit the question to ten men, 
chosen with the consent of the parties from the assembled parish- 

iM Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 65; cf. Bnmner, p. 270; Valin, p. 201. 

"' M. A. N., XV. 196, XXX. 681; cf. Valin, p. 198 f. 

"' Original, formerly sealed sur simple quetie, MS. Lat. 9221, no. 6. William 
de Pirou perished on the White Ship in 1120: Ordericus, iv. 418. 

^°' inquests on the manors of monasteries, held probably by royal warrant, fall 
in a different category: supra, Chapter V, note 23. 



224 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

ioners, " in whose oath the truth of the matter should rest." 
Standing before the parish church, this jury declared upon oath 
the lands which belonged to the alms of the church; and when 
Luke afterward sought to occupy some of the property of the 
canons, the jurors were called together at Bayeux and again 
recognized the ahns of the church, which the bishop emunerates 
in his charter.'"* The proceedings in this case, though not held in 
accordance with a ducal writ, show all the essential elements of 
the recognition — the promissory oath, the free decision, the ver- 
dict rendered by chosen men of the vicinage; and if we remem- 
ber that the jury, in the narrower sense, as distinguished from the 
assize, " has its roots in the fertile ground of consent " and " only 
comes in after both parties have consented to accept its ver- 
dict," "" the importance of this early example of such a volimtary 
agreement is at once evident. In other cases the account of the 
procedure is not so specific, but points to the use of the recogni- 
tion, or something very like it, in connection with the bishop's 
jurisdiction. In one of these instances a verdict is mentioned 
incidentally in documents of the year 1153 relating to a prebend 
created by the bishop out of various elements, among them the 
land in Le Val de Port, in the territory of Escures, held by Alex- 
ander, son of T6old, which Bishop Philip caused to be recognized 
in his presence by the oaths of lawful men of the said Val as 
belonging to the demesne of the bishop of Bayeux."" Another 

"s ' Erat igitur contentio inter canonicos Baiocenses et Lucam, fiUum Hervei 
sacerdotis de Dovra, quid ad elemosinam ecclesie de Dovra et quid ad feodum 
ipsius Luce pertineret. Que controversia, cum diu multmnque ventilata agitaretur, 
nunc demum in presentia nostra et parrochianonun de Dovra ante ipsius ville 
ecclesiam per nos finem sortita est. . . . Vocatis igitur ipsius ville parrochianis 
utriusque partis assensu electi sunt decern solum (whose names follow) . . . ia 
quorum iuramento rei Veritas consisteret. Facto i^tur prius iuramento has terras 
de elemosina ecclesie esse dixerunt . . .' Livre noir, no. 63. The charter is not 
dated or witnessed, and more definite dates cannot be assigned than the limits of 
Philip's episcopate, 1 142-1163. 

i«9 Pollock and Maitland, i. 149. The following is a good example of this prin- 
ciple from the year 1182: ' Coram Radulfo episcopo Lexoviensi composita est 
controversia . . . que erat inter monachos Beccenses et Ricardiim Comubiensem 
canonicum Lexoviensem arbitris Guillelmo presbytero et duodecim hominibus 
iuratis super quasdam decimas apud Falciun et Montemfortem, cuique sua parte 
pro iure suo iuxta equitatem attributa ' (MS. Lat. 12884, f- 238). 

"" ' Terra quam tenuit Alexander filius Theoldi in Valle Portus in territorio de 



TEE EARLY NORMAN JURY 225 

record, from the time of Philip's predecessor, is in the form of a 
notice witnessed by the bishop and several others, knights as well 
as clerks, to the effect that four men of Herils, who are named, 
have recognized in the presence of the bishop and chapter that the 
land which Gosselin, succentor of the cathedral, holds at Herils 
and the church of the village were given to Gosselin in alms and 
have always been held by him under such tenure."' It might be 
maintained that these four men of HIrils were party witnesses 
rather than recognitors, but the language of the document renders 
it far more likely that they were giving an independent verdict on 
behalf of the cormnunity. It is also possible that in these cases 
the men were questioned individually, as in the canonical proced- 
ure "2 and the later French enquetes, but there is no indication of 
such an examination, and the use of the words recognoscere and 
recognitio points rather to a collective verdict."' In a still earlier 
case, likewise decided before the bishop and chapter, the uncer- 
tainty is greater, as nothing is said of the residence of the ancient 
men who are mentioned or of the capacity in which they appear. 
Still the matters in controversy, the rights and revenues of the 
chancellor of the cathedral, are "recognized by the attestation of 
ancient men " as belonging to the chancellor through the act of 
Bishop Odo and the continuous possession of former inciunbents 
— just such a question as would naturally be submitted to a 

Escvires, quam videlicet Philippus, noster episcopus, fecit recognosci esse de domi- 
nico Baiocensis episCopi per sacramenta legalium hominiun predicte Vallis.' Chartei 
of the chapter of Bayeux, 8 May 1153, Liwe noir, no. 149; no. 148 is a chartei of 
the bishop to the same effect. 

"' ' Notmn sit omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris quod homines de Heriz, 
et nominatim isti . . . recognoverunt coram Ricardo, Roberti comitis Gloecestrie 
filio, Baiocensi episcopo, et coram eiusdem ecclesie capitulo terram quam Goscelinus, 
Baiocensis ecclesie succentor, tenet apud Heriz cum ecclesia eiusdem ville eidem 
Goscelino in elemosina datam fuisse et eundem sic semper tenuisse. Huius autem 
recognitionis testes sunt isti: . . .' Livre noir, no. 102. Richard was bishop from 
113s to 1142. 

'12 For an example of this from the year 1164 see Liwe noir, no. 49. 

™ Of course recognoscere has other meanings, being applied to the certification of 
a charter, the confession of a criminal, or the admission of another's rights on the 
part of a claimant, but none of these senses seems to fit the passage in question, 
where the idea of a formal declaration of fact by a body of men seems clearly 
implied. 



226 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

sworn verdict."^ If such was the procedure employed in this case, 
it has a special interest as belonging to the pontificate of Richard 
Fitz Samson and thus falling within the reign of Henry I. How 
such tribunals came to decide cases of this sort and to employ 
this form of procedure are questions that cannot be answered xmtil 
some one has given us a careful study of the Norman ecclesiastical 
jurisdictions. Indeed, the whole subject of the workings of the 
ecclesiastical courts in Normandy and elsewhere in the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries is an important field of investigation and 
ought to prove fruitful for the history of the transmission of the 
Frankish inquisitio to later times. 

In one direction particularly could the history of ecclesiastical 
procedure in Normandy throw important light upon the origins 
of the jury, namely with respect to the jury of presentment. It 
has more than once been remarked that when this makes its first 
appearance under Henry II, it is as part of the procedure of 
ecclesiastical courts. At Falaise in 1 159 it was ordained that no 
dean should accuse any one without the testimony of reputable 
neighbors."^ At Clarendon in 11 64 "* it is declared that laymen 
shall be accused only by certain and lawful accusers before the 

"' ' Ceterum, dilecte nobis frater Anulphe, cancellarie ecdesie nostre, cum de 
hiis que ad ius personatus tui pertinent in capitulo coram Ricardo episcopo et 
fratribus ageretur, antiquorum virorum et eiusdem episcopi attestatione recognitum 
est ea que hie subnotata sunt ex institucione Odonis episcopi et tuorum anteces- 
sorum contrnua possessione ad ius personatus tui iure perpetuo pertinere. . . . 
Hec autem omnia in capitulo nostro coram Ricardo episcopo, Sansonis fiJio, et 
nobis recognita simt et postmodum coram successore eius altero Ricardo publica 
attestatione firmata.' Chevalier, Ordinaire de I'iglise calhedrale de Bayeux (Paris, 
1902), p. 419, no. SI. The document is in the shape of a letter from the dean and 
chapter to the chancellor, and is thus less formal than a charter. The mention of 
the attestation of the bishop along with that of the ancient men might appear to 
contradict the view that a sworn inquest was held, but the last sentence makes it 
plain that the attestation spoken of is that of the subsequent bishop, Richard of 
Kent, while the facts had been recognized under Richard Fitz Samson. 

For similar examples imder Hugh, archbishop of Rouen (1130-1164), see the 
cartulary of Saint-Georges de Bocherville (MS. Rouen 1227), f. 48V; and original 
charters of Hugh for F6camp in the Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure,/(W(ij Fficamp, 
series Aizier and Etretat. The ' testimonium vicinorum ' appears in the court of 
theabbotof Pr€auxiioi-ii3i: LePr6vost,£«re, iii. 301; the recognition byancient 
men, in Appendix H, no. 2. 

'" Robert of Torigni, ii. 180. For the immediate antecedents of these measures, 
see Appendix I. "« Constitutions of Clarendon, c. 6. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 227 

bishop, and in the absence of such accusers the bishop shall ask 
the sheriff to have the truth of the matter declared by twelve 
sworn men of the vicinage. All this calls to mind the S3modal wit- 
nesses of the bishop's court, as described by Regino of Priim at 
the beginning of the tenth century, themselves very likely another 
offshoot of the Prankish inquisitio per testes.^^'' What we should 
like to know is whether the testes synodales also survived in the 
Frankish lands of the west and particularly in Normandy, thus 
furnishing Henry IE with the suggestion which he applied to deans 
and archdeacons who used more arbitrary methods. Unfortu- 
nately no one has sought to answer these questions for France, 
and the studies of the genesis of the later canonical procedure in 
Italy take much for granted, after the fashion of too many his- 
torians of law."* Here, as so often, the Norman eA^dence is too 
meager and fragmentary to fill the gap in our knowledge. At one 
point, however, it offers a suggestion. In the curious arrangement 
made in 106 1 between the bishop of Avranches and the abbot of 
Mont-Saint-Michel,"^ the men of the Mount had complained 
that they were subject to constant summons to the bishop's 
court at Avranches, regardless of war or weather, and were op- 
pressed by the demand for oaths as well as by the fines and for- 
feitures which they there incurred: 

Cogebantur enim venire Abrincas ad respondendum de quacunque ac- 
cusatione contra christianitatem, nee excusare poterat eos mare insurgens 
nee Britonum insidie quia preveniri ac provider! poterant, et ita sepe in 
forifacta et emendationes episcopales incidebant et sepe iuramentis fatiga- 

"' See Brunner, Sckwurgerichte, pp. 458-468; id., Deutsche Recktsgeschichte, 
ii. 488-494; Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, v. 425 ff.; Pollock and Maitland, i. 142, 152. 

^^ See particularly Richard Schmidt, Die Herkunfl des InquisiUonsprozesses, in 
Freiburger Festschrift zum so. Regierungsjubilwum Grh. Friedrichs I (Leipzig, 1902) ; 
id., Konigsrecht, Kirchenrecht, und Stadtrecht beim Aufbcm des Inquisitions prozesses, 
in Festgabe fiir Rudolph Sohm (Munich, 1915); Zechbauer, Das mittelalterliche 
Strafrecht Siziliens (Berlin, 1908), pp. 168-247; Max Hoffmann, Die Stdlung des 
Konigs von SiziUen rmch den Assisen von Ariano (Miinster, 19x5), pp. 84-92. 
Schmidt, and Niese, Die Gesetzgebung der normannischen Dynastie im Regnum 
SicUiae (SaRe, 1910; seemyreviewsinE.H. if., xxvi. 369-371; A.H.R.,xvu. 177), 
are much too sweeping in their statements as to the Norman origin of Sicilian law, 
and neither of them has attempted a study of the documentary evidence for the 
sworn inquest in Sicily. 

"' MS. Lat 14832, f. 183V; Migne, cxlvii. 265; cf. supra, Chapter I, note 137. 



228 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

bantur. . . . Episcopus vero prefatus, ut erat animo et genere nobilis, 
petitioni abbatis annuit et archidiaconum suum in Monte eum fecit, ita 
tamen ut quod bene non faceret vel non posset episcopus corrigeret Abrincis 
et ecclesiastico iuditio terminaret. De coniugiis autem illicitis, si qui legates 
testes procederent, apud episcopiun audirentur et per sacramentum ipsorum 
lege dissolveretiu: quod contra legem presumptum erat. . . . 

The jurisdiction here is the ordinary bishop's jurisdiction over 
laymen {contra christianitatem), by the new arrangement handed 
over to the abbot as archdeacon save in matrimonial cases, where 
legates testes are specially mentioned. What the iuramenta were 
is. not specifically stated, but it would seem probable that the 
oaths required were, at least in part, the presentation of offenders 
by Jama publica. If this be the correct interpretation, we have 
a Norman link midway between . Regino and the decrees of 
Henry II. 

Examples of the use of the sworn inquest in baronial courts 
meet us in other parts of Normandy in the latter part of the 
twelfth century. Thus the abbot of Saint-Wandrille grants a 
tenement at La CroisiUe to be held " as it has been recognized 
by our lawful and faithful men," i^" and a house at Caudebec 
with appurtenant rights as these have been recognized by the 
oath of neighbors.'^' Lawful men are used for the division of 
land 1^ or the assignment of an eqtiivalent holding,i^' and in an 

'*'' ' Sciant omnes presentes et futuri quod ego Waltenis abbas S. Wandregisilis 
concessi Symoni de Crudola teneuram suam quam in eadem villa de nobis tenet 
dure hereditario possidendam prout per iuiidicos et fideles homines nostros recognita 
fuerit. . . .' Copy of cartulary in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, iv. 2084. 
There are two abbots named Walter in this period, one 1137-1150, the other 1178- 
1187. 

™ ' Notum sit omnibus tarn presentibus quam futuris quod ego Anfredus (1165- 
II 78) abbas S. Wandregisilis et conventus concedimus Willelmo AngUco quietudi- 
nem domus sue ab omni consuetudine, salvo tamen censu, et custodiam vivarii 
nostri de Caldebecco et famulatum eiusdem ville ixae hereditario, que ad domum 
ipsam sicut per iuramentum vidnonun recognitum est pertinent. . . .' Cartulary 
in Archives of the Seine-Inf^rieure, G. iii. 24, with list of JMors at end. 

"^ ' Terram de Rosello sicut est previsa et ostensa et per legales homines divisa 
Sancto Martino Sagii ' : Livre blanc of Saint-Martin de Sfiez, f . 48V. Cf . the division 
of land before the duke's justices: Round, Calendar, no. 607; MS. Rouen 1227, f. 
13 5v; and an undated piece of the twelfth century in the Archives of the Calvados, 
fonds Saint-D€sir de Lisieiix: ' De hoc autem requirimus dominum regem et 
iustitias eius quod nobis haberi faciant intuitum curie.' 

"* ' Tantumdem terre ad valentiam pro ipsa terra axbitiio liberorum virorum ': 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 229 

agreement for the mortgage of a house at Rouen it is stipulated 
that the cost of repairs shall be verified by the view of lawful 
neighbors.'^* Henry, abbot of Fecamp, and Robert, count of 
Meulan, make an agreement for a general inquest respecting their 
several rights, six jurors being chosen by each to declare the truth 
with respect thereto; ^^^ and a similar inquest by the men of 
Quillebeuf and Le Marais-Vemier is related by the abbot of 
Jumieges and Henry de Longchamp.*''' Robert Bertram the 
yoimger even admits that he caused his men to render a verdict 
regarding a presentation * not of right but by his own might and 
force.' 12' 

Of these baronial cases the most interesting, as regards both 
date and' procedure, is one to which VaHn has called attention in 
the cartulary of Preaux.'^' Two knights of £tr6vilIe-en-Roumois, 
Roger de Lesprevier and Richard, son of Humphrey the priest, 
claimed in lay fee the dwellings of the parish priests and other 
appurtenances of the church, whereas the abbot of Preaux claimed 
them in ahns. A term was set before the archbishop and the 
count of Meulan, the lay lord, at which both parties " placed 
themselves on the verdict and oath of lawful men, to the number 

cartulary of Saint-Andr6-en-Gouffem, in Archives of the Calvados, £E. 6iv, 62, 
nos. 273 f. (117s). 

"^ ' Sciant tarn presentes quam posteri quod anno incamationis dominice 
.M''.C''.LX°.ini°. Ricardus de Herburvilla invadiavit Simoni Anglico domiun suam 
de atrio Sancti Amandi concessu uxoris sue et heredum suorum pro .Ix. et .x. solidis 
Andegavensium usque ad octo annos tali conditione quod si Simon aliquid de suo 
in domo reficienda per visum legalium vicinorum suorum expendiderit, Simon tail- 
liabit illud in tailUa sua et Ricardus ei solvet. . . .' Original in Archives of the 
Seine-Inf6rieure, fonds Saint-Amand. 

^^ Fecamp cartulary (MS. Rouen 1207), f. 36V; extracts in La Roque, iii. 50; 
Du Cange, under stalaria. 

^' Le Provost, Eure, ii. 375; Vernier, no. 194; original in Archives of the Seine- 
Inf6rieure, /o»rf.r Jumi&ges (1165-1198). 

"' ' Licet in prescriptis ecclesiis instinctu diabolico seu personal! odio vel etiam 
propria malitia ductus diocesiano episcopo personam aUquam aliquando presenta- 
verim et super earundem ecclesiarum presentationibus in curia mea recognitionem 
iniustam non de iure sed vi et potestate mea per homines meos fieri fecerim, et per 
recognitionem tunc temporis factam dictarum ecclesiarum quas prior de Sancta 
Maria de iure et donatione predecessorum meorum antea habuerat michi tarn 
iniuste vendicaverim. . . .' Quasi-oiiginal in Archives of the Seine-Inf€rieuTe, 
Jonds Saint-Ouen. 

"' Valin, p. 264, no, ix; cf, p, 200 f,; and Le Privost, Eure, ii. 63. 



230 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

of eight, who were sworn " "' and proceeded to view the holdings 
in dispute. Their decision in favor of the abbey was opposed by 
the knights, and a day was fixed in the count's court at Brionne 
before William Fitz Robert and Robert de Neufbourg as his 
judges, when the jurors appeared to defend their verdict and 
Pr6aux was put in possession of the property as ahns. When 
Richard threatened the abbot, he was locked up in the tower of 
Beaumont, and only released at another session of the court at 
Montfort, where he agreed to do homage and service to the abbot 
for the holding. Now all of this is anterior to the retirement of 
Robert of Neufbourg in 1 159 "" and quite possibly to the crusade 
of 1147, so that it falls at the latest in the early years of Henry 11 
and shows, like the contemporary case from Bayeux, that the 
' fertile ground of consent ' was already well prepared for his 
assizes. 

Some measure of the progress made in Normandy by the mid- 
dle of the twelfth century in the development of the recognition, 
in respect to definiteness of form as well as frequency of employ- 
ment, may be got by examining the use made of the sworn inquest 
in the neighboring coimty of Anjou imder Geoffrey Plantagenet 
and his father Fulk."^ . Although the older methods of trial find 

'^ ' In hoc autem stabilito die ecclesia Pratellensis et predict! milites miserunt 
se in veredicto et iuramento legalium hominum qui octo fuerunt et onmes iura- 
verunt.' 

^'' Robert of Torigni, i. 322, ii. 174. Valin's argument that Richard's journey 
to Jerusalem mentioned in the document is the Second Crusade, is not decisive; 
Reginald of Saint-Valery, for example, went to Palestine in 1158 (ibid., i. 316, ii. 
166). The other judge, William Fitz Robert, is found with Galeran of Meuljui as 
early as 1143 (Round, no. 380). 

For another instance of Robert de Neufbourg in the court of the count of Meulan, 
see supra, Chapter V, note 58, where the presence also of the bishop of fivreux indi- 
cates that they were sitting there as ducal justices. 

"' On the courts of Anjou see particularly C. J. Beautemps-Beauprfi, Recherches 
sur les juridictions de V Anjou et du Maine pendant la pSriodefdodale (Paris, 1890 ff.), 
forming the second part of his Coutumes et institutions de V Anjou el du Maine. This 
elaborate work deals mainly with the later period. The account of Angevin law 
during the feudal period which the author planned was left unfinished at his death; 
cf. d'Espinay, Le droit de I' Anjou avant les coutumes d'apris les notes de M. Beau- 
tetnps-Beaupri (Angers, 1901). For the judicial institutions of the eleventh century 
there is a useful study by Halphen in the Revue historiqrte (igoi), Ixxvii. 279-307. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 231 

abundant illustration in Angevin charters, one is at once struck 
with the rare appearance of anything resembling the Norman 
inquests. The less complete development of the administrative 
system in Anjou, and the fact that in this period the count gen- 
erally presided in person in his court, may serve to explain the 
absence of such writs as are found in Normandy; but any men- 
tion of inquests is rare, and in such accounts as we have they are 
hard to distinguish from other forms of procedure, to which they 
sometimes seem only accessory. The cases, too, ia which anything 
hke the sworn inquest is applied are fiscal, concerning the count's 
forests, his rights of justice, or his feudal dues. Thus in a con- 
troversy between his foresters and the monks of Saint-Aubin 
Geoffrey calls together his foresters and segrayers of the district 
and adjures "those who had been brought up from infancy in the 
aforesaid forest and knew the facts well " to declare faithfully and 
impartially the ancient custom of the forest, neither relinquishing 
the count's right to the monks nor assigning the monks' right to 
him.'^^ In another case where the matter in dispute concerned the 
count's right oifodrium on a piece of land belonging to the abbey 
of Saint-Serge, Geoffrey referred the matter to his seneschal, who 
ordered the local seneschal to take vavassors of the town with him 
upon the land and render a just judgment; but the question was 
finally determined by the oath of a witness produced by the 
monks.i^' Sometimes we find the count selecting men to render a 
verdict on the matter at issue in a way that suggests a jury of 
arbitration, as in a case from Fulk's reign touching the count's 
rights of justice on certain lands. The owner of the land finds 
seventy-three good men of Angers that know the truth of the 

None of these writers discusses the sworn inquest. Cf . the sketch of Angevin in- 
stitutions in Powicke, Loss of Normandy, ch. ii. 

"2 29 May 1 1 29: Bertrand de Broussillon, Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint- 
AiMn d'Angers, ii. 408, no. 982; B. &. C, xxxvi. 426, no. 28. Cf. Beautemps- 
Beaupr6, i. 131, note, 143, note. For a similar case at Venddme see Du Cange, 
Glossarium, under 3. Secretarms (ed. Favre, vii. 387). 

^ MS. Lat. 5446, f. 29s, no. 403 (Gaigni&es's copies from the cartulary of 
Saint-Serge). Cf. Beautemps-Beauprfi, i. 203, note, where the date is fixed between 
31 March 1150 and 7 September 1151. For a somewhat later case of declaration 
of custom, involving the right to levy procuratio, see C. Chevalier, Cartulaire de 
I'abbaye de Noyers (Tours, 1873), p. 651, no, 615, 



232 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

matter, and gives the count their names; when they have all ap- 
peared in court, Fulk selects twelve, who are ordered to swear 
that they will not conceal the truth for love or hatred."* In other 
cases, however, it does not appear that the arbiters were neces- 
sarily neighbors or had any special knowledge of the facts, so that 
they would seem to have acted as representing the court rather 
than the countryside.''^ On the whole, while these scanty in- 
stances from Anjou show that the verdict of neighbors was 
occasionally sought in fiscal matters and that a sort of jury of 
arbitration might sometimes be called by the count, there is 
nothing to indicate that such modes of procedure were common, 
clearly defined, or well understood. Compared with such rudi- 
mentary institutions as these, it is evident that the Norman 
recognitions of the same period represent an advanced stage in the 
evolution of the jury, and that no share can be ascribed to Anjou 
in its development in Normandy."^ 

The sworn inquest is also fovmd in the Norman kingdom of 
southern Italy and Sicily, where the judicial organization was in 
many respects similar to that of Normandy and England,"' and 
recent writers are prone to assume that the Sicilian jury was a 
direct importation from Normandy."' While it is true that no 
examples have been found in the South before the Noiman con- 
quest, it is also true that the information for this period is extra- 
ordinarily scanty, while we have also to bear in mind the 

^ Beautemps-Beaupr^, i. 117, note G. 

^^ For instances of this sort see Marchegay, Archives d' Anjou, i. 409, no. 66; iii. 
66, no. 87 (cf. Beautemps-Beauprfi, i. 88, 117, 141); Beautemps-Beaupr^, i. 116, 
note B, 136, note B; Carhdam de S.-Pierre-de-la-Cour {Archives historiques du 
Maine, iv), no. 16. On the other hand, in the Carhdaire d'Azi {ibid., iii), no. 20, 
the bishop of Angers puts hunself on the verdict of three priests (1130-1135). For 
fiscal inquests in Maine under Henry 11, see Delisle-Berger, nos. 200, 580. 

"« As has been suggested by Powicke, E. H. R., xxii. 15; and Prentout, La 
Normandie (Paris, 1910), p. 57. 

^'' Seemy discussion of the judicial organization in £.ff.i?.,xxvi. 641-651 (1911); 
and Miss E. Jamison's criticism in her monopaph on The Norman Administration 
of Apulia and Capua {Papers 0/ the British School at Rome, vi, 1913), which con- 
tains a useful list of cases in the royal cotuts. 

"' E. Mayer, Italieniscfte V^assungsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1909), i. 258; Niese, 
Die Gesetzgetnmg der normannischen DynasUe, p. iq6; and the papers of Schmidt 
mentioned above, note ij8. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 233 

possibilities of derivation from the fiscal measures of the later em- 
pire as well as from the procedure of the Prankish missi in Italy. 
In general the legal procedure of the South, under the influence of 
Roman law, makes free use of witnesses and written records, so 
that it is difi&cult in many of the documents to distinguish the 
individual or party witnesses from the collective jury. The testi- 
mony of neighbors, especially aged men, was particularly valued 
in determining boimdaries, which were regularly fixed by their 
evidence, though not always in a way that clearly denotes a real 
inquest. Examples of the use of old men of the region in this 
indefinite fashion are foimd at Mileto in 1091,"' at Squillace in 
1098,"" and in various Sicilian cases of the twelfth century, where 
it is regularly stated that Saracens and Christians served together 
in this capacity."' In the more specific accoimt of a boimdary 
dispute between Gnmio and Bitetto in 1136, the boni senes 
homines of Bitetto were called unus ante alium, although at the 
end they took a collective oath as to the term of possession.'^ 
In 1 1 58, near Bari, what looks like a collective verdict has to be 
confirmed by a party oath of twelve iuratores.^^^ On the other 
hand an unmistakable inquest appears in 1140 at Atina, where 
King Roger orders his chamberlain to make diligent inquiry by 
suitable men concerning boimdaries and royal rights, which were 
sworn on the Gospels by twelve of the older men of the dty.'** 
Under William I the phrase isti iurati dixerunt points to a sworn 

"" Capialbi, Memorie per sennre alia sloria della santa chiesa miliiese (Naples, 
183s), p. 136. 

1*" Regii Napoletani Archivii Monumenta, v. 245. 

i*" Cusa, / diplond greet ed arabi di Sicilia, i. 306, 317, 403; Garufi, I documenti 
inediti dell' epoca normanna in SiciUa {Documenti per la sioria di Sicilia, jcviii), 
nos. 24, SI, 61, 62, 105; id., in. Archivio storico per la Sicilia orientate, ix. 34g (1912); 
Caspar, Roger II, Regesten, nos; 9, 81, 145, 232. 

i« Garufi, / documenti, no. 13; Caspar, p. 308, note 2; Jamison, no. 5. 

"' Del Giudice, Codice diplomatico del regno di Carlo I, i. app. no. g; Jamison, 
no. 47. 

1" ' Precepit statim Ebulo de Mallano regio camerario ut omnia iura regia 
necnon et fines tenimentorum civitatis eiusdem diligenter investigaret et per viros 
idoneos inquireret solicite. Qui iussis regiis obtemperare paratus, iurare fecit ad 
sancta Dei evangelia duodecim homines de antiquioribus dvitatis ut ea que idem 
dominus rex preceperat fideliter intimarent, quorum nomina hec sunt. . . .' Tauleri, 
Memorie istoriche dell' anUca cittd d' Atina (Naples, 1702), p. 92; Caspar, no. 128; 
Jamison, no. 9. 



234 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

inquest in a dispute touching the boimdaries of the dioceses of 
Patti and Cefalu,'^ and a sworn inquest is held by the master 
chamberlain of Calabria to determine the losses of the church of 
Carbone."^ In the same reign we find a clear accotmt of a jury of 
eight men who are sworn before the king's chamberlain to tell the 
truth respecting the possessions of San Bartolomeo di Carpi- 
neto."*' In 1 1 83 the justiciars of WilKam II hold a formal in- 
quest to recover lost portions of the king's domain in the vicinity 
of Gravina.'*^ It is particularly imder William 11 that we should 
expect to find analogies to the Anglo-Norman assizes,"' but 
nothing of the kind has been brought to light in the occasional 
writs that have reached us from this king or his ofl&cers,**" and 
there is no evidence that the recognition in the Norman kingdom 
of Sicily was anything more than an occasional expedient for the 
assistance of the fisc or of some favored church. The inquests in 
criminal cases under Frederick II raise a different set of problems 
which lie beyond the limits of the present inquiry. 

If now we turn to England, we find an almost complete parallel 
to the Norman documents. From the time of the Domesday sur- 
vey examples are extant of fiscal inquests on a large scale, while 
specific royal writs prescribe the determination of particular cases 
by sworn inquest.'" Jurors may be used to render a verdict upon 
a great variety of questions, even to the marking off of thirty 
solidate of land,"^ and they also appear in baronial jurisdictions, 

"^ Gaxufi, I documenti, no. 34 (1159). 

"6 Minieri Ricdo, Saggio di codice diplomatico di Napoli, i. 283; Jamison, no. 58 
(1163). 

"'. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, a. app. 369; Jamison, no. 50. 

i<8 Printed by me, from the original in the Archives of La Cava, in E. B. R., 
xxvi. 654, note 191. Less definite examples from this reign are in Studi e documenti di 
storia e diriito, xxii. 278 (1178); Tromby, Storia deW ordine cartusiano, iv, p. cbd. 

"' The first mention of an assize seems to be the phrase ' ante assisam domini 
regis ' in a doomient of 1155: Codice diplomatico barese, v. 191. The so-called 
Vatican assizes of King Roger do not meet us with this title vmtil later. 

*'" See my discussion, E. H. R., xxvi. 444-447 (1911), where certain parallels 
are pointed out with the Anglo-Norman writs. A mandatum of William II, since 
published (Quellen und Forschungen des preussischen InstUuts, xvi. 30), should be 
added to those there cited. 

1" See Sir Francis Palgrave, Rise of the English Commonwealth, ii, p. clxxvi ff.; 
Bigelow, Placita Anglo-Normannica; Pollock and Maitland, i. 143. 

"* Infra, Appendix F, no. 13. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 235 

as when the bishop of Lincohi orders a declaration by the men of 
Banbury whether a piece of land was once part of his demesne.'^ 
If we examine more closely the first ten years of Henry II, we find 
the same practices continuing. The general measures for the 
recovery of the royal demesne were carried out, it appears, by a 
sworn inquest throughout the kingdom.*" The prior and monks 
of Canterbury are to hold land as they proved their right by the 
oath of the lawful men of Kent;'°^ the nuns of Mailing, as it was 
recognized by the lawful men of the same county.*^* The rights of 
the church of Ely in the port of Orf ord are to be sworn by the law- 
ful men of five and one-half hundreds.**^ Twenty-four men have 
sworn as to the height of the mills of Canterbury in Heiuy I's 
time; '^* twenty-four of the older men of Berks are to swear in the 
county court concerning the market of Abingdon at the same 
epoch."' Before the sheriff and archdeacon twenty-four men 
swear as to the advowson of Saint Peter's, Derby."^*" In Lan- 
cashire land is delimited by the oath of thirty men in accordance 
with royal writ.*" The burgesses of Guildford are to have their 
liberties and customs as these have been recognized before the 
king and his justices in the county court there held.*^^ In a series 
of records from Rievaiilx we have the writ of Henry ordering 
his sheriff and ministers of Yorkshire to have the waste below 
Pickering recognized by the lawful men of the wapentake and 
forest; the report, with the names of the jurors; and the royal 
•confirmation of the land to the abbey as sworn to by the wapen- 
take and recognized before the king's Justices in the county court 

163 Eynsham Cartulary, i. 41, no. isa (1123-1148). Cf. the writ of Roger of Salis- 
bury published by Massingbeid, in Associated Architectural Societies, Reports and 
Papers, xxvii; and one of Henry I for Nostell priory, given by the bishop of fivreux 
at fivreux, in W. Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, no. 501. 

'" Gesta Ahbatum S. Albani, i. 123. 

166 Delisle-Berger, no. 192. 

166 Calendar of Charter Rolls, v. 59, no. 19; cf. p. s8, no. 15, which may be some- 
what later. 

16' B. &. C, box. sso. no- i3- "' Delisle-Berger, no. 103. 

■6' Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ii. 228; Bigelow, Placita, p. 200. Cf. 
Chronicon, ii. 221; Bigelow, p. 203. 

i6» E. H. R., xxxii. 47. 

161 W. Farrer, Lancashire Pipe Rolls, p. 310. 

i"2 Register of St. Osmund, i. 238. 



236 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

at York.'" Before 1168 we find the king ordering an inquest in a 
baronial court in a writ to the earl and countess of Chester com- 
manding them to have recognized by their barons of Lincoln- 
shire whether Amulf Fitz Peter lost the land of Hunnington by 
judgment of the court of Henry I.'** 

The fullest set of documents which we have from this period 
concerns a number of recognitions held to ascertain the rights of 
the bishop of Lincolti, as regards his justice, warren, burgage, and 
various local privileges."^ The king's writs are for the most part 
addressed to the justices and sheriff of Lincolnshire, although the 
sheriffs of Nottingham and Derby are also mentioned, and in cer- 
tain of thepi the county court is specifically indicated as the place 
where the recognition is held. Thus in one instance the bishop is 
to have his right of ferry at Newton on Trent as recognized in 
comitatu,^^ in another the church of Chesterfield is to have its 
liberties, customs, and tenements " as recognized by the lawful 
men of the hallmoot of the wapentake.""^ The reeves of Lincoln 
are directed " without delay to have recognized by the oaths of 
the more ancient and lawful men of the city, in the presence of the 
sheriff of Lincolnshire and at his stuiunons, the liberties which the 
bishops of Lincoln had iti their land and burgage at Lincoln in the 
time of King Henry my grandfather, and what liberties the clerks 
of the dty had at the same time; and as it shall have been recog- 
nized, so without delay " they " shall cause Robert, bishop of 

^^ Chartulary of Rievaidx (Surtees Sodety), nos. 189, 205, 206; W. Fairer, 
Early Yorkshire Charters, nos. 401-403. 

'" ' H. rex Anglorum et dux Normaimorum et Aquitanorum et comes Andega- 
vorum Hugoni comiti Cestrie et Matilde comitisse salutem. Precipio vobis quod 
sine dilatione et iuste faciatb recognosci per barones vestros de Lincolne sira si 
Amulfus filius Petri terram de Hunintona in curia H. regis avi mei iudicio amisit 
et Lucia comitissa et Ran. comes Cestrie Ulam terram sanctimonialibus de Stikes- 
walda in elemosinam dederint. Quod si ita recognitum fuerit, faciatis eas bene 
et in pace et iuste tenere. Et nisi feceritis iustida mea faciat. Teste M. Bis[setl 
dapifero meo apud Gloec' Printed, from the original in the possession of Lady 
Waterford, in 11 Historical MSS. Commission's Report, Appendix vii. $9- The 
letter of Earl William of Roumare which follows fixes the date as anterior to 1168. 

1" Delisle-Berger, nos. 142, 217-219, 380; E. B. R., xav. 308, no. 23; Calendar 
of Charter Rolls, iv. no, no. 15, 141-145, nos. 21, 23, 37, where various related docu- 
ments are also given. 

"« Calendar of Charter Rolls, iv. no, no. 15. 

'•' Ibid., iv. 141, no. 21. 



THE EARLY NORMAN JURY 237 

Lincoln, and his men of Lincoln and the clerks of the city to have 
all those liberties, without the exaction of any new customs." ''' 

Here the parallelism to the Bayeux writs, the chief contem- 
porary group in Normandy, is close and striking, and it should be 
noted that three of the writs ordering inquests for Lincoln are 
issued at Rouen and attested by the duke's Norman justiciar, 
Rotrou of fivreux,'*' so that we should expect close resemblances 
iu procedure. Two notable points of difference, however, stand 
out. Li the first place, the English writs assvune as the normal 
basis for their execution the sheriff and the county court, while in 
Normandy no such assembly is mentioned. Already the sworn 
inquest has entered into that intimate relation to the local courts 
upon which its future history and its future importance in Eng- 
land are to depend. Li the second place, the English writs make 
no mention of a royal assize: secundum assisiam meam is found 
only in Normandy, where the word assize occurs four times before 
1 1 59, while in no English document has it been fotmd in this sense 
before 1164."" It is of course possible that instances may come to 
light in England, it may even be argued that the procedure was 
already so well established there that reference to the royal assize 
was no longer necessary; but these remain at present mere possi- 
bilities. The evidence for assizes before the Constitutions of 
Clarendon is Norman, not English; and, for the present at least, 
Normandy can claim priority, as regards both the term and the 
procedure which it denotes. 

The sworn inquest was introduced into England from Nor- 
mandy soon after the Conquest. Its history thereafter in the two 
coimtries is for some time essentially the same, namely as a pre- 
rogative procedure for the sovereign and for those with whom he 
shares its benefits in particular instances. Then the exceptional 
becomes general, first for one class of cases and then for another."' 
In England the first clear example of this change is found in the 

i«8 Calendar of Charter Rolls, iv. 142, no. 23. 

'*' Delisle-Berger, nos. 217-219. 

"" The assizes cited by Bigelow, History of Procedure, p. 124, from the early 
Pipe Rolls denote evidently the assisa comitatus. Not until 1166 do these rolls 
use the word in the sense of royal legislation. 

11 Pollock and Maitland, i. 144. 



238 NORMAN INSTITUTIONS 

assize utrum of 1164. In Normandy there is evidence earlier, in 
the assizes of Geoffrey and Henry to which they refer their 
officers on behalf of the bishop of Bayeux, and in the assize upon 
which William Fitz Thition places himself against Saint-fitienne. 
If we cannot be certain just what these assizes were, we can at 
least see in them some systematic extension, by ducal act, of the 
procedure by recognition in cases concerning land. To these we 
must add the suit brought by Osmimd Vasce in 11 59, based as it 
clearly was upon some regular method of procedure open to ordi- 
nary litigants, and the ordinance of Falaise in the same year 
respecting the accusing jury. Thus Normandy is the home of the 
jury, not only ia the sense that it is the source of the sworn in- 
quest so far as England is concerned, but also as the land where we 
first find it employed as a regular procedure to which suitors can 
appeal as a matter of right and on which the individual can rely 
as a protection against arbitrary accusation. Both countries were 
then to share in its rapid extension to new types of cases by 
Henry II. England alone was to bring about that combination of 
the royal inquest with the popular courts which was to give the 
jury its unique position in the development of individual Ub- 
erty and representative institutions. Where Normandy sowed, 
England and all English-speaking lands were to reap. 



APPENDICES 



APPENDIX A 

THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES OF EARLY 
NORMAN HISTORY ' 

The fundamental difficulty which confronts all students of ducal 
Normandy is the paucity of docimientary evidence. The imposing 
series of Norman historians — Dudo, William of Jumieges, William of 
Poitiers, Ordericus Vitalis, Wace, Robert of Torigni — long served to 
conceal this fact in the pages of the modem writers who, with greater 
or less skill, paraphrased them into the conventional histories; but the 
inadequacy of even the best of chroniclers becomes apparent as soon as 
one attacks any of the fundamental problems of institutions or social 
conditions. For the tenth century documentary materials never 
existed,* at least in any such abundance as in the neighboring regions 
of Anjou, Brittany, or Flanders; for the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
what once existed has in large measure disappeared. It is indeed prob- 
able that such sources were always less numerous in Normandy than 
in England, where the documentary habit had not been broken in the 
tenth century, and where the Norman Conquest itself produced a 
monument like the Domesday Survey which was from the nature of 
the case unique; but we have no reason to suppose that in the twelfth 
century the records of the central administration were notably different 
on the two sides of the Chaimel or that the body of charters and writs 
showed any such disparity as at present. In the absence of an)rthing 

' See especially Delisle, &tude sur I'agriculture et la classe agricole en Normandie 
(fivreux, 1851), pp. xlv-li; the introduction to his Carlulaire normand de Philippe- 
Auguste, Louis VIII, Saint Louis, et Philippe-le-Hardi, M. A. N., xvi (1852); his 
Cahdogue des actes de Philippe-Auguste (Paris, 1856), pp. vi-liii, 525-569; and his 
RecueU des acles de Henri II, introduction, pp. v-xiii. H. Stein, BiiUographie gSnSrale 
des caftulaires frangais (Paris, 1907), lists most of the Norman cartularies, not 
always accurately (cf. my review, A. H. R., xiii. 322-324). An excellent survey 
of the materials in the departmental archives is given in the £m gSniral par fonds 
des archives dipartemetUales; ancien regime et piriode revohitionnaire (Paris, 1903). 
Cf. also H. Prentout, La Normandie (Paris, 1910), pp. 21-24. A convenient sum- 
mary by dioceses and religious establishments is given by Dom Besse, in the Ab- 
bayes et prieuris de I'andenne France, vii {Archives de la France monastique, xvii, 
1914). 

' Cf . supra, Chapter I, note 4. 

S41 



242 APPENDIX A 

corresponding to Domesday, Glanvill, or the Dialogue on the Exchequer, 
the charters acquire an added importance in Normandy, and it is their 
loss and destruction which the historian has chiefly to mourn. 

The loss of Norman records can be laid to no single period or cat- 
aclysm. The Revolution of course did its share in the work of destruc- 
tion, neglect, or dispersion, as in the case of Bee; ' but this has often 
been exaggerated, and the departmental archives and local Ubraries 
which were then created seem to have taken over the greater part of 
what remained in existence. There were losses en route to these estab- 
lishments, and further losses under the archivists of the Restoration, 
when numerous pieces disappeared from public repositories only to 
reappear in certain private collections, but in most instances such 
material has been recovered or at least placed, so that there is small 
hope of new discoveries of this sort. The great losses seem to have come 
before the Revolution, for the scholars of the Old Regime, as their work 
can be traced in siu^ving copies, are seen to have had at their disposal 
relatively few collections which are not still in existence. The Prot- 
estants did something in the work of destruction, the Hundred Years' 
War did more, but much must be ascribed to the frequent fires of the 
Middle Ages and to the carelessness and neglect of the clergy them- 
selves. As early as the fourteenth century a scribe of Troam is making 
extracts from a Vetus Cartarium long since disappeared; * as late as the 
Revolution the canons of Coutances are said to have spent days in 
burning charters which they could no longer read.* 

Of the nature and extent of the ducal archives themselves it is impos- 
sible to speak with much definiteness. An archive of some sort is 
assumed in the rotulos et cartas nostras transferred from Caen to London 
by order of King John in 1204,' but the handful of Exchequer Rolls 
now preserved in the Public Record Office is but a sorry remnant of 
what must then have been in the hands of his officers, nor have any 
rolls of other types survived from earUer reigns.* With him begin the 

• Le Pr6vost, Eure, i. 233 f., 241. 

* Sauvage, Troam, pp. xxx-xxxiii; cf. supra, Chapter III, no. 6; infra. Appendix 
H, no. 1. 

' Round, Calendar, p. xxxi, note. 

' Rotidi de Liberate, p. 102 f. The barons' returns in 1172 were deposited in the 
royal treasury at Caen (Robert of Torigni, ii. 297), and a summary of them was later 
copied into the Red Book of the Exchequer. 

' Supra, Chapter V, note 6. A brief extractus memorandi from John's Exchequer 
has recently been discovered and published by Legras (BMetin des Antiquaires de 
Normandie, xxix. 21-31); see further the paper of Jenkinson cited supra, p. 195. 



THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 243 

short-lived Rotuli Normanniae and the Norman entries in the patent 
and other rolls.* After the loss of Normandy the English possessions of 
Norman reUgious establishments still furnished an occasion for the 
enrollment of Norman charters, in the Cartae Antiquae and in the 
nmnerous inspeximus of English sovereigns contained in the charter 
and patent rolls, and such confirmations were natiu-ally nimierous 
during the occupation of Normandy by Henry V and Henry VI.' 
Certain scattered pieces and a couple of cartularies have in recent 
years been acquired by the British Museum.'" 

That some public records escaped the process of transfer to England 
is shown by a fragment of a roll of Stephen cited in 1790 " and a frag- 
ment of the roll of 1184 discovered by DeUsle in the Archives Na- 
tionals." Various documents of interest to Norman administration, 
like the Ust of knights' fees of 1172, were collected by the officers of 
Philip Augustus and copied into his registers,'' yet the only surviving 
portion of the inquest of 1 171 has come to us on the fly-leaf of a copy 
of Hrabanus Maurus." A semi-official compilation of charters made in 
the thirteenth century, styled by DeUsle the Cartulaire de Normandie, 
should be noted." Formulations of custom, such as the Consuetudines 
et iusticie and the lurea regalis,^^ owe their preservation to private col- 
lections of Norman law, and the decisions of Norman courts in the 
period anterior to the French conquest have reached us only in charters 
preserved by the interested parties." There are no plea rolls or feet of 
fines. 

Next to the disappearance of the official records of Norman adminis- 
tration, the most serious loss is probably the archives of the bishoprics 
and cathedrals, of which none has a full series of records for the 

• Supra, Chapter V, note 210. 

' See the calendais of the Norman rolls of Henry V in appendices to Reports of the 
Deputy Keeper, xli. 671-810, xlii. 313-452; the extracts in M. A. N., xxiii, part i; 
and the Actes de la chancetterie d' Henri VI, ed. Lecacheux, Rouen, 1907-1908. 

" Cartulary of the leprosery of Bolleville, Add. MS. 17307; cartulary of the 
priory of Loders, Add. MS. 15605; and the series of Additional Charters. 

" M. A. N., xvi, p. XXX f. 

^ Ibid., pp. r09-ir3; Delisle, Henri II, pp. 334-344. 

" See Delisle's introduction to his Cartulaire nomtand and Catalogue des actes de 
Philippe-Auguste. 

" Delisle, Henri II, pp. 34S-347> from MS. Lat. n. a. 1879; infra. Appendix K. 

" Now MS. Rouen 1235. See Delisle, Cartulaire normand, p. vii. 

" Appendix D; Chapter V, note 22. 

" See Delisle, Mltnoire sur les anciennes collections de jugements de I'&hiquier de 
Normandie (Paris, 1864); and cf. B. P., xxiv. 271*5. 



244 APPENDIX A 

eleventh and twelfth centuries while some have lost practically every- 
thing for this epoch. Rouen is the most fortunate, with important 
cartularies and an extensive Jonds of pieces in the departmental 
archives. This fonds, however, admirably calendared by Charles de 
Beaurepaire, contains relatively httle anterior to the French conquest, 
while only two of the cartularies relate to this period,^* one containing 
earlier documents having evidently been lost, fivreux is represented by 
no originals but by a valuable set of cartularies in the Archives of the 
Eure, extending from the destruction of the cathedral under Henry I. 
There are no early archives for Seez; a cartulary, the Livre rouge, was 
in the possession of the bishop before the Separation,*' and copies of 
the sixteenth century are in the library at Alengon (MS. 177). Lisieux 
likewise has lost everything for this period, all that remains being a late 
cartulary of the see in the municipal library and a fragment of the 
chapter cartulary at Paris.^" Bayeux has only cartularies, the invalu- 
able Livre noir of the chapter and the Liwe noir of the see stUl preserved 
in the cathedral, and the Livre rougeP- Coutances has much less, only 
a few documents in the paper cartulary recently transferred from the 
evfiche to the Archives of the Manche.^'' Avranches has left practically 
nothing save an occasional piece of the twelfth century in its Livre 
vertP 

The monastic archives of the duchy have on the whole fared better. 
The oldest monasteries of importance, Fecamp, Jimaieges, Saint- 
Wandrille, Saint-Ouen, and Mont-Saint-Michel, have transmitted 
valuable early originals as well as considerable cartularies, while the 
somewhat later foundations of Caen, Lessay, Saint-Amand, and 
Troarn are also well represented in the departmental archives. From 
La Trinite du Mont, Saint-Pierre-de-Preaux, Saint-Evroul, Saint- 
Taurin, and Saint-Martin de Seez we have only cartularies, in each 
case of much value for the early period. Important cartularies for the 
twelfth century are those of Foucarmont, Saint-Georges de Bocher- 
viUe, the hospital of Pontaudemer, Plessis-Grimould, Saint-Andre-en- 
Gouffern, Montebourg, Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, and Savigny. The 

" The so-called cartulary of Philip d'AIenfon, Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, 
G. 7; and the cartulary of the chapter, MS. Rouen 1193 (copy in MS. Lat. n. a. 
1363)- 

" Extracts in MS. Lat. 11058. 

'"' MS. Lat. 5288, ff. 68-76. 

^ MS. Lat. n. a. 1828. See supra, Chapter VI, notes 4, 15. 

^ im., note 9S; cf. A. H. R., viii. 631. 

^ MS, Avranches 206; see Appendix K. 



THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 245 

list, however, is long of those houses from which little or nothing has 
reached us directly for the history of these times: Bee, Bernai, Cerisy, 
Conches, Cormeilles, Croix-Saint-Leufroy, Grestain, Ivry, Lonlai, 
Montivilliers, Saint-Desir de Lisieux, Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, Saint- 
Sauveur d'Evreux, Saint-Sever, Saint- Victor-en-Caux. In some cases, 
as Cerisy, Lire, MontiviUiers, and Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, we have 
iMimus of the foimdation charters or notices of their begiimings; in 
others, as Bee, modem copies supply in some measure the loss of the 
mediaeval pieces. 

An important group of ducal charters concerns the Norman posses- 
sions of reUgious houses in other parts of France. Chief among these 
are Marmoutier, Cluny, Fontevrault, Saint- Julien de Tours, Saint- 
Florent-les-Saumur, Saint-Benolt-sur-Loire, La Trinite de Vendome, 
Chartres cathedral, Saint-Pere de Chartres, Tiron, Saint-Denis de 
Nogent-le-Rotrou, Le Grand-Beaulieu-les-Chartres, Saint-Denis and 
Saint-Martin-des-Champs at Paris, Saint-MaTtin at Pontoise, Saint- 
Victor du Mans, Le Mans cathedral, and Saint-Benigne at Dijon. 
The most important of these, Marmoutier, had its archives ^* dispersed 
during the Revolution, but its Norman chartriers can in large measure 
be recovered from pieces preserved in the local priories and especially 
from the important series of copies in the Bibliotheque Nationale ^* 
and the library at Tours.^ In nearly all the other instances mentioned 
the surviving ducal charters are pubUshed in printed cartularies or 
modem collections of charters.^' 

The principal local repositories of documentary material relating to 
early Normandy are the departmental archives of the Calvados, Eiure, 
Manche, Orne, and Seine-Inferieure, supplemented by the public 
libraries of Rouen, Caen, Alenjon, and Avranches. Scattered volumes 
which had remained in the possession of bishops and chapters were 
claimed by the pubhc archives under the Separation Law, save in the 
case of the cathedral of Bayeux, which was for the time being consti- 
tuted a pubhc depository. Only at Rouen do the mimicipal archives 
contain material for this period; archives of hospitals are rarely of assist- 
ance; there is some scattered matter in the smaller pubhc Ubraries. The 

''* See P. Colmant, Les odes de Vahbaye de Marmoutier, in Positions des theses de 
I'&cde des Charles, 1907. 

26 MSS. Lat. S44I, 12876-12880, MS. Baluze 77. ^e Particularly MS. 1381. 

" See, besides the indications in Stein's BiUiographie des cartulaires, L.-J. Denis, 
Les chartes de S.-Julien de Tours, in Archives hisloriques du Maine, xii (1912); 
J. Depoin, Recueil de chartes de S.-Marlin-des-Champs, in Archives de la France 
monastique, ziii, xvi. 



246 APPENDIX A 

chief collection of originals in private hands is the important body of 
eariy Fecamp charters in the Mus6e de la Distillerie de Benedictine at 
Fdcamp.^* The great collection of copies made by Dom Lenoir in the 
eighteenth century, now the property of the Marquis de Mathan at 
Saint-Pierre-de-Semilly, is based chiefly upon the registers of the 
Chambre des Comptes and comprises few early charters.^' The copies 
of the abbe de La Rue, concerning especially the history of Caen, are 
divided among the Collection Mancel at Caen, the libraries of Caen 
and Cherbourg, and the Bibliotheque Nationale; "• the Repertoire des 
charies of de Gerville relating to the Cotentin is now in the Collection 
Mancel; recently Armand Benet bequeathed to the library of Evreux 
his copies of ducal and other charters. An older collection of much 
value for the Cotentin, the copies of Pierre Mangon, is in the library at 
Grenoble.'' Of the departmental archives, those of the Eure and Ome 
have published inventories of the series most important for the early 
period, G and H; those of the Calvados and the Manche for a portion 
of H; those of the Seine-Inferiemre only for the Rouen portion of G, 
the vich fonds of series H being for the most part still unclassified.'^ 

The Archives Nationales are useful, so far as ducal Normandy is 
concerned, chiefly for the royal vidimus contained in the Registres du 
Tr6sor des Chartes.'' There are also, scattered pieces in the Layettes 
du Tresor and in other series, notably S, while there is a fine set of 
originals for the abbey of Savigny,'^ rescued in 1839 from the garret of 
the sous-prSfecture at Mortain. 

The Bibliotheque Nationale is exceedingly rich in the manuscript 
materials for early Norman history.'* Its resources consist in part of a 

^ Infra, Appendix B. 

" The cartularies -used by Dom Lenoir are well known save in the case of a 
" cartulaire de I'abbaye de Lire trouvfi parmi les mss. de la biblioth^ue du college 
des jfisuites de Paris. L'6criture est du 13' siicle " (xxiii. 453; cf. bcxii, 329 ff.). 
This seems to be the cartulary used by the editors of the Monasticon, vii. 1092-1095. 

'" MSS. Fr. n. a. 202i8-2022r. 

" Described by Delisle, in Annuaire de la Manche, 1891, pp. 11-42. 

"^ For the Seine-Inf6rieure see P. Chevreux and J. Vernier, Les archives de Nor- 
mandie el de la Seine-Inflrieure (Rouen, igii), which contains a collection of fac- 
similes. 

" See in general the introduction to Delisle, Cartidaire normani, pp. i-iv, who 
notes the vidimus as far as 1314. I have searched the series of registers to 1380. 

" L. 966-978, recently renumbered. Other originals are in MS. Rouen 3122. 
On the history of the archives of Savigny see Delisle's introduction to his edition of 
the Rouleau mortuaire du B. Vital (Paris, 1909). 

'" See in general Delisle, Le Cabinet des MSS. de la Bibliothigue Nationale (Paris, 
1868-1881), and the lists of acquisitions published biennially by Omont in B. £. C. 



THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 247 

great number of cartularies and original pieces which have been accu- 
mulated since the days of Colbert and which now comprise a very 
considerable portion of the materials which sUpped out of Norman 
archives and libraries before, during, and after the Revolution; in 
part, of the copies of modern scholars which preserve matter now lost. 
The older portion of these copies include the collections of Baluze, Du 
Cange, Duchesne, Brequigny, and others; ^ the transcripts accumu- 
lated in the eighteenth century for the series of Chartes el dipldmes and 
now chronologically arranged in the Collection Moreau; '' the numer- 
ous Norman volumes among the copies of the exact and indefatigable 
Gaignieres;^ ecclesiastical compilations like the Monasticon Benedic- 
tinum ^' (MSS. Lat. 12658-12704) and Miscellanea MonasHca (MSS. 
Lat. 12777-12780), the Nemtria Christiana of Du Monstier (MSS. Lat. 
10048-10050), the Hierarchia Normanniae of Coenalis (MS. Lat. 5201), 
the materials concerning the diocese of Coutances brought together by 
Toustain de Billy (MS. Fr. 4900),*° and the historical collections relat- 
ing to Bee (MSS. Lat. 12884, i390S)> Marmoutier {supra, note 25), 
and Mont-Saint-Michel (MS. Lat. 5430A, MS. Fr. 18947 £f.). To 
these have been added the papers of most of the principal Norman 
scholars of the nineteenth century: AchUle DeviQe for Upper Nor- 
mandy (MSS. Lat. n. a. 1 243-1 246); L6chaude d'Anisy for Lower 
Normandy (MSS. Lat. 10063-10084) ; Auguste Le Prevost for the 
department of the Eure (MSS. Lat. n. a. 1837-1838); C. Hippeau for 
Saint-Etienne de Caen (MSS. Lat. n. a. 1406-1407) ; and finally the 

Certain Norman cartularies are comprised in the considerable group acquired from 
the Hbrary of Sir Thomas Phillipps in igo8 (catalogue by Omont, 1909). 

For MSS. of Norman origin in the BibliothSque Sainte-GeneviSve see E. DeviUe 
in the Revue catholique de Normandie, 1903 ff . 

" R. Poupardin, Catalogue des MSS.des collections Duchesne et Brequigny (Paris, 
190s); Catalogue de la Collection Baluze by Auvray and Poupardin (Paris, 191s). 
Norman cartularies also contributed to the extracts concerning Meulan made by 
de Blois ca. 1650 and now preserved in the Collection du Vexin, iv. 

" Omont, Inventaire des MSS. de la Collection Moreau (Paris, 1891). The Nor- 
man copies are chiefly in the hand of Dom Lenoir; volume 341 is devoted to F&amp. 

" Chiefly in the volumes classified by monasteries; see also the collections con- 
cerning Norman bishops (MSS. Lat. 17022 ff.). The extracts published by Delisle 
from the collected papers (MSS. Fr. 20899-20917), in Annuaire de la Manche, 1893 
and 1898, deal with the later period. 

" Analyzed by Delisle, Revue des bibliotheques, vii. 241-267. 

*" Cf. the similar matter in MSS. Fr. 4899-4902, n. a. 154-157. The history of 
the diocese of Coutances published by the Socifitd de I'histoire de Normandie in 1874 
lacks the preuves, as do also the histories of Savigny, JumiSges, and Mont-Saint- 
Michel in the same series. 



248 APPENDIX A 

lifelong accumulations of Leopold Delisle (MSS. Fr. n. a. 21806- 
2i873).« 

The exploration and publication of these sources have proceeded in 
an incomplete and unsystematic fashion. In the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries Norman archives were laid under contribution for 
the Neustria Fia of Arthur Du Monstier, the eleventh volume of the 
Gallia Christiana, La Roque's Histoire de la maison d'Harcourt, the 
Concilia Rotomagensis Provinciae of Bessin, and the pubUcations of 
Pommeraye relating to Rouen, as well as for the more general ecclesias- 
tical collections of MabiUon, Martene and Durand, and d'Achery. In 
the nineteenth century leadership passed to the Societe des Antiquaires 
de Normandie and the Societe de I'histoire de Normandie, supple- 
mented by the Norman academies and various local ■ societies and 
reviews, of which the Revue catkoliqtie de Normandie in recent years 
deserves special mention. Among individual scholars Leopold Delisle 
stands in a place by himself for his thorough acquaintance with Norman 
history, narrative and literary as well as documentary. De Gerville, who 
did much to stimulate interest in Norman history at the beginning of 
the century, was a collector of documents rather than an editor; his 
younger contemporary Le Prevost, besides his share in the great edi- 
tion of Ordericus, left behind him a collection of Memoires et notes 
pour servir d I'histoire du dgpartement de I'Eure (fivreux, 186 2-1 869) 
which has not always been sufficiently utilized by his successors. 
Amid the multiplicity of scattered publications relatively few Norman 
cartularies have been edited, among those of the first importance only 
the Cartulaire de la Sainte-Trinite-du-Mont (ed. A. Deville, 1840) and 
the Livre noir of Bayeux (Antiquus Cartularitis, ed. V. Bourrienne, 
1902-1903).^^ The most extensive publications of this sort (e. g., T. 
Bonnin, Cartulaire de Louviers, Paris, 1870-1883) concern chiefly other 
periods. Editions by trained scholars are now announced of two 
important cartularies of the twelfth century, that of La Trinite de 
Caen by R. N. Sauvage, and that of Mont-Saint-Michel by P. Le- 
cacheux. For the present the most convenient guide to the contents of 
Norman documents is the Calendar of Documents Preserved in France 
of J. Horace Round (London, 1899). This is unfortunately based upon 
a set of loose copies in the PubUc Record Office,*' and while the editor 
supplemented these by personal investigation in France and verified a 

" Also many cartularies copied by him or under his direction. 
*" C£. A. H. R., viii. 615; supra, Chapter VI, note 15. 
" Cf. i4. H. R., viii. 614, note. 



THE DOCUMENTARY SOURCES 249 

certain number from the originals, much material was left untouched 
and in too many instances the originals were not collated. The anal- 
yses of documents and the identification of persons, however, were 
made with the care and competence which were to be expected from 
this distinguished master of Anglo-Norman history. 

At present the study of the docxmientary sources needs to be pushed 
in two directions, the history of monasteries and the ducal charters. 
In the field of monastic history there is need both of comprehensive 
studies Uke the recent monograph of R. N. Sauvage on L'ahhaye de 
Saint-Martin de Troam^* (Caen, 1911), and of critical editions of early 
charters, such as Ferdinand Lot has given in his Etudes critiques sur 
I'abhaye de Saint-Wandrille (Paris, 1913).^ Such studies furnish the 
necessary basis for a collection of ducal charters which shall perforin 
for the earher dukes the labor so admirably done by DeUsle and Berger 
for Henry II. From 1066 on such work must be carried on with the 
closest attention to the material in England, for which H. W. C. Davis 
has begvm his Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum (i, Oxford, 1913). 

" Where, pp. xlv-xlix, other monastic histories are emuuerated. One of the best 
is Por€e, Histoire de I'abbaye du Bee (fivreux, 1901). 

*' J.-J. Vernier, Les ckartes de I'abbaye de JumUges (Sod^tfi de rhistoire de Nor- 
mandie, 1916), reached me only after this volume was in type. 



APPENDIX B 

THE EARLY DUCAL CHARTERS FOR FfiCAMP 

The abbey of Fecamp, " the Saint-Denis of the Norman dukes," * 
was from its foundation in the closest relations with the ducal house, 
from which it received important grants and privileges; yet its early 
charters have received singularly little attention from historians. The 
series in the departmental archives at Rouen, though rich for the later 
period, contains comparatively few early documents; the earliest orig- 
inals passed into private hands and were finally acquired by the 
Musee de la Distillerie de Benedictine de Fecamp, to the generosity of 
whose proprietors I am indebted for photographs and opportunities 
of study on the spot. The cartularies in the Archives of the Seine- 
Inferieure (no. i6) and in the Public Library at Rouen (MS. 1207) con- 
tain little on the early period, but the careful copies of Dom Lenoir 
at Semilly (volume 76) and in the Collection Moreau at the BibUo- 
theque Nationale (especially volume 341) are based upon a lost cartu- 
lary of the twelfth century as well as upon originals then in possession 
of the abbey. 

An adequate study of this material can be undertaken only as part 
of a history of the monastery, but the student of Norman institutions 
caimot avoid an examination of the earUest ducal charters, which offer 
an exceptionally full series, with several unpublished originals (see the 
facsimiles in the present volume), and are of much importance for the 
grants of immunity, the ducal curia, and ducal finance. The following 
fist is confined to the charters of Richard I, Richard IT, and Robert I, 
and to certain forgeries based upon them and ascribed to WiUiam 
the Conqueror.* 

In general the early charters of Fecamp show small trace of the 
forger's hand, as compared, for example, with the documents of the 
same period for Saint- Wandrille and Saint-Ouen. At two points, how- 
ever, F&amp was tempted to sustain its claims by fabrication, with 
respect namely to the exemption of Fecamp and certain other parishes 
from the authority of the archbishop of Rouen, and to the immuni ty of 
the monastery from secular jurisdiction. The documentary basis for 

' Prentout, Shide critique sur Dudon de S.-Quentin, p. 326. 
' For three unpublished originals of Robert Curthose, see infra. Appendix E, 
no. 4. 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FMCAMF 2$ I 

the exemption is not entirely dear,' and an interpolation to this effect 
was attempted in the earliest charter of the monastery, that of Duke 
Richard I {infra, no. i). No immunity is found in this document, but 
the first charter of Richard II, issued 30 May 1006 (no. 2), has the 
following clause: 

Tam honmi quam eorum qug a patre meo tradita sxmt omnis ordinatio 
exterius et interius in abbatis sibique subiectorum consistat arbitrio, undeque 
eonun dispositioni resistat persona nuUa parva vel magna cuiuscumque 
officii dignitatisve. Et non soltim in rerum ordinatione iustici sad in resti- 
tuendi abbatis electione ... a nobis iuste collata utantur libertate.* 

A specific grant of immtmity appears for the first time in no. 5, Rich- 
ard II's charter Propitia of 1025 (1027), in exactly the same terms as in 
the contemporary charters for Jumieges and Bemai and in the charters 
of Robert I for Saint-Amand and La Trinite du Mont: * 

Haec omnia . . . concedo . . . ut habeant, teneant, et possideant abs- 
que ulla inquietudine cuiuslibet sgcularis vel iudiciarig potestatis sicuti res 
ad fiscum dominicum pertinentes. 

This is clearly the genuine and standard form of the Fecamp inmnmity. 
The general confirmation of Robert I in its expanded text (no. loB) 
gives a different statement: 

Ista igitur bona et omnia alia qu§ Fischannensi monasterio olim donata 
sunt sub solius abbatis potestate et iusticia constituimus ut nuUius digni- 
tatis homo aliquando manum intromittere presiunat. 

The fabrication based upon nos. 5 and 10 and ascribed to William the 
Conqueror (no. 11) elaborates the exemption with particular reference 
to Saint-Gervais: 

' Documents are lacking to confinn the account in the De revelatione (Neustria 
Pia, p. 214; Bessin, Concilia, ii. 21) according to which the freedom ' ab omni 
episcoporum iugo et consuetudine * was granted by Richard II, King Robert, 
Archbishop Robert, and Benedict VIII; but such an exemption is presupposed in 
the freedom ' ab omni episcopali consuetudine . . . sicut tenet Fiscarmensiecclesia' 
which was granted to Montivilliers in 1035 {Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 326; infra, 
Appendix C, no. 17). For the controversies over exemption at the close of the 
eleventh century see the Ordinationes facte in monasterio Fiscanni, in Mabillon, 
Annates, iv, 668; and the treatises in MS. 415 of Corpus Christi College, Cam- 
bridge (Bohmer, Kirche und Staat, pp. 180, 183). 

* King Robert's charter of even date has: ' Sicut nulli ordini, dignitati, potestati, 
hereditarieque successioni, nostre quinimmo maiestati super idem ius relinquere 
decrevimus dominationis.' E. F., x. 588. 

' Supra, p. 26. For the later history of the immunity of F6camp, see Valin, 
p. 224; Delisle-Berger, no. 57. 



252 APPENDIX B 

Et ab omni servido archiepiscopali sit libera sicut Fiscanni abbacia, ut 
nullus meus heres aut archiepiscopus seu alicuius potestatis persona audeat 
infringere vel violare banc meam donacionem. 

The second of the forgeries attributed to the Conqueror (no. 12), with 
the related extract concerning Steyning, was prepared primarily for use 
in England; for the Norman lands it merely repeats the clause of 
Richard II with the insertion of vd diminutione, whereas for the 
English possessions it repeats the clause in this form and adds 

Et quod abbas et monachi ecclesie Fiscannensis vel eonun ministri regiam 
habeant libertatem et consuetudinem et iusticiam siiam de omnibus rebus et 
negotiis que in terra sua evenient vel poterunt evenire, nee aliquis nisi per 
eos se inde intromittat, quia hoc totum regale beneficiiun est et omni servi- 
tute quietiun. 

Such ' royal liberty and justice ' was confirmed to the abbey by 
Henry n.« 

1 

989-990 (?) 

Charter of Richard I, with the concurrence of Archbishop Robert and aU 
the bishops of Normandy, granting to Ficamp MondevUle, Argences, 
(Calvados), Saint-Valery, ' Bretennoles,' and IngouviUe (Seine-In- 
firieure) (together with the exemption of the abbey church and twelve 
others from all episcopal jurisdiction). 

A, original lost; B, copy in lost cartulary of 12th century; C, copy 
of 12th century in the Public Library of Rouen, MS. 427, f. 151V. 

La Roque, Histoire de la maison d'Harcourt, iii. 165 (cf. 164), ' ex- 
traict des archives de I'abbaye '; Neustria Pia, p. 208, from C, omit- 
ting several witnesses; Poimneraye, Sanctae Rotomagensis Ecclesiae 
Concilia, p. 60; extract in factimi of 1688 (Bibliothfeque Nationale, 
factum 12070, 2), where it is attributed to Richard II. Cf. Mabillon, 
Annales, iv. 57 (62); Bessin, Concilia, ii. 21; Gallia Christiana, xi. 203, 
where the text is corrected from B. 

The charter is undated but was apparently given at the time of the 
dedication, the date of which is not given by Dudo, William of Ju- 
mifeges, or the F&amp annals (Labbe, Nova Bibliotheca, i. 325), but 
appears as 989 or 990 in the later annalists (Duchesne, Historiae Nor- 
mannorum Scriptores, p. 1017; H. F., x. 317; Gallia Christiana, xi. 
203). The document cannot in any case be earlier than 989, the year 

• Delisle-Berger, no. 57. 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FSCAMP 253 

of the accession of Robert to the archbishopric of Rouen (Annals of 
Junneges, in the Vatican, MS. Regina 553, part 2, f. 6; Ordericus, ii. 
365, V. 156; cf . Vacandard in Revue catholiqtte de Normandie, xiii. 196) ; 
it is fundamental for the dates of the Norman bishops, who are all 
mentioned by name. 

The exemption of the thirteen parishes from the archbishop's juris- 
diction, which is found in all the printed texts, is an obvious interpola- 
tion, as was pointed out by the editors of the Gallia, who note that it 
does not occur in B. There is no apparent reason for doubting the 
remainder of the document: a charter of Richard I is specifically cited 
by Richard II {infra, no, 2), and the places here granted are recited in 
the general confirmation of Richard II (no. 5). The enumeration in 
this confirmation of other grants of Richard I — fitigues, etc. — may 
imply other charters of his now lost. 



30 May 1006, doubtless at Fecamp 

Charter of Richard II granting to Ficamp freedom of election according 
to the custom of Cluny, and adding to the gifts of his father possessions in 
the following places: Ficamp, ' Giruinivilla' (= Vittefleur?), Arques, 
Scretteville, Harfleur, Rouen, Pissy, Barentin (Seine-Infirieure), 
Aizier (Eure), Hennequemlle (Calvados), and five churches in VaudreuU. 

A, original in Musee de la Benedictine, no. i; B, copy in Collection 
Moreau, cccxli. 2, from which the portions in brackets have been 
restored. 

Unpublished; see the facsimile, plate i. These privileges are con- 
firmed by a charter of King Robert, issued at Fecamp on the same day: 
collated copies in Musee, nos. 2, 3; printed in Gallia Christiana, xi. 
instr. 8; Mabillon, Annates, iv. 170 (185); H. F., x. 587, no. xvi; 
Pfister, Robert le Pieux, catalogue, no. 30.* 

m NOMINE SANCTAE ET INDIVroUAE TEINITATIS DIVINA FAVENTE GEATIA 

[siCAiinus] COMES ET PATRiTius.|| Hactenus locum istum vulgaris fama 
Fiscamnum vocare consuevit, cuius ethimologia perspecta doctores novelli 
quidam fixum scamnum quidam fixum campum volimt appeUari. ReUicto 
ergo inter contentiosos iudido huius nominis, causa divim servidi quae ibi 

' The original of Robert's other charter for Fecamp (B. F., x. 387, no. xv; Pfister, 
no. 33) isintheMusfie,no. i; copy in Collection Moreau, cccxli. 12. For other early 
giants to Fecamp, see La Roque, iii. 167; Depoin, CarUdaire de S.-Martin de 
Pontoise, p. 342. 



254 APPENDIX B 

agitur quando vel quomodo cepta sit cognoscatur. Sicut in universis terrae 
partibus sancta mater aecclesia multiplicato gaudet filiorum numero, ita in 
ipsisexultare cupit openim bononun incremento. Quorum multis per alianun 
exequutiones virtutimi occupatis, dum quidam ex transitoriis bonis ou-as 
genmt pauperum, alii sanctorum locis edificandis invigilant, quasi decollatis 
beneficiis Christo vidssitudinem reddimt,ut cum illo felicius vivant. Quorum 
exemplo notmn sit presentibus et futuris in hoc loco patrem metim comitem 
Richardimi fundamento construxisse aecclesiam in honore sanctae et indi- 
viduae trinitatis consubstantialispatris et filii et spiritus sancti,eo intentionis 
voto ut coUectus monachonun ordo sub regula Sancti Benedicti viveret et 
Dei laudibus inserviret. Cuius desiderium ubi mors abstulit imperfecttun, 
ego Richardus comes eius equivocus filius suscepi peragendum, nee multo 
post divina providentia inventum domnum Wilelmum abbatem et precibus 
et caput huius crescendg religionis preesse institui. Sub quo iam multipU- 
catis monachis et multiplicandis temporalibus bonis quae a patre meo huic 
loco concessa sunt et pwr cartam firmata, h§c ex hereditario iure concessa 
super addo: In comitatu scilicet Calciacensi in ipsa villa Fiscamno tertiam 
partem hospitum quos colonos vocant cum terra arabili quae ad ipsam ter- 
tiam partem pertinet, unam partem silvae a publica strata usque ad mare 
terminatam, et dimidium vectigal; in Giruinivilla cum duobus molendinis 
quicquid habere visus sum; apud villam Archas tertiam partem piscariae 
et duas salinas et aliqviid terrae arabilis cum prato; aecclesiam Scrotivillae 
et aliquid terrae arabilis; apud Harofloz .i. mansum cum Ix. pensis salis cum 
.iiii. hacreis prati; in civitate Rotomagensi mansum umun ami ca[p]ella et 
XXX hacreis terrg arabilis cum vii hacreis prati; et in comitatu eiusdem 
civitatis gcclesiam Piscei et aliquid terrae arabilis cum gcclesia Barentini 
villae; in vallae Rologiville aecclesiam Sanctae Mariae, aecclesiam Sancti 
Stephani, gcclesiam Sanctae Ceciliae, aecclesiam Sancti Satumini, aecclesiam 
Sancti Quintini cum capeUis subiectis eis et quicquid terrae arabilis et prati 
ad eas pertinet; super ripam Sequang Aschei villam et quicquid ibi Trostin- 
cus tenuit; Heldechimvillam super mare. Hgc predicto loco perpetualiter 
habenda concgdo, igitur tarn [h]orum quam eormn qug a patre meo tradita 
simt omnis ordinatio exterius et interius in abbatis sibique subiectonun 
consistat arbitrio, undeque eorum dispositioni resistat persona nuUa parva 
vel magna cuiuscinnque officii dignitatisve. Et non solum in rerum ordina- 
tione iusticia sed in restituendi abbatis electione, ubi morte subtractus 
fuerit, a nobis iuste collata utantiir hbertate, ita dimitaxat ut in ipsa elec- 
tione vel ordinatione abbatis ilia per omnia servetur consuetudo quae 
hactenusin Cluniaco cgnobiorum servata est ilIu[s]trissimo, imde fonssanctae 
monasticg religionis per multa iam longe lateque dirivatus loca ad hunc 
usque Deo profluit propicio. Cuius sanctae religionis observatio ut magis ac 
magis ad profectum tam meg quam genitoris ac genitricis omniumque 
fideUum proficiat animarum hoc in Fixiscamnensi monasterio, sicut nuUi 
ordini dignitati potestati heredetarigque successioni relinquere super idem 
ius decrevimus dominationis, ita si a iam cepta, quod absit, deviaverit 
rectitudine, nulH illud in pristinum reformanti mercedem denegamus recu- 
perationis, sed et nostrorum super his decretorum invasores violatores sive 
destructores nisi emendaverint non evadere se sciant maledictionem Dei sed 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FECAMP 255 

cum diabolo et luda proditore pgnas quibunt in inferno sustinere impiorum 
[ubi v]errais non morietur et ignis non extinguetur in gternum. 4-Ego 
autem kichakdus Norhtmannonim dux, ut hinc mihi merces cumuletur 
aeterna huiusque cartule testamentum per Widonem notarium meo rogatu 
conscriptum stipulatione firmetur, subnixa propria signans manu firmavi 
bisque roborari [rogans t]estibus tradidi. SS Rodulf[i] SS Wilelm[i] SS 
[ego wmo] NOTAMUS lussu [domni kichardi illustrissimi ducis, qui 

MISERICORDIAE OPEMBUS VALDE QUIA STUDET] ELEMOSINAKIUS VOCATUX, 
HOC [testamentum] SCEIPSI anno DOMINICg INCAIINATIONIS [m. VI. INDIC- 
TIONE nn. DDE TERTIO ANTE KAL. lUNH V. FEEIA DOMINIC^ ASCENSIONIS 
GAUDIO] CELEBEREIMA, FELICITER. 



IOI7-IO25 (?) 

Charter of Richard II granting for the enrichment of Fecamp lands and 
churches in F Scamp, Sassetot{ ?), Limpiville, Trimauville, Ganzeville, 
Manneville (?), Dun, Barentin, Campeaux, La Carboniere, arid Villers- 
Chambellan ' {Sdne-Inflrieure). 

A, original in Musee de la Benedictine, no. 2 Ms; B, copy by Dom 
Lenoir from A in Collection Moreau, cccxli. 6, from which blurred 
words in the original have been supplied; C, another copy from A at 
Semilly, Ixxvi. 165; D, copy by A. Deville, MS. Lat. n. a. 1245, f. no. 

UnpubUshed; see the facsimile, plate 2. Subsequent to 1017, when 
the predecessor of Maingisus attests as bishop of Avranches; anterior 
to no. 5. According to Dom Lenoir, " on pense a Fecamp que cette 
charte est de 1' an 1023." 

+QUONIAM VEEmiCA DIVINARUM SCRIPTURARUM ASSERTIONS || prisCOrUm- 

que patrum monimentis expresse edocti id certa ratione comperimus quod 
quicunque omnipotentis Dei premisso timore speque animatus perhennis 
vitg aliquod quantulumcumque munusculum sanctg matri aecclesig ex 
propriis iureque adquisitis rebus contulerit, absque dubio in futuro ei re- 
compensabitur superni bravii sterna; unde ego Richardus huiusce cespitis 
monarchus, ut credo summi Dei crebrerrimis cordetenus agitatiis huiusmodi 
inspirationis spiculis, quendam locum qui dicitur Fiscamus dicatum in 
honore summi redemptoris sacris ordinibus monachonmi ex more mancipavi 
quo perpetualiter inibi laudetur nomen Domini. Ut autem devotionis nostrg 
inconvulsa permaneat ratio, decrevi locum iUum ditari et augere. Ad 
augendam igitur vitam inibi Domino militantium concedo in ipso loco 
Fiscanio .xii. bofi ' terrg .xii.que domes; gcclesiam Beati Stephani cum bon 

' According to Dom Lenoii the last three are hamlets in the neighborhood of 
Barentin. Instead of Sassetot one would expect £l6tot, as in no. 5. 

' Delisle, ^ude sur I'agriadture, p. 537, found no instance of this measure of 
land, the bonaria or bonata, in Normandy. 



256 APPENDIX B 

.vi.; gcclesiam Beati Benedict! cum terra qug est inter duos fluvios at mol- 
endinouno; inSaestetothecclesiamcumxii. bonterrg; Leopini villam totam 
cum ecclesia et quicquid ad earn pertinet; in Tormodi villa ecclesiam cum 
terra unius carrucg; in GansanviUa ecclesiam cum terra ad earn pertinente; ad 
Manonis villam fcclesiam cum xii. boil et acri terre; in viUa qug dicitur Dunus 
.iii. gcclesias cum .xl.iiii. boii terrg; gcclesiam villg que dicitur Barentinus 
cum duobus hospitibus et aream molendini unam aquamque villg a gordo de 
PaiJiaco usque ad fagum comitissg; villam quoque qug dicitur Campelli cum 
silva qug est a valle Carbonaria usque ad vaUem Villaris. Eo pacto ut hgc 
qug prefata sunt inviolabiUter teneant inibi Deo miUtantes absque ullius 
molestia et contradictione sub manu nostrg firmitatis fidelimnque nostro- 
rumque astipulatione. 

+Signum Richardi comitis+Signum Ricardi filii eius+Signum Rotberti 
filii eius +Sigmmi Rotberti archiepiscopi H-Signum Hugonis Baiocensis 
episcopi+Signimi Hugonis Ebroicensis episcopi+Signum Mangisi Abrincen- 
sis episcopi +Signum Nigelli vicecomitis +Signum Torstingi vicecomitis. 



15 June 1023, at Rouen 

Grant to Ficatnp by Gaieran I ofMeulan, in the presence of Richard II, 
of the toll and piage of Meulan. 

A, quasi-original in Musee de la Benedictine, no. 28; B, copy there- 
from by Dom Lenoir at Semilly, Ixxvi. 167. 

Unpublished. ' Actum Rothomago (sic) .xvii. kal. lulii indictione 
.vi. regnante Rotberto serenissimo rege Francorum ante presentiam 
gloriosi Richardi Normannorum ducis et fratris eius Roberti ipsius 
urbis archiepiscopi et domini Willelmi iam dicti monasterii abbatis.' 
Attestations ' Waleranni, Herberti comitis Cenomannic§ civitatis, 
loffredi comitis Bellimontis castri, Hilduini vicecomitis Mellensis 
supradicti castri.' 



August 1025 (?), at Fecamp 

Great charter of Richard II enumerating and confirming the gifts of his 
father, himself, and his followers to Ficamp, including the tithe of his 
mint and his camera, to hold on the same conditions as his own demesne. 
{Inc. ' Propitia divin§ gratiae dementia. . . .') 

A, original in Mus6e de la B€n6dictine, no. 2 ter; see the facsimile, 
plate 3. There is now no trace of a seal, but according to F (see Delisle, 
in MS. Fr. n. a. 21819, ff. 8-12) it still had a great seal in 1503. Dom 
Lenoir says: " II y avoit un sceau applique dont la figure etoit ronde. 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FSCAMP 257 

H ne subsiste plus, mais on voit encore les incisions faites au bas de la 
charte pour introduire la cire siu: laquelle ce sceau etoit imprime." B, 
copy from A by Dom Lenoir, Collection Moreau, cccxli. 8; C, collated 
copy of 1320 in Musee, no. 4; D, vidimus of Philip III formerly in 
archives of the abbey (cf . Collection Moreau, cccxli. 8) ; E, copy of D 
in cartulary, MS. Rouen 1 207, f . i ; F, modern copies in Archives of the 
Seine-Inferieure. 

Neustria Pia, p. 215, with innimierable errors; T. Bonnin, Cartidaire 
de Louviers, i. 3, from E; cf. DeUsle, Cartidaire normand, no. 833. 

The date in the original runs as follows, substantially as in Neustria 

Pia: DATA MENSE AUGUSTO CONSmENTIBUS NOBIS FISCANNI PALATIO 
ANNO AB mCARNATIONE DOMINI .1. XXVII. INDICTIONE VIII. EEGNANTE 

ROTBERTO EEGE ANNO XXXVI. The same date appears, save for the 
year of King Robert which is given as the thirty-eighth, in two other 
charters of Richard II which also show close resemblance in the final 
clauses: one a pancarta for Jumieges preserved in vidimus of 1499 and 
1533 and in cartulary copies in the Archives of the Seine-Inferieure 
(Vernier, no. 12, who does not discuss the date); the other the 
foundation charter of Bemai, preserved only in copies from which it 
has been edited by Le Prevost, Eure, i. 284 (less correctly in Neustria 
Pia, p. 398; extract in La Roque, iii. 165). The impossibility of recon- 
ciling the various elements in this date has been evident since the time 
of Du Monstier and MabiUon (Annales, iv. 286), who ascribed the 
difficulty to an error in copying 1027 instead of 1026 or 1025. We now 
know that the original has, not only 1027, but a regnal year, the 
thirty-sixth, which corresponds to no known style of Robert (Pfister, 
£tudes sur Robert le Pieux, pp. xlii-xliv) ; yet according to the narra- 
tive sources Richard II died 23 August 1026 (ibid., p. 216, note 6; cf. 
Lot, S.-Wandrille, p. 50, note i). Norman scholars have generally 
agreed to follow the indiction, which together with the regnal year (38) 
of the charters for Jumieges and Bemai, gives August 1025 as the date 
of the three charters and thus brings them into agreement with the 
chronology of the period so far as it has yet been established. See 
Le Provost, Eure, i. 283 (cf. however his edition of Ordericus, i. 175, 
note 2, ii. 10, note 2); Sauvage, Traarn, p. 11, note 2. 



258 APPENDIX B 



I025-1026 

Grata to FScamp by Raindd, vicomte ofArques, attested by Richard II, 
of all his possessions at Argues and in the comity of Argues and at San- 
tigny(?), and the churches of Saint-Aubin and Tourville {Seine-In~ 
fSrieure). 

A, original lost; B, figured copy of ca. iioo in the Archives of the 
Seine-Inferieure; C, copy of B by A. Deville, MS. Lat. n. a. 1245, 
f. III. 

Published with facsimile by Chevreux and Vernier, Les archives de 
Normandie et de la Seine-Infirieure, plate 9, from B, which is called an 
original of ca. iioo, the relation to Richard II being overlooked. 

The charter belongs to the very end of Richard II's reign, as its 
grants are not included in those confirmed in no. 5, while they are 
specifically enumerated by Robert I in no. 10. This charter and its 
confirmation by Robert I are cited in a charter of William, count of 
Arques, 18 July 1047: original in Musee de la Benedictine, no. 5 bis; 
printed in Martene and Diu-and, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, i. 166; 
Brussel, Usage des fiefs (1750), i. 84. 



zz April 1028 (or Z034), at Fecamp 

Charter of Robert I authorizing an exchange between Bishop Hugh of 
Bayeux and the monks of FScamp with reference to Argences, and provid- 
ing that disputes respecting the agreement should be brought before his 
court. 

A, original lost; B, copy in lost cartulary of 12th century; C, copy 
from B by Dom Lenour in Collection Moreau, xxi. 9. 

Unpublished; cf. E. E. R., xxxi. 264, no. 8; infra, Appendix C, p. 
272, no. 8. 

The omission of any reference to the abbot makes it probable that 
this charter belongs to 1028, between the resignation of William of 
Dijon and the consecration of John. If the leuva of Argences included 
in no. 10 had ahready been granted to the abbey, it would probably be 
mentioned specifically in this charter. The prolonged difficulties be- 
tween the duke and Bishop Hugh are another reason for placing the 
charter early in Robert's reign (William of Jumieges, bk. vi, c. 5). 

Rotbertus nutu Dei Northmannorum dux omnibus fidelibus nostris 
cuiuscumque ordinis, indominicatis scilicet et vavassoribus seu ubicumque 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FMCAMP 259 

in Christum credentibus, notitiam et commutuationem quam salva fide in 
memoriam tam presentibus quam futuris litteris tradere disponimus. No- 
tum sit igituT vobis quod Hugo Baiocacensis §cdesig episcopus venit ad 
meam mercedem castro Fiscanni die Cgng Dominicg qug habita est eo anno 
.iii. idus Aprilis, in quo castro in honore summg et individug Trinitatis bong 
memorig avus mens et pater monasteriiun construxerunt ac villis et orna- 
mentis honorifice decoraverunt et, quod meKus est, monachis pro animabus 
nostris Deo cotidie servientibus deputavenmt. Deprecatus est autem mer- 
cedem meam ut apud ipsius monasterii monachos impetrarem ut terram qug 
didtur Argentias quam prgnotatus avus meus R. nobilis dux altario eiusdem 
sanctg et individug Trinitatis in dotem tradidit ei commutuarent. Quod 
post multas eorum excusationes tandem obtinui. Fecerunt itaque per tales 
tamen convenientias; Episcopus debet dare monachis centum hospites ad 
presens qui totas diptas reddant et liberos ab omni meo servido vel costumis 
per meam auctoritatem et per memn donum in alodiun et hereditatem per- 
petuam, et tres gcdesias et xx" francos homines in locis qui appellantur 
BoiavQla, Brunvilla, Penloi, Lexartum cum portu piscatorio, cmn silvis, 
pascuis, et omnibus pertinentiis suis, et villam qug didtur Vetus Redum cum 
molendino et omnibus appendiciis eius; et debet redpere ab ipsis monachis 
predictam terram, id est Argentias, per tale conventmn ut usque dum vixerit 
teneat et post obitum eius monachi eam statim redpiant, id est ipsam viUam 
Argentias, per meam licentiam sine contradictione alicuius potestatis cuius- 
libet ordinis seu magng parvgque persong, sic ex integro ciun terris, vineis, 
molendinis, silvis, pratis, aquis, et mercato forensi seu omnibus appendiciis 
eius absque tilla calumnia, sicut unquam meUus tenuerunt; et ip>sos centum 
hospites quos episcopxis donat, sicut prgdictmn est, in prenominatis lods 
cum omnibus suis appendiciis similiter ami ipsa post obitum episcopi teneant 
et possideant ivae hereditario in alodum ex mea parte concessmn sicut pre- 
dictum est. Notum quoque esse volo quia iUa terra quam dat episcopus 
quorundam hominiun calumniis refutata est a monachis postquam has. 
convenientias incgpimus antequam perficeremus, et postea a me et ab ipso 
episcopo tali convenientia est data et ab eis recepta ut si per iUam calumniam 
damnmn aliquod ipsi monachi habuerint, duas redamationes in mea corte 
vel curia fadant, et si time ego et episcopus non acquitaverimus eam, mo- 
nachi per meam licentiam sine contradictione vel malivolentia episcopi vel 
alicuius hominis reveniant ad villam suam Argentias et redpiant eam et 
teneant et possideant absque ullo deinceps cambio. Si quis vero contra 
hanc nostrg auctoritatis commutuationem aUquando temerario ausu inferre 
calumniam presumpserit, primitus ab ipso Deo patre omnipotente et a filio 
eius unigenito domino nostro et a spiritu sancto sit maledictus et excom- 
municatus et a beata Dei genitrice Maria et electo archangelo Michaele, 
Gabriele, Raphaele, et ab omnibtis cglestium virtutum spiritibus et omnibus 
patriarchis prophetis apostolis martyribus confessoribus virginibus viduis et 
omnibus electis Dd, et sit in gtema damnatione cum Dathan et Abiron quos 
vivos terra absorbuit et cum luda traditore qui Dominum predo tradidit 
necnon et cum his qui dixerunt Deo, Recede a nobis, scientiam viarum tuarum 
nolumus, nisi digna satisfactione emendaverit. Amen. 



26o APPENDIX B 

8 
1028-103S 

Charier of Robert I restoring to Ficamp Argences and other domains. 

A, original lost; B, official copy of 1688 in Archives of the Seine- 
Inferieure, according to DeUsle; these archives and the fonds of the 
barony of Argences in the Archives of the Calvados have been searched 
without success. 

Extracts in Delisle, S.-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, pieces, no. 10; cf. infra, 
Appendix C, no. 9. 

This charter is evidently posterior to no. 7. Argences is not one of 
the places claimed by Hugh of Bayeux after Robert's death {Livre 
noir, no. 21.) 

9 
Ca. 1034-1035 

Charter of Robert I granting Saint-Taurin of &iireux in exchange for 
Montivilliers as a dependency of Ficamp. 

A, original lost. Printed in Martene and Durand, Thesaurus Anec- 
dotorum, i. 154. Cf. Appendix C, no. 10. 

Evidently not long anterior to the foundation of MontiviUiers 13 
January 1035 (pallia Christiana, xi. instr. 326; infra, Appendix C, 
no. 17). 

10 
I032-I035 

Charter of Robert I enumerating his grants of lands and knights to 
Ficamp, including the gifts of Rainald of Argues (no. 6).* 

Supposed originals, unsealed, in Musee de la Benedictine, with iden- 
tical witnesses but differences in content: A (no. 3 bis), on long, some- 
what irregular, unruled piece of parchment, with frequent use of the 
form ae and with crosses in different hands before ten of the witnesses; 
B (no. 4 bis), on broad, ruled parchment, written in a closer hand, with 

* The places mentioned, which lie chiefly in the Pays de Caux, are Petitville, 
ficretteviUe, Bemai (Eure?), fil6tot, Arques, Tourville-sur-F6camp, Argences 
(Calvados), Ourville, Oissel-sur-Seine, SorquainviUe, Bennetot, BiviUe-Ia-Martel, 
Ypreville, Riville, Ermenouville(?), Nfiville, Anglesqueville, and Caen. Santinia- 
cus villa (cf . no. 6) and Corhvilma I have not identified, unless the latter be the 
'insula Oscelli que et Turhulmus dicitur' (lie de B€danne) of the cartulary of 
La Trinit£-du-Mont, no. 82 ; cf. Toussaint Duplessis, Description de la Haute 
Normandie,ii. i2t, 274. 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FMCAMP 26 1 

crosses, apparently in the same hand, before all the witnesses; C, 
copies by Dom Lenoir in Collection Moreau, cccxli. 12, 15; D, ditto at 
SemiUy, Ixx. 525. 

UnpubUshed; see the facsimiles, plates 4 and 5. Extracts in La 
Roque, iii. 19, iv. 1323; cf. E. H. R., xxsd. 264, nos. 6, 7; infra, Appen- 
dix C, nos. 6, 7. 

Subsequent to the accession of Gradulf as abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 
whose predecessor died 29 November 103 1. Junguene, archbishop of 
Dol, whose latest attestation in charters is of 1032, seems to have been 
active in the service of Coxmt Alan III for a year or two longer; his 
successor cannot be traced before 1040. See Gallia Christiana, xiv. 
104s; La Borderie, in Revue de Bretagne, 1891, i. 264-267; id., Histoire 
de Bretagne, iii. 10 f . 

The signature of Edward the Confessor as king renders it rather 
likely that neither A nor B is an original, although it is not impossible 
that he used this title in Canute's lifetime, as in a questionable charter 
for Mont-Saint-Michel (see Appendix C, p. 273). Further doubt is 
thrown upon B by the broad grant of authority to the abbot in the last 
sentence. The contents of A seem to me genuine, and the royal tit'e of 
Edward would be a natural addition in an early copy. 

A and B 

In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.' Ego Rotbertus filius secxmdi 
Richardi nutu Dei Northmannorum ducis et ipse per gratiam Dei princeps et 
dx (sic) Northmannorum notum fieri volo tam presentibus quam futuris ea 
quae respectu gratiae Dei contuli universorum domino sanctae scilicet et 
individug tieinitati in loco qui dicitur Fiscannus post decessum patris. mei 
pro salute amm§ meg et predecessorum meorum fratrum quoque et sororum. 
Quae omnia nominanter subter ' asscribere volui ne memorig laberentur sub- 
sequent! posteritate haec sunt: Pitit villa cum omnibus sibi pertinentiis; 
quidam^ homines mei scih'cet nulites cum omnibus sibi pvertinentibus; Mi 
sunt Hundul filius Gosmanni et nepotes eius filii Bloc, Walterius quoque 
filius Girvilfi, filti Gonfredi omnes de GerviniviUa, Torqnitil filius Adlec, 
lustaldus clericus et Rodulfus laicus fratresque eorum filii Hugonis de Barda 
villa. Dedi autem terram quae Scrot viUa dicitur cum omnibus sms appen- 
diciis. Reddidi etiam totam medietatem Bemai villg cum omnibus que ad 
ipsam medietatem pertinent ex integro. Dedi etiam viUam quae dicitiu: 
Eslettot. Reddidi quoque omnem terram quam Rainaldus vicecomes apud 
Areas et in Turvilla et Santiniaco villa tenere videbatur cum aeclesiis et 
molendinis et bosco qui dicitur Appasilva, cum salinis, piscariis, pratis, hos- 
pitibus, et onmibus appenditiis suis et omnibus hominibus qui sibi subiecti 

* ' -|-rN NOMINE PATEIS EI FUJI ET SPIRITUS SANCT[i a]mEN,' B. 

' Om. B. * B om. guidam . . . quae (before Scrot villa). 



262 APPENDIX B 

fuenint. [Dedi ' quoque silvam quae Bocolimda • dicitur iuxta Fiscannum ex 
toto. Commutuavi autem eis silvam quam inter duas aquas dicunt ex utra- 
que parte et omnia que ad earn pertinent. Dedi quoque terram qug Hurvilla 
dicitur quam mea avia pro salute parentum nostrorum et sua Fiscanni loco 
destinavit, cellarium insuper et vineam. Contuli ' etiam alios milites, scilicet] 
Osbertum filium Gosmanni cum suo alodo et Ursonem et Willelmum eius 
fratrem filios videlicet Anslecci. Donavi apud Argentias leuvam iuxta 
morem patriae nostrae propter mercatum ipsius villae. Haec omnia pro 
salute animg meae et parentum meorum soli Deo trine ' et uno vivo et vero 
contuli. Siquis autem, quod fieri non credo, contra banc nostrg preceptionis 
cartulam contraire aut calmnpniam inferre temptaverit, cum luda traditore 
partem habeat si non emendaverit. Ut vero firma et stabilita haec descriptio 
permaneat, manu propria subter affirmo et fidelibus meis firmare precipio. 
Reddidi etiam decimam de feriis de Cadumo. Dedi quoque piscariam quod 
vulgo gordum dicitur apud OsceUmn villam. Dedi decimas de pratis in villa 
que dicitur Corhulma. Donavi nihUominus Ansfredum de Soastichin villa 
cum omni terra sua ubicunque tenere videbatur. 

B 

Sed et terram Hugonis de Sortichin villa et de Barda villa ubicunque 
tenere videbantiur de me in Calz et terram Walter filii Girulfi de Hastingi- 
villa et omnem terram filiorum Bloc et terram Hundul filii Gosmanni quam 
de me tenere videbantur in Calz, id est Bernetot et Buie villam ciun aliis 
sibi pertinentiis et terram Osberti filii Gosmanni omne eius alodimi, id est 
Ypram villam et Rivillam, et terram filiorum Anslec, id est Ermendi villam 
cum omnibus qug ad ipsam pertinent et omne alodum eorum (?)videbatur 
in Calz. Dedi quoque Nevillam et omne alodum filiorum Audoeni ubicumque 
tenere videbantur de me. Dedi terram filiorum Turfredi, id est Anglis- 
cavillam et omne alodum eorum in Calz, et terram filiorum Gonberti de 
Gervini villa et terram Gazel quam de me tenebat in Fischanno, id est cam- 
partum de Fischanno et aliquos hospites, et terram Murieldis de AmbHda et 
in Cadomo unum burgarium ad pontum et terram Rotberti de Habvilla. 
Ista igitur bona et omnia alia qug Fischannensi monasterio olim donata sunt 
sub solius abbatis potestate et iusticia constituimus ut nullius dignitatis 
homo aliquando manum intromittere presumat. 

AandB 

+Signum Rotberti Normannorum ducis. +Signum Willelmi filii eius. 
+Signum domni Rotberti archiepiscopi. +Signum Rotberti episcopi. 
Signum Gingoloi archiepiscopi. Signum domni lohannis abbatis. +Sigmmi 
Willelmi abbatis. Signum Gradulfi abbatis. Signum Rainerii abbatis. 
+Signum Durandi abbatis. +Signum Isemberti abbatis. +Signum 
Edwardi regis. Signum Balduini comitis. Signum Ingelranni comitis. 

' In A the three lines printed in brackets are written more closely over an erasure. 

' Buculunda, B. 

' B cm. contuli . . . Anslecci. 

• A. caps. 



EARLY CHARTERS FOR FECAMP 263 

Signum Gisleberti comitis. Signum Negelli. Signum Osberti senscali( ?) 
+Siginim Unfredi vetuU. Signum Richard! vicecomitis. Signum Gozilini 
vicecomitis. Signiun Turstini vicecomitis. Signum Aymonis vicecomitis. 
Signum Toroldi constabilarii. 



11 

Forged charter of William the Conqueror confirming Fecamp in posses- 
sion of Saint-Gervais of Rouen, free from all subjection to the archbishop, 
as granted by Richard II. 

A, pretended original in a late hand, apparently of the fourteenth 
century, in Musee de la Benedictine, unnumbered; see the facsimile, 
plate 6. B, vidimus of Pope Benedict XIII, 28 June 1404, copied in 
Fecamp cartulary (C) and in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure (D). 

Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pieces, no. 43, from CD; Round, Calendar, 
no. 113, from D. Cf. A. H. R., xiv. 459, note 41. 

Delisle declared this charter a forgery because of the combination of 
William's royal style with witnesses dead long before 1066. Roimd, 
p. xxvi, explained the anachronism as an " interpolation by a long sub- 
sequent scribe," and assigned the document to " the critical years 
1035-1037," with which he found the list of witnesses " wholly con- 
sistent "; while F. M. Stenton, William the Conqueror, p. 75 f., elabo- 
rates from it the entourage of the young duke. The charter is a rank 
fabrication of a later age. The royal style of 1066 ff . is in the pretended 
original; the handwriting is painfully imitated; John, who is repre- 
sented as receiving the original gift from Richard, became abbot under 
Robert I. The obvious purpose was to strengthen the priory against 
the archbishop, who is not mentioned in Richard II's original grant 
(no. s). The penal clause is copied from Richard's charter. The 
witnesses are taken bodily from Robert's charter, no. 10; Durand of 
Cerisy was probably no longer abbot by 1035. 

12 

Forged charter of William the Conqueror confirming to Ficamp its 
lands in England with royal liberty and jurisdiction, free from all secular 
service, and its possessions in Normandy as granted in the charter of his 
predecessor Count Richard. 

A, pretended original in Mus& de la Benedictine, no. 7; B, early 
copy in Public Record Office, Cartae Antiquae, S. i ; C, cartulary, MS. 
Rouen 1207, f. 3. 



264 APPENDIX B 

Monasticon, vii. 1082, from B. Cf. Report of the Deputy Keeper, 
xxix. app., p. 42 ; Davis, Regesta, no. 112. The charter in Neustria Pia, 
p. 223, is apparently a truncated copy of this; there is also an extract 
in La Roque, iv* 2219. 

The style of the charter and the extraordinary privileges which it 
purports to grant are sufficient to condemn it, quite apart from the 
appearance of the pretended original. A connection with a forged 
grant concerning the abbot's rights in Ste)aiing, which is abstracted in 
the charter rolls {Calendar, i. 322; Davis, no. 253), has been pointed 
out by Round, E. H. R., xxix. 348; this may be merely an extract from 
the fuller charter. As indicated above, the inflation of no. 12 is rather 
on the English than on the Norman side, where it repeats the language 
of Richard's charter Propitia (no. 5). 



APPENDIX C 

THE MATERIALS FOR THE REIGN OF ROBERT I' 

Robert I, commonly called Robert the Magnificent or, for no good 
reason, Robert the Devil, is one of the less known figures in the series 
of Norman dukes. His reign was brief and left few records, and it was 
naturally overshadowed by that of his more famous son, yet we shall 
never imderstand the Normandy of the Conqueror's time without some 
acquaintance with the period immediately preceding. The modern 
sketches are scanty and unsatisfactory, and while the extant evidence 
does not permit of a full or adequate narrative, they can be replaced 
only when the available material has been more fully utilized and more 
carefully sifted. In this direction the publication of a critical edition of 
William of Jumieges has at last provided the necessary point of 
departure.^ 

The fimdamental account is, of course, the sixth book of the Ju- 
mieges chronicler, who expressly declares himself a contemporary of 
the events therein recounted.' For many episodes this is our only con- 
temporary authority, so that it is especially important to fix its value 
by checking it at the points where we have other evidence, as well as to 
supplement its meager outline by information found elsewhere. On the 
narrative side the contemporary material is fragmentary and scattered, 
consisting of the bare mention of Robert's accession and death in the 
annals, and of discoimected references in the hagiographical literature. 
The dates of Robert's accession (6 August 1027) ^ and death (1-3 July 

■ Revised from£. E. R., xxxi. 257-268 (1916). On Robert's reign see, besides the 
older histories of Normandy, Sir Francis Palgrave, History of Normandy and Eng- 
land, iii. 141-190; E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest (1877), ii. 179-igi; F. M. 
Stenton, William the Conqueror, pp. 63-72. 

^ Guillaume de Jumieges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. Marx (Rouen, 1914). 
See my review, E. H. R., xxxi. 150-153- 

° ' Quorum actus partim intuitu partim veracium relatu comperimus ' : bk. vi, 

C. L. 

* C. Pfister (Glides sur la vie et le regne de Robert le Pieux, p. 216, note), who does 
not, however, meet all the difficulties of chronology connected with the date of 
Richard Ill's death, particularly the irreconcilable elements in the dates of the ducal 
charters of this period. Cf. Le Provost, Eure, i. 283. Unfortunately the two dated 
charters of Robert, neither of which is an original, are not decisive as to his acces- 
sion, that for Cerisy (see list below, no. 3) placing November 1032 in his fifth year, 

26s 



266 APPENDIX C 

103s) ' are fixed by the aid of the local necrologies; the pilgrimage is 
mentioned by contemporaries like Ralph Glaber ° and the Translatio 
S. VulganiV The Vita Herluini speaks of his relations with Gilbert of 
Brionne; * the Translatio BeaPi Nicasii places him and his followers at 
Rouen on 12 December 1032;* Hugh of Flavigny'" describes his 
reliance upon the counsel of Richard of Saint-Vannes. The most inter- 
esting of these writers is the author of the Miracttla S. Wtdframni, a 
monk of Saint-Wandrille who wrote shortly after 1053 and who 
characterizes Robert as follows: " 

Hie autem Rotbertus acer animo at prudens priores sues virtute quidem 
et potentia exequavit; sed pravorum consultui, utpote in primevo iuventutis 
flora constitutus, equo amplius attandans ragnum quod florans suscaparat in 
multis debilitavit. Varum non multo post, celesti respactus gratia et bona 
que inarat illi natura et consilii iutus, resipuit et eos quorum pravitate a 
racto deviaverat a suo consilio atqua familiaritate sequestravit suequa iugo 
potantia versa vice fortiter opprassit ac se in libertatem que se decebat 
vindicavit atque ita propter pretaritorum ignorantiam profectus Hierosoli- 
mam profimda panituit. Sad in redeundo malignorum perpassus insidias, qui 
eius equum (quod iam axparti erant) verabantiu- imparium, vanaficio, ut 
didicimus, apud urbam Niceam occubuit ibique intra sanctam civitatis illius 
basilicam (quod nulli alii mortalium concessum est) honorifica donaxi sepul- 
tura promaruit. Varum vir tantus non pravorum tantum malignitate quam 
divino, ut credi fas est, iudicio decessit, qui iam unus aorum effectus erat 
quibus, ut apostolus conqueritur, dignus non erat mundus. 

Here the characterization is fuUer than in WilUam of Jumieges,*^ 
but the fundamental agreement is striking and shows the view of 
Robert's character which prevailed among ecclesiastical writers. The 
very phrase ' pravorum consultui ' recurs in William " and, substan- 

and that for Montivilliers (no. 17) placing January 1035 in his eighth. Cf. the ques- 
tion of the date of the charters of Richard II, dated 1027: Appendix B, no. s- 

' H. P., xxiii. 420, 487, S79; P. de Farcy, Abbayes du diocise de Bayeux, i. 72. 
Ordericus, i. 179, gives i July. 

' Ed. Prou, p. 108. Robert is not mentioned in Ralph's life of St. William of 
Dijon, who died at F6camp in 1031: Migne, Pairologia, cxlii. 720. 

' Andecta BoUandiana, xxiii. 269. 

« Migne, cl. 697, 699; J. Armitage Robinson, Gilbert Crispin, pp. 87, 90. Cf. 
Robert's relations with Serlo of Hauteville: Geoffrey Malaterra, Historia Sictda, 
bk. i, c. 38 f. 

' Migne, cbdi. 1165 f. 

'» M. G. H., Scriptores, viii. 401; cf. infra, note 17. 

" D'Achery, SpicUegium (Paris, 1723), ii. 288; Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum 
Ordinis S. Benedicti (Venice, 1734), iii. 353- 

" Bk. vi, cc. 2, 3, 12. " Bk. vi, c. 3: 'pravorum consultu sponte sibi delegit.' 



THE REIGN OF ROBERT I 267 

tially, in a charter of Abbot Gradulf of Saint- Wandrille, shortly after 
103s, who saw no occasion for redressing the balance by a glorification 
at the end: " 

Quam filius eius et ab illo tercius in regno Robertus, in etate iuvenili 
perversonim consiUo depravatus, supradicto sancto abstulerat confessori. 
Quo defuncto et a presentibus sublato, filioque illius succedente in regni 
honore patemo, ego abbas Gradulf us, diu dampnum tarn grave perpessus,etc. 

Such phrases, taken in conjunction with the troubles with Archbishop 
Robert and Bishop Hugh of Bayeux described by William of Jumieges,** 
show plainly that there was a strong reaction against the church at 
the beginning of Robert's reign, a reaction afterwards ascribed to 
evil counselors and covered up by the all-sufl5cing merit of the duke's 
pilgrimage and death.'® The facts were evidently too flagrant to be 
ignored by WiUiam of Jumieges, favorable as is his narrative to the 
ducal house; not imtil the time of Wace could they be entirely passed 
over. The story that Richard III was poisoned by Robert may be in 
same way connected with the misdeeds of this period. To these years 
should probably be referred the troubles between the duke and his 
barons described by Hugh of Flavigny " in his curious account of the 
diabolical machinations of Ermenaldus the Breton, whom Richard of 
Saint- Vannes carried off to Verdim after reestablishing peace in Nor- 
mandy, but who returned and by means of the wager of battle secured 
the condemnation of several Norman leaders at the duke's hands. 

The next set of authorities consists of the interpolators of William of 
Jumieges. The first group of interpolations, assigned by Marx to a 
monk of Saint-Etienne of Caen writing under Robert Curthose, com- 
prises two episodes (c, 8 bis) illustrating Robert's generosity, that of 
the smith of Beauvais and that of the poor knight, and (c. 11) the 
story of Robert's magnificence at Constantinople, as exemplified by 
the mule shod with gold and the fire fed with nuts. No source is cited 

'* Lot, S.-Wandritte, p. '61. Cf. Vernier, no. 13: 'perversonim consSiis illectus.' 

" Bk. vi, cc. 3, 5. Cf. Fulbert of Chartres, in Migne, cxli. 225; and the losses of 
Hugh of Sayeux indicated in the Livre noir, no. 21. 

" On Robert's end cf. Translaiio S. Vidganii, in Analecta Bollandiana, xxui. 269. 

*' M. G. H., Scriptores, viii. 401: ' Inflanunatur princeps adversus optimates, 
fiunt discidia, excitantur iurgia, et uno intestino hello tota debachatur Normannia.' 
Besides the infonuation accessible to him in the east of France, Hugh had oppor- 
tunity to become acquainted lyith Norman traditions during his visit to Normandy 
in 1096 (ibid., 369, 393 f., 399, 407, 473, 482); his presence in Normandy is proved 
by an exchange between Saint-B€nigne and Saint-£tienne of Caen which he attests 
and by a charter of 24 May 1096 which he drafted: supra, p. 75 f. 



268 APPENDIX C 

for the last of these, which was probably, as we shall see, the common 
property of the period; but the earlier episodes are recounted on the 
express authority of Isembert, chaplain of the duke and later abbot of 
Holy Trinity at Rouen,i* so that they have contemporary value. The 
additions of Ordericus, made before 1109, are confined to a fuller ac- 
count of the family of Belleme, for which he could draw on the local 
traditions of the region." In his Historia Ecclesiastica he adds certain 
further details respecting the reign: the foimding of Cerisy (ed. Le 
Prevost, ii. 11); the reconciliation by the duke of Gilbert of Brionne 
and the house of G€t€ (ii. 25); the banishment of Osmimd Drengot 
(ii. 53); the death of Dreux, count of the Vexin, on the pilgrimage 
(ii. 102, iii. 224 f.) ; and a fuller accoimt of the relations of the duke to 
King Henry I, including the grant of the Vexin (iii. 223 f.). 

If, as Stubbs thought probable,™ Orderic's contemporary William of 
Mahnesbury made use of WiUiam of Jumieges, he has no confirmatory 
value where the two accounts agree, as in the mention of the duke's aid 
to King Henry I or his tears and gifts at the Holy Sepulchre.*' The 
Mahnesbury chronicler adds the rumor that the pilgrimage was under- 
taken in atonement for the poisoning of Richard III; the name of the 
follower guilty of Robert's death, ' Radulfus cognomen to Mowinus '; 
the guardianship by the king of France; and, in very brief form, the 
story of Arlette so fully developed by Wace, including her dream and 
the omen attending the Conqueror's birth.^ 

Of subsequent writers much the most important is Wace, who gives 
a full narrative of the reign which is repeated by Benolt de Sainte- 
More and the later vernacular chroniclers and has been used without 
discrimination by modern writers. The question of Wace's sources, 
fast seriously attacked by Gustav Korting in 1867,^ requires a more 
thorough treatment upon the basis of the more abundant material and 
the more critical editions now available. His dose dependence on 

" ' Hoc referre solitus erat de duce Rodberto Isembertus, primum quidem eius 
capellanus, postmodum vero Sancti Audoeni monachus, et ad extremum abbas 
Sancte Trinitatis.' 

" He also gives the name of the commander of the fleet, Rabel, in c. 11. See 
infra, p. 275 and note 41. 

2» Gesta Regum, p. xxi, citing the text, p. 161 f. Further investigation is desirable 
on this point. 

*' Ibid., pp. 211, 227. a Ibid., pp. 211, 285. 

" Veber die QueUen des Roman de Rou (Leipzig, 1867). It appears from the 
account of the four sons of William of Belleme (line 2461 ft.) that Wace used the 
interpolations of Ordericus. 



THE REIGN OF ROBERT I 269 

William of Jumieges was clearly demonstrated by Korting, so that he 
must not be used as an independent authority in the portions on which 
they agree. At several points, however, in the reign of Robert, Wace 
offers material not to be found in William, partly by way of amplifica- 
tion, as in the account of the visit of Henry I and the campaigns by 
land and sea against the Bretons, partly in the form of new episodes. 
These are: ^ the foundation of Cerisy (ed. Andresen, lines 2305-2312) ; 
the poor knight (2313-2338); the clerk who died of joy at the duke's 
gift (2339-2388); the smith of Beauvais (2389-2430); the stories of 
Arlette and of the Conqueror's infancy (2833-2930) ; the investiture 
of William by the king of France and the guardianship of Alan of 
Brittany (2979-2994); and the fuU narrative of the pilgrimage 
(2995-3252). Something of the substance of the history of the reign, 
as well as much of its color, depends upon the acceptance or rejection 
of these elements in Wace's poem. 

A professional rh)miester writing more than a centiuy and a quarter 
after Robert's death does not inspire confidence as an historical au- 
thority unless the sources of his information can be definitely traced, a 
task which was long considered unnecessary and unfruitful. " C'est," 
wrote fidelestand Du Meril in 1862,^^ "ime question d'un trfes-mince 
interet, dont la veritable reponse satisferait bien mal la curiosite: 
c'etait un pen tout le monde." Such vague conclusions are not, how- 
ever, in accord with the trend of more recent investigation, especially 
since the publication of Bedier's studies of the mediaeval epic, and the 
comfortable ' tout le monde ' of earlier belief has in many instances 
been replaced by particular individuals or monasteries. Can anything 
of this sort be accomphshed in the case of Wace ? The answer is easy 
if we accept an emendation of Gaston Paris*' in line 3239, where, 
speaking of the duke's chamberlain Tosteins who brought back to 
Cerisy the relics procured at Jerusalem, he says, 

De par sa mere fu sis aiues. 

This does not make sense, nor does the reading of MS. B, which has 
' mis aues.' K, however, we accept B and emend the first pronoun, we 

have 

De par ma mere fu mis aiues, 

" Cf. Korting's analysis, pp. 51-53. 

"^ La vie et les ouvrages de Wace, in &tudes sur qudques points d'archiohgie el 
d'histoire litUraire (Paris, 1862), p. 269. 
" Romania, ix. 526 ff. dSSo). 



270 APPENDIX C 

which is perfectly intelligible and makes Tosteins the grandfather of 
Wace. If this be admitted, the whole narrative of the pilgrimage, as 
well as some of the personal episodes, would come from one of the 
duke's companions on the journey, not directly, for Wace could not 
have known a grandfather grown to manhood by 1035, but through the 
poet's mother. 

In some instances the source can be further identified. Thus for 
the two stories of Robert's generosity we now have the authority of the 
Abbot Isembert." That of the poor knight Wace reproduces closely, 
that of the smith of Beauvais he abbreviates; but the inference that he 
knew them in this form is strengthened by their probable connection 
with Caen, where he was a clerc lisant. On the other hand, the account 
of Robert's magnificence at the Byzantine court cannot be derived 
whoUy ^* from the interpolation in William of Jumieges, which sa3rs 
nothing of the cloaks used by the Normans as seats and left in the 
emperor's presence. In this respect the Latin text agrees better with 
the saga of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer, one of the many forms in which 
Gaston Paris has traced the story through mediaeval literature.^ At 
this point Wace touches the broader stream of popular tradition. 

In another portion of his narrative we find a definite and verifiable 
local source of information. It is noteworthy that in this part of his 
work Wace gives prominence to Robert's special foundation, the 
abbey of Saint- Vigor at Cerisy. Whereas Ordericus and Robert of 
Torigni barely mention its revival at this time,'" Wace describes the 
privileges granted to the estabUshment by Robert, the sending of the 
relics thither by the chamberlain Tosteins, and the gifts made early in 
the Conqueror's reign by Alfred the Giant upon entering the monas- 
tery. Here we can test his statements by extant documents." The 
abbey's jurisdiction is described as follows: 

2309 E tel franchise lur dunat, 
Cume 11 dues en sa terra ad: 
II unt le murdre e le larun, 
Le rap, le homicide, le arsun. 

" Supra, note 18. " As Marx assumes, Guillaume de Jumiiges, p. xsdi. 

" Sur un ipisode d'Aimeri de Narbonne, in Romania, ix. 315-546 (1880). Cf. 
Paul Idant, Les Scandinaves en Terre Sainte, p. 196 ff. 

'» Ordericus, ii. 11; Robert of Torigni, ed. Delisle, ii. 195; William of Jumigges, 
ed. Marx, pp. 252, 255. Cf. Wace, Chronique ascendante, line 213. 

" Mcnasticon, vii. 1073 f.; incomplete in Neuslria Pia, p. 431; cf. Delisle- 
Berger, no. 406. For the abbey's possessions, see the Inventaire sommaire des 
archives de la Manche, series H; the index to Longnon, PouiUis de la province de 



THE REIGN OF ROBERT I 2/1 

These are not specified in the ducal charter, but there is abundant 
evidence that such were the crimes regularly included in the grant of 
ducal consueUtdines which is there made.'* Concerning the gifts of 
Alfred the Giant Wace is more definite: 

3593 Una vile, Luvres out nun, 
Qvii art da sa garantisun, 
Od tuz las apartenamenz, 
£ I'eglise da Saint Lorenz, 
Ovec I'eglisa da Taisia 
Fist cunfermer a Carasia. 

Alfred's charter enumerates likewise ' totam terram meam de Lepori- 
bus . . . etiam totam terram quam Walterus presbiter de me tenebat 
in villa que dicitur Taissei '; and we know that these places, the 
barony of Lievres and the churches of Tessy-sur-Vire and Saint- 
Laurent-sur-Mer, were part of the abbey's domain. Specific detail of 
this sort could be obtained only from the monks of Cerisy, through 
whom also would come the history of the relics brought by Tosteins, in 
case we hesitate to identify him as an ancestor of the poet. Wace had 
of course ample opportunity to converse with monks from Cerisy at 
Bayeux and at the court of Henry II, from whom they secured charters; 
but there can be little doubt that he visited the abbey itself, which he 
locates exactly (lines 3247 f.) between Coutances and Bayeux, three 
leagues from Saint-L6, particularly as it was on the natural route 
between Caen and his native Jersey.^ As the special foimdation of 
Robert I this monastery would be the natural repository of tradition 
with respect to him, as Fecamp was for his father and grandfather,'* 
and Cerisy may well be the source of other elements in Wace's narra- 
tive which cannot be distinguished in the absence of any remains of 
the local historiography. 

Our confidence in the general credibility of Wace's account is 
further strengthened by the confirmation in other chronicles of partic- 

Rouen; and Farcy, Abbayes et prieures de I'eviche de Bayeux, Cerisy (Laval, 1887), 
pp. 78 ff., 259-263. 

^ Supra, p. 27; infra, Appendix D. 

" For a later example of the confirmation of Wace by local documentary evi- 
dence, compare the account of Grimoud du Flessis (lines 4219-4242) with the char- 
ter in the Bayeux Liwe noir, no. 3, and the inquest in H. F., xxiii, 699 f. 

" See J. B^dier, Richard de Normandie dans les chansons de geste, in Romanic 
Review, i. 113-124 (1910), and in Les Ugendes ifiques, iv. 1-18, 389, 406. For Wace's 
own sojourn at Fficamp and use of its local traditions, see lines 2246, 2994, 6781- 
6918, and lines 1356-1359 in Andresen, i. 87; and of. Gaston Paris, in Romania, 
ix. 597, 610. 



272 APPENDIX C 

ular statements of his which are not found in William of Jmnieges. 
Thus the death of Robert by poison is mentioned by the monk of 
Saint- Wandrille,'* as well as by William of Malmesbury,'* and that of 
Count Drogo by Ordericus. Ordericus also relates the visit of Henry I 
at Easter, the grant of the Vexin, and the guardianship of Alan of 
Brittany." 

There remains the question how far the chroniclers are confirmed 
and supplemented by documentary evidence. Any study of such 
material must be provisional, until the early Norman charters shall 
have been collected and critically tested monastery by monastery. 
Meanwhile a rough hst of such charters of Robert I as have come to my 
notice may serve a useful purpose. In the absence of chronological 
data the list is arranged by reUgious estabUshments; grants of his 
reign attested or confirmed by Robert are included, but not charters 
of Richard II in which he appears as a witness. 

1. AvKANCHES cathedral. Grants enumerated in notice of Bishop John. 
E. A. Pigeon, Le diocise d'Awanches, ii. 667, from modem copy. 

2. Bec. Consents to grant by Abbot Herluin, 1034-1035. Mabillon, ^»- 
nales Ordinis S. Benedicii (Lucca, 1739), iv. 361; Le Prevost, Eure, i. 234. 

3. Cerisy-la-For£t. Foundation charter of the monastery of Saint- 
Vigor, 12 November 1032. Viditmis of 1269-1313, in Archives Nationales, 
JJ. 62, no. 96; of 1351, ibid., JJ. 80, f. 340V; Cartidaire de Normandie 
(MS. Rouen, 1235), ff-sSv, 84. Netistria Pia, p. 431; Monasticon, vii. 1073, 
from Norman roUs of Henry V; DeUsle, CarUdaire normand, no. 768; Farcy, 
Abbayes du diockse de Bayeux, i. 78. 

4. Dijon, Saint-ifitienne. Confirms grants of his predecessors in Nor- 
mandy. Subsequent to the death of St. William in 1031. DeviUe, Analyse, 
P- 33; cf. supra. Chapter I, note 170; Analecta Divionensia, ix. 175. 

5. EvREUX, Saint-Taiuin. Gift mentioned in no. 10. 

6. Fecamp. Comprehensive enumeration of his gifts to the abbey, 
1032-1035. Supra, Appendix B, no. loA. 

7. FfcAMP. Fuller and more suspicious form of no. 6, with identical 
witnesses. Appendix B, no loB. 

8. Fecamp. Charter notifying agreement between the abbey and Hugh, 
bishop of Bayeux, with reference to Argences. Appendix B, no. 7. 

9. FicAMP. Charter concerning the restoration of Argences to the abbey. 
Appendix B, no. 8. 

10. FicAMP. Charter exchanging Saint-Taurin of fivreux for Montivil- 
liers as a dependency of F6camp. Appendix B, no. 9. 

11. JuMi^GES. Adds Virville to his father's charter of August 1025 ( ?). 
Vidimus of 1499 and 1533, and Cartulary 22, in Archives of the Seine- 
Inffirieure, f. 7 flf.; Vernier, no. 12. 

» Mabillon, Acta, iii. 353. »« Gesta Regum, p. 211. 

" ii. 102; iii. 223-225. Whether Wace and Ordericus are entirely independent 
is a matter which needs investigation. 



THE REIGN OF ROBERT I 273 

1 2. JuMizGES. Subscribes charter of Dreux, count of Amiens, 1031-1035. 
Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 10; Neustria Pia, p. 318; F. Soehn6e, Caialogm 
des actes de Henri I", no. 37; Vernier, no. 14. 

13. JumiGES. Attests diarter of Roger of Montgomery. Original in 
Archives of the Seine-Inferieure; copies, MS. Lat. 5424, f. 184V, MS. Lat- 
n. a. 1245, f. 175. Vernier, no. 13; J. Loth, Histoire de I'abbaye de Saint- 
Pierre de Jumikges, i. 158. 

14. Mont-Saint-Michel. General privilege. Original in Archives of 
the Manche, H. 14990 (early copy H. 14991). MSmoires de la SociSU d' 
Agriculture de Bayeux, viii. 252 (1879); Round, Calendar, no. 704. 

15. Mont-Saint-Michel. Grant of one-half of Guernsey and other 
specified lands. Original in Archives of the Manche, H. 14992; vidimtis in 
Archives Nationales, JJ. 66, no. 1496; cartulary (MS. Avranches, 210), f. 26/ 
M.A. N., xii. in; Round, no. 705; Delisle, S.Sauveur, pieces, no. 9; G. 
Dupont, Le Cotentin (Caen, 1870), i. 463 f.; V. Himger, Histoire de Verson 
(Caen, 1908), no. s (facsimile). 

16. Mont-Saint-Michel. Attests, together with Archbishop Robert 
(t 1037) and others, charter of Edward the Confessor as king granting to the 
abbey St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall. Cartulary, f. 32V; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, 
pieces, no. 18; Round, Calendar, no. 708. Robert's name does not appear in 
the text printed in the Monasticon, vii. 989, ' ex ipso autographo ', and 
reproduced by Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus, iv. 251. Edward's title has 
generally been considered to render this charter questionable (cf. Freeman, 
Norman Conquest, ii. 527 f.); see, however, Round, no. 706, and infra, p. 275. 

17. MoNTiviLLiERS. Foundation charter of the nunnery, with detailed 
enumeration of possessions. Given at Fecamp 13 January 1035. Copies in 
Bibhotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. n. a. 1245, ff. 112, 252; Archives of the 
Seine-Inferieure, G. 2068. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 326, from vidimus. 

18. Pkeaux. Consents to foundation of abbey. Gallia Christiana, xj. 
instr. 199. 

19. Pkeaitx. Attests confused notice of donation by the hermit Peter. 
Le Prevost, Eure, iii. 169, from cartulary in Archives of the Eure (H. 711). 

20. PiUEAUx. Notice of his gift of ToutainviUe to the abbey ' iUo aimo quo 
perrexit Robertus comes Jerusalem '. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 200; H. F., 
xi. 387; MabiUon, Annales, iv. 361 (393) ; Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pieces, no. 12; 
Le Privost, Eure, iii. 300 (from cartulary). 

21. Rouen cathedral. Charter of restoration issued conjointly with 
Archbishop Robert. Cartulary (MS. Rouen 1193), f. 32 f.; vidimus in 
Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, G. 2087, 3680. Le Provost, Eure, ii. 520; cf . 
[Pommeraye] Histoire de I'Sglise catMdrale de Rouen (Rouen, 1686), p. 568, 
where another form of this charter is also mentioned. 

22. Rouen. La Trinit6. Confirms the foundation of the abbey and 
emmierates its possessions, 1030. Cartulaire de I'abbaye de la Sainte-TrinitS, 
ed. Deville, no. i; Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 9; Neustria Pia, p. 412; 
Pommeraye, Histoire de I'abbaye de Sainte-Catherine, p. 73. 

23-26. Rouen, La Trinit6. Attests foxir grants to the monastery. Carlur 
laire, nos. 3, 5, 9, 24. 

27. Rouen, Saiot-Amand. Confirms foundation. Vidimus of Philip the 
Fair, in 1313, in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, and in Archives Nationales, 



274 APPENDIX C 

JJ. 49, no. 47 ; cartulary in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure, f . s f . Pom- 
meraye, Histoire de Samt-Amand, p. 76; La Roque, iv. 2224 (extract); 
Monasticon, vii. iioo, from Norman rolls of Henry V. The relation of this 
charter to no. 22, which it closely resembles, and to the confusion respecting 
the beginnings of Saint-Amand, requires investigation. 

28. RotTEN, Saint-Ouen. Adds his confirmation to that of his father in 
charter of ' Enna Christi famula ': ' Et hoc signum + predictus comes 
Rotbertus cimi suis episcopis atque miUtibus, scilicet Nigello, Osbemo 
dapifero, atque aliis nobilibus manu sua ' (breaks off). Pretended original, 
with a duplicate omitting Robert's confirmation, in Archives of the Seine- 
Inf6rieure; copy in the BibUotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. 5423, f. 124V. 

28 a. Rouen. Saint-Ouen. Charter cited by William the Conqueror. 
MS. Lat. n. a. 1243, no. 19; cf. Neustria Pia, p. 23. 

29. Saint- Wandrille. Grant of the chiu-ch of Arques and its depen- 
dencies, 1031-1032. Round, Calendar, no. 1422; Lot, S.-Wandrille, no. 13 
(from cartulary in Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure). 

30. Saint- Wandrille. General confirmation, 1032-1035. Lot, no. 14, 
where the various copies and editions are given. 

31. Sells Le Homme to his sister Adeliz. Mentioned in charter of Adeliz 
for La Trinitfi de Caen. Cartulary in BibUotheque Nationale (MS. Lat. 
5650), f. 17V. Delisle, S.-Sauveur, pieces, no. 34; Round, Calendar, no. 42i.»» 

Not more than three of these documents are originals of charters 
issued by Robert himself, so that no diplomatic study is possible. It is 
clear that there was no ducal chancery: not only do we find no signature 
of chancellor or chaplain, but the varieties of style '* and substance 

" The grant of Saiht-James to Saint-Beno!t-sur-Loire mentioned in the Con- 
queror's charter of 1067 (Prou and Vidier, Les chartes de Saint-Benoit, i. 203), which 
was ascribed to Duke Robert by Stapleton (i, p. xci), should probably be assigned 
to his uncle. Archbishop Robert. The charter for Lisieux cited in the Chronigue de 
S.-Barbe (ed. Sauvage, p. 26) is probably a charter of Richard II which Robert wit- 
nessed: M. A. N., xiii. 9. 

" Thus the duke calls himself ' Ego Robertus Normannorum comes ' (no. 3); 
• ego Robertus gratia Dei dux et princeps Normannorum ' (no. 4); • ego Rotbertus 
filius secundi Richardi nutu Dei Northmannorum ducis et ipse per gratiam Dei 
princeps et dux Northmannorum ' (no. 6); ' Robertus nutu Dei Northmannorum 
dux ' (no. 8) ; ' ego Robertus gratia Dei dux Normannorum ' (no. 9) ; ' ego Robertus 
comes filius magni Richardi gratia Dei dux et princeps Normannorum ' (no. 15; 
cf. no. 14); ' Robertus divina auctoritate Normannorum dux et rector ' (no. 17); 
'Robertus divina favente clemencia Normanorum dux' (no. 21); 'Robertus 
divina ordinante providentia Normannorum dux et rector' (nos. 22, 27); 'ego 
Rodbertus gratia Dei consul et dux Normannorum' (no. 29); 'ego Robertus 
disposicione divina Normannorum princeps ' (no. 30). In the attestation he appears 
as 'ego Robertus princeps Norhmannorum gracia Dei dux' (no. 15); 'signum Rot- 
berti marchisi ' (no. 22); • signum Rotberti Normannorum ducis' (nos. 6, 12); "sig- 
num Roberti comitis et ducis Normannorum ' (no. 30). Cf. Nouveau traits de 
diplomatique, v, 760 1, 



THE REIGN OF ROBERT I 275 

point plainly to local authorship. As only the charters for Cerisy 
and MontiviUiers are exactly dated, it is impossible to draw up an 
itinerary or even to follow in the most general way the duke's progress 
throughout Normandy. The Usts of witnesses, however, are sufficiently 
full, to give us some notion of his entourage, in which four elements 
can be distinguished. First come the higher clergy, including regularly 
the duke's uncle. Archbishop Robert, cominonly three or four bishops, 
and less frequently certain abbots; prelates from beyond Normandy 
appear occasionally, such as the archbishop of Dol (no. 6) and Odilo 
of Cluny (no. 29). The great lords of Normandy and the adjacent 
lands come next: Enguerran, count of Ponthieu, Baldwin of Flanders, 
Gilbert of Brionne, William of Arques, Mauger of Corbeil, Humphrey 
' de Vetulis,' Galeran,*" Rabel, doubtless the commander of the fleet,** 
and on two occasions (nos. 6, 30), in spite of his tender years, the 
duke's son William. In this group it is possible also to trace the princes 
who took refuge at the Norman court: King Henry I, ' qui time tem- 
poribus profugus habebatiur in supradicta terra ' (no. 29; cf. no. 12); 
and the ethelings Edward and Alfred, who appear in no. 29 with 
' signum Hetuuardi ' and ' signum Alureth fratris E.', and in no. 9 
with ' signum Hetwardi, signum Helwredi,' while Edward alone is 
found as king in nos. 6 and 16 — a style which can be explained only by 
rejecting these charters, at least in their present form, or by admitting 
that he assumed the royal title during the lifetime of Canute. As com- 
pared with their importance in the succeeding reign *^ the group of 
household officers is small and ill-defined, comprising the seneschal 
Osbem,*' who generally appears well up in the Ust but not always with 
this title, the constable Turold, who is foimd at the very end of two 
apparent originals (nos. 6, 15), and Robert 'pincema' (no. 15; cf. 
Round, no. 709) ; the chamberlains ** and chaplains *^ mentioned else- 

*" Probably Galeran of Meulan, no. 27. On his di£EicuIties with Robert, see 
Neustria Pia, p. 320; Vernier, no. 16. 

" Nos. 13, 30. See the interpolation of Ordericus in William of Jumi^ges, ed. 
Marx, p. iss. Wace (lines 2795, 2805) calls him Tavel. 

« Supra, p. so f . 

*" ' Procurator principalis domus,' he is called by Ordericus: William of Ju- 
mi^ges, ed. Marx, p. 156. Anfredus likewise appears as dapifer in no. 29. ' Gisle- 
bertus senescallus ' in CarUdaire de la TriniU, no. 5, may not be a ducal officer. Cf . 
L. W. Vernon Harcourt, His Grace the Steward, p. 7. 

" William of Jumi^ges, p. 107; Wace, line 3237. ' Radulfus camerarius filius 
Geroldi ' is mentioned in no. 20. 

*> Isembert, in William of JumiSges, p. 108; Emaldus, in Chapter I, note 
246 (full text in Archaeologia, xxvii. 26). 



276 APPENDIX C 

where do not appear among the witnesses. Probably some of those who 
sign without title are also members of the household. At the end come 
the vicomtes, ordinarily without designation of districts, and attaining 
in one case (no. 15) the niunber of seven. In some instances, as in that 
of the well known Neal of Saint-Sauveur, vicomte of the Cotentin,^ it is 
plain that they too may attest without title. 

Whether Robert's reign was marked by any acts of legislation, 
either secular or ecclesiastical, it is impossible to say. The first Nor- 
man provincial council of which we have mention is not earher than 
1042,*'' and the earUest formulation of ducal custom comes to us from 
the sons of the Conqueror.^' Nevertheless, certain canons of the coun- 
cil of Lillebonne (1080) refer to the practice of Robert's time as the 
basis of customary right,*' and respecting cemeteries the reference is so 
specific as to incline Tardif to the opinion that some actual document 
of the period is presupposed.'" In this, as in other matters, it is likely 
that the conditions of Robert's reign often furnished the norm for that 
of his son. 

*• On whom see Delisle, S.Sauveur, pp. 2-4, pi^es, nos. 1-16. 

*' Bessin, Concilia Rotomagensis Provinciae, i. 39. On the date of this council 
and on all questions concerning early Norman legislation, see E.-J. Tardif, &ude sur 
les sources, i. 2g f . 

** Infra, Appendix D. 

*' Cc. II, 13, 48, in Layettes du Tresor des Chartes, i. 2$ ; Ordericus, ii. 3i6ff. 

'» Op. cil., i. 40. 



APPENDIX D 

THE NORMAN CONSUETUDINES ET lUSTICIE OF 
WILLIAM THE CONQUERORS 

The sources for the history of Norman law before the conquest of the 
duchy by Philip Augustus are, as is well known, exceedingly meager. 
The earliest law-book, the first part of the Tr&s Ancien Couiumier, 
belongs to the very end of the twelfth century, and the traces of custom 
and legislation preserved in charters and chronicles are of the most 
fragmentary and scattered sort.^ It is, accordingly, all the more im- 
perative, especially in view of the great importance of Norman law in 
European legal development, to treasure carefully such material as we 
have; and I venture to think that a text of the year logi, containing a 
brief statement of the customs of the duchy under WiUiam the Con- 
queror, has not received suflScient attention from students of Norman, 
and Anglo-Norman, history and institutions. The text in question was 
first printed, in an incomplete and sometimes unintelligible form, by 
Dom Martene ^ under the title ' Normannorum antiquae consue- 
tudines et iustitiae in concUio apud Lillebonnam anno m.lxxx. cele- 
brato confirmatae,' and was reproduced by Mansi as part of the canons 
of the council.^ But while in all the manuscripts of the Constietudines 
they follow immediately the canons of Lillebonne, they do not occur in 
Ordericus or in the official version of the acts of the council, as sealed 
by Henry I,' and there is nothing in the contents of the two documents 
which indicates the sUghtest connection between them. It is plain 
from the opening sentence that the Constieiudines are not an enact- 
ment of the Conqueror's reign but the result of an inquest made by 

' Revised from E. H. R., xxiii. 502-508 (igo8). 

' H. Brunner, Entstehung der Schnmtrgerichte, p. 130 ff.; Pollock and Maitland, 
i. 64 ff.; E.-J. Tardif, &tiide sur les sources de V ancien droit normand, i (Rouen, 
191 1). On the date of the Tris Ancien Coutumier, see Tardif 's edition, pp. Ixv- 
Ixxii; Viollet, in Histoire litteraire, xxxiii. 47-49. 

' Velerum Scriptorum Collectio Nova (Paris, 1700), i. 226; reprinted in Mart6ne 
and Durand, Thesaurtis Novus Anecdotorum (Paris, 1717), iv. 117; from a manu- 
script of Mont-Saint-Michel, now MS. 149 of the library of Avranches. Reprinted 
in Migne, Patrdogia, cxlix. 1329. 

* Concilia, xx. 575. 

" Ordericus, ii. 316; Teulet, Layettes du Trlsor des Charles, i, 25, no. 22. 



278 APPENDIX D 

Robert and William Rufus after his death.' As this inquest was held 
on 18 July at Caen, it must be assigned to 1091 as the only year in the 
July of which these princes were in Normandy and in friendly rela- 
tions.' The division of territory which they had recently made fur- 
nished a natural occasion for ascertaining the ducal rights, or at least 
for a declaration of such of them {quia magis necessaria sunt) as had 
been most persistently violated during the preceding anarchy.* 

Over against the adulterine castles of recent origin the inquest de- 
clares the law of the Conqueror's time, which not only forbade the 
building of castles and strongholds, but placed careful restrictions on 
the making of fosses and pahsades (§ 4). With this went the right, so 
freely used by the Conqueror, of placing garrisons in the castles of his 
barons and the right of demanding hostages for their loyalty (§ 5). 
Private war had not been entirely prohibited, but it had been closely 
limited (§§ 6, 8, 14), just as in 1075 William I had limited the blood- 
feud without abolishing it.' 

Ducal and baronial jurisdiction are carefully distinguished, although 
the line which divides them is not clearly drawn. The list of matters 
reserved for the duke's jurisdiction is shorter than the enumeration of 
pleas of the sword which appears a century later in the Trh Ancien 
CouUimier,^" but it must be remembered that the inquest of 1091 
expressly disclaims completeness. Assault in the duke's court or on the 
way to and from it," offenses committed in the host or within a week 

• Cf. Delisle, B. &. C, x. 198; Viollet, in Histoire lUUraire, xxxiii. 41 f. 

' For the events of 1091 see Freeman, William Rufus, i. 273-293; supra, pp. 64 {., 
78. H. Bohmer, Kirche und Staat, p. 34, note 2, dates the inquest 17 June 1096, mis- 
taking the month and overlooking the fact that in 1096 William Rufus did not cross 
to Normandy until September (Ordericus, iv. 16). Liebermann, Gesetze, i. 597, note, 
has 1091. 

' On conditions in Normandy under Robert see supra. Chapter II. 

° ' Instituit legem sanctam, scilicet ne aliquis homo aliquem hominem assalliret 
pro morte alicuius sui parentis, nisi patrem aut filium interfecisset': Duchesne, 
Historiae Normannorum Scriptores, p. 1018; Ordericus, v. 138; Robert of Torigni, 
i. 60. The MS. of the Annals of Saint-Ctienne in the Vatican (MS. Regina 703A, 
i- S3v) has, apparently, in place of ' interfecisset,' ' interfectoref,' while one MS. of 
Robert of Torigni has ' interfectorem '; the original may have read ' nisi patris aut 
filii interfector esset.' 

On the question of the Conqueror's earlier legislation against disorder see Tardif , 
&tude sur les sources, p. 31 f.; on the interpretation of § 4, C. Enlart, Manuel d' 
archiologie franfaise, ii. 418; Haskins, The Normans in European History, p. 152 1. 

" Ed. Tardif, cc. 15, 16, 3s, S3, S9. 6?, 69. 7°; Pollock and Maitland, ii. 455. 

" So in the canons of Lillebonne ' assultus in ecclesie itinere ' is punished equally 
with ' violatio ecclesie et atrii.' 



CONSUETUDINES ET lUSTICIE 279 

of its setting forth or its rettirn, offenses against pilgrims, and viola- 
tions of the coinage (§§ i, 2, 12, 13) — these place the offender at the 
duke's mercy. Probably the same protection extended over mer- 
chants*^ (§ 11) and over the duke's forests'' (§ 7). All such cases 
belong to the duke, but franchise courts may possess jurisdiction over 
attacks on houses (hainfara), arson, rape, and unwarranted seizure of 
sureties (§§ 9, 10) — just as imder Edward the Confessor hainfara was 
one of the pleas which were ordinarily reserved to the crown, but 
might be held by a great immunist like the abbot of Westminster or 
the bishop of Winchester." Arson, rape, and hainfara are mentioned 
among the constietudines vicecomitatus '* in Vascoeuil which the Con- 
queror granted in the year of his marriage to the abbey of Preaux: " 

Eodem anno quo in coniugiiun sortitus est Normannorum marchio Willel- 
mus nomine Balduini comitis fJiam deditSancto Petro Pratelli consuetudines 
quas habebat in quadam terra que Wascolium vulgo vocatur, scilicet hain- 
faram, ullac, rat, incendium, bernagium, helium. Pro quibus abbas eiusdem 
loci Ansfridus nomine ei dignam dedit pecuniam, id est .x. libras denariorum, 
et orationes loci Pratelli. 

Equally interesting is the system of penalties for those in miseri- 
cordia ducis. The authors of the History of English Law have made 

" Merchantshadalsotheprotectionof the Truce of God in Normandy: M.G.H., 
ConstittUiones et Acta Publica, ed. WeUand, i. 601, c. 7. 

" Even priests were comprehended in the forest jurisdiction, as we learn from the 
coimcil of Lillebonne. 

" Pollock and Maitland, ii. 454 f.; Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 
p. 87 f.; Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, pp. 111-114; Steen- 
strup, Normannerne, iv. 348 ff.; Liebermann, Geseize, ii. 504-506. 

" So styled in the notice of their regrant by the abbot to Thibaud, son of Nor- 
man, shortly afterwards: ' consuetudines vicecomitatus quas a comite ut supra- 
scriptum est emerat ' (cartulary of Pr6aux, no. 439). Compare what Wace (ed. 
Andresen, ii, lines 2309-2312) says of Robert I's grant to Cerisy, the text of which 
{Monasticon, vii. 1073; cf. App|endix C) merely gives freedom from every con- 
suetude: 

' £ tel franchise lur dunat, 
Cume Ii dues en sa terre ad: 
II unt le murdre e le larun, 
Le rap, le homicide, le arsun.' 

" Cartulary of Preaux, no. 437; now in Valin, pieces, no. 2. In 1106 Robert of 
Meulan ' condonavit abbatie sue banleviam et ullac et hainfariam et incendium ' 
(ibid., no. 347). Ullac is a word which I have found only in the Prfiaux cartulary: in 
no. 55 the form is utlach and uthlach; in Delisle-Berger, no. 675, it is uthlac. It 
would seem to be connected with the Old Norse utlagi, an outlaw, which appears as 
vlage or hulague in Wace, and it might then mean the harboring of an outlaw 



28o APPENDIX D 

clear how, in the course of the twelfth century, the old system of b6t 
and wite is replaced by a new criminal law which puts the ofiender or 
his property at the king's mercy." As roughly stated by the Dialogus,^^ 
the new system grades offenses into three classes, according as the 
penalty is forfeiture of movables, of lands and rents, or of life and 
limb. Now §§ 1-3 and 13 of the Consuetudines exhibit precisely the 
same system, violations of the duke's peace entaihng, according to 
their gravity, the forfeiture of pecunia, terra, or corpus, or of some com- 
bination of them; and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the 
classification of the Dialogus goes back to a Norman original. Against 
the view of a Norman origin it is not enough to urge the existence of 
" the preappointed b6t in Normandy when we can no longer find it in 
England," ^' for the principle of amercement may well have existed in 
Normandy side by side with survivals of the definite penalties which 
were once found among all Germanic peoples — indeed it is not clear 
that the provision of the Consuetudines in the case of the imforeseen 
milee (§ 3), secundum mensuram forisfacti emendavit, does not imply the 
preappointed b6t. 

§ 13 contains the earliest evidence of the ducal monopoly of coinage 
and the jurisdiction growing out of it.^" The Bayeux mint is not other- 
wise known; ^' the Rouen mint is mentioned in a charter of Richard II,''^ 
and is proved by coins to have existed in the time of WiUiam Long- 
sword.^ The standard of fineness prescribed in § 13 is confirmed by 

" ii. 458 f . Cf. the discussion of misericordia in Liebennann, Gesetze, ii. 583 f. 

" ' Quisquis enim in regiam maiestatem deliquisse deprehenditur, uno trium 
modorum iuxta qualitatem delicti sui regi condempnatur, aut enim in universo 
mobili suo reus iudicatur pro minoribus culpis, aut in omnibus immobilibus, fundis 
scilicet et redditibus, ut eis exheredetur, quod fit pro maioribus culpis, aut pro 
maximis quibuscunque vel enormibus delictis, in vitam suam vel membra ' (bk. ii, 
c. 16, ed. Hughes, Crump, and Johnson, p. 149). 

19 Pollock and Maitland, ii. 459. 

2" There are traces of the msticia monete under Henry I. See the charter for 
Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, GaUia Christiana, xi. instr. 157; Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, 
p. 122; and cf. Trls Ancien Coukimier, c. 70. 

^ B. A C, xiii. 104, note s; BuUeHn des Antigmires de Normandie, xiv. 211, 219. 

22 ' Concedo ftiam decimas monetg nostrae ex integro.' Charter of 1025 (?) for 
FIcamp, original in the Mus^e, no. 2ter, printed in Neustria Pia, p. 217; supra, 
Appendix B, no. 5. 

^ A. Engel and R. Serrure, Traiti de numismatique du moym-dge, ii. 380. 
' Rannulf us monetarius ' witnesses an early Rouen charter of William the Conqueror 
(Pommeraye, S.-Amand, p. 78) ; his son Galeran held land in Caen (GaUiaChrisiiana, 
xi. instr. 60). Radulfus appears with this title in a charter of 1061 (Archives of the 
Manche, H. 14994; Round, no. 711), and this name is found on coins (Engel and 



CONSUETUDINES ET lUSTICIE 28 1 

analysis of extant coins of the eleventh century.^* Helmarc is prob- 
ably to be interpreted as half a mark,^^ which gives a mark of sixteen 
shillings. This word points to the Scandinavian origin of the mark, 
which has not been found in France before 1082.^ 

The text of the Consuetudines which follows is based upon (A) a 
manuscript of the twelfth century preserved at the Vatican among the 
manuscripts of the Queen of Sweden, no. 596, ff. 4-5.^' The variant 
readings are taken from (B) the Vatican MS. Ottoboni 2964, ff. 
133V-134V; 2* (C) MS. Lat. 1597 B of the BibUotheque Nationale, ff. 
140-141V, a miscellaneous collection of the fifteenth century; and 
(D) MS. 149, f. 3, of the Ubrary of Avranches, which was used by 
Martene for his edition.^' The division into paragraphs is that of C, 
the only manuscript which makes any such division. 

Eee ^ sunt consuetudines et iusticie qttas habet dux Normannie in eadem 
provincia, et Cheillelmus rex qui regnum Anglic adquisivit maximc et mriHter 
eas suo tempore teneri fecit, et sicut hie scripte sunt ^ filii eius Robertus et 
Guillelmus per episcopos et barones sues Cadomi ^ recordari fecerunt. 

Hec esf iusticia quam rex Guillelmus ^ qui regnum Anglie adqxusivit habuit 
in Normannia, et hie inscripta '' est sicut Robertus ^ comes Normannie'' 
et GuiUelmus rex Anglie filii eius et heredes predicti regis fecerunt recordari^ 
€t" scribi*" per episcopos et barones suos Cadomi*' xv. kal. Augusti. 

I . Et hec est ** iusticia " domini Normannie quod in ciuia sua vel eundo ad 

Serrure, ii. 381). ' Odo monetarius ' appears in a Rouen charter (Carttdaire de la 
Trinite, no. 60). 

" Sambon finds 44.-7 per cent silver in a Rouen denarius of the eleventh century 
found near Naples {Gazette numismatique franiaise, iii. 138, note). 

2' Cf. Du Cange, s. v.; B. &. C, x. 198. 

26 Guilhiermoz, Note sur les poids du moyen Age, ibid., Ixvii. 210-213. See however 
Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 74, which may be slightly earlier. 

" On this manuscript see Pertz's Archiv, xii. 296; Auvray in B. &. C, xlix. 637, 
note 3; Liebermann, Ueber die Leges Edwardi Confessoris, p. 59, note i. 

2' Described by Auvray, /. c; Tardif, Coutumiers de Normandie, ii, pp. lii-liv. 

^' This manuscript is of the thirteenth century. Cf . Catalogtie des manuscrits des 
dipartements, x. 68. MS. SSI (A. 373) of the library of Rouen formerly contained 
' Consuetudines quas habet dux Normannie in eadem Normannia,' but this portion 
has been missing since the time of Montfaucon (ibid.,i. 130). MS. Rouen 2192, f. 
51, contains a modem copy by Le Brasseur, the source of which is not given. 

'" Hec, CD ; Hee . . . fecerunt, om. B. If not official, the title is at least in con- 
temporary language: cf. ' iusticiis et consuetudinibus ' in canon 45 of the council of 
Xillebonne. 

w scripte hie, C. ^ R., B. « Om. C. 

'2 eadem, D. " Om. B. « eadem, D. 

83 cum, D. " Om. B. reccedari, D. « Om. AC. 

" Willdmus rex, B. " Om. BC. « Om. B. 

^' scripta, D. 



282 



APPENDIX D 



curiam vel redeundo de curia nullus homo habuit" gardam *' de inimico suo. 
Et *« si aliquis inimico suo in via curie vel in curia forisfecit,*' ita quod ipse 
sciret " quod ille cui malum fecit ad curiam iret vel inde rediret, si probatus 
inde fuit" dominus Normannie habuit" pecuniam suam" et corpus eius ad 
suam iusticiam faciendam et terram suam perdidit ^ ita quod nee ipse nee 
aliquis de parentibus suis eam clamare potuit." Et" si defendere potuit 
quod scienter hoe non fecisset, per pecuniam fuit '' in misericordia domini 
Normannie sine perditione terre. 

2. Et " in via exercitus et in exercitu et in " .viii." diebus " ante motum 
determinati exercitus »° et .viii. diebus post exercitum si aliquis forisfeeerit," 
habuit •" inde dominus Normannie eandem iusticiam quam de forisfaeto sue 
curie." Nee infra preseriptos terminos exercitus alicui licuit " nammimi '^ 
capere, et si fecit " per pecuniam emendavit " in misericordia domini 
Normannie. 

3. Et si in exercitu vel in ciuia vel in via curie vel exercitus mislata " 
evenit que pro precedente " ira facta non fuerit,™ et in ea vulneratus vel 
occisus fuerit '° aliquis, ille cuius culpa hoe factvun est secundum mensuram 
forisfacti emendavit." 

4. Nulli licuit " in Normannia fossatum faeere in planam terram " nisL 
tale quod de fundo" potuisset" terram iaetare superius sine scabeUo, et ibi 
non ™ licuit " faeere palicium ™ nisi in una regula et illud sine propugnaculis 
et alatoriis. Et in rupe " vel '" in insula nuUi *' licuit ^ faeere fortitudinem, 
et ^ nulli licuit ** in Normannia castellum faeere," et nulli licuit ** in Nor- 
mannia ^ fortitudinem eastelli sui vetare domino Normannie ^ si ipse 
eam " in manu sua " voluit *• habere. 

5. Et si dominus Normannie filium vel fratrem vel nepotem baronis sui 
qui non esset miles voluit habere obsidem " de portanc^ fide, nullus sibi 
contradicere potuit. 



" Om. C. " gaurdam, A; gardiam, C; gardam habebai, B; gardam habuit, D. 
" S . . . suo, om. B. " suam pecuniam, D. « etiam, B. 

'^ perdel, C. 

» poterit, C. 

^ Et . . . terre, om. B. 

" erit, C. 



*' forisfeeerit, B. 
*' sciret quod ille, om. B 
" fuerit, D. 
»» habebU, C. 



"' Here C has octo diebus et post exercitum octo diebus. 
« -fecit, C. ™ fuit, B. 

«* habebit, C. 



° in .viii. diebus, om. C;. 

in, om. D. 
" et octo, B. 
" diebus . . . viii., om. B. 



" emendabit, ACD. 

" Uceat, C. 

" plena terra, B. 

" profunda, B. 

"■ popotuisset, A. 

" nulli, CD; nullum, B 

" licebit, C. 

" palatium, B. 

" ruppe, B. 
" in manu sua, om. B; manum suam, D. 
'» vdlet, C; voluit in mam. ««a, B. » ob fidem de portata fide, B, 



" curie sue, BCD. 

" licebit, C. 

" namnum, C; nam- 

mium, B. 
" cepU, BD; ceperit, C. 
" emendabit, BCD. 
«» Om. B; vis iUaia, C. 
" precedenti, BCD. 



»» el,B. 

*» et nuUi, B. 

" liceat, C. 

" et . . . faeere, om. BD. 

" liceat, C. 

" Here D inserts § 6. 

" in Normannia, om.B, 

" D inserts et. 

«» Om. B. 



CONSUETUDINES ET lUSTICIE 283 

6. Nulli " licuit " in Normannia pro calumnia terre'* domum vel mo- 
lendinum ardere vel aliquam vastacionem facere vel predam'^ capere. 

7 . Nulli licuit " in Normannia in f orestis ipsius domini hominem assailire '° 
vel insidias ponere. 

8. Nulli licuit " inimicum ^ querendo vel nanunum " capiendo vexil- 
lum "" vel loricam portare vel cornu sonare neque cembeDum mittere post 
quod insidie remanerent neque de membris suis hominem '"^ dampnare sine 
iudicio, nisi in taU actu vel forisfacto inventus est ™ pro quo membnun per- 
dere debuisset et ibidem perdidisset, at nisi per indicium curie domini i"" 
Normannie de hoc quod ad eum pertinet vel iudicio ciuie baronimi de hoc 
quod ad barones pertinet. 

9. NuUi Ucuit '•" in Normannia hanfare facere '"' vel incendium vel 
raptum mulieris vel nammum '"^ capere quin fieret inde clamor apud eum qui 
clamorem inde habere debuit."" 

10. Et si hec facta fuerunt,'"* dominus Normannie '"' habuit "" inde 
quod habere debuit "' in ^^ iUis locis in quibus habere debuit et barones inde 
habuerunt "' quod ad eos pertinuit in iUis locis in quibus habere debuerunt. 

II."* NuUi licuit "' in Normaimia mercatorem disturbare nisi pro suo 
debito et m'si fideiussor fuisset. 

12. Nulh licuit "* peregrinum "* disturbare pro aliquo anteriori foris- 
facto."' Et si aUquis "' fecit,™ de corpore suo fuit ™ in misericordia domini 
Normannie. 

13. Nulli licuit "' in Normannia monetam facere extra domos mone- 
tarias ^ Rothomagi et Baiocarum et illam mediam argenti et ad iustum 
pensum, scilicet ^ .viii.'*' solidos in helmarc.'''* Et si aUquis alibi fecit ^^^ 
monetam vel ibi fecif ' monetam falsam, de corpore suo fuit '" in miseri- 
cordia domini Normannie. Et si aliquis extra predictas domos [fecit] facere "' 
monetam vel in predictis domibus fecit ^ facere "' falsam,'*' terram suam et 
pecuniam forisfecit.^'' 

^ Nulli . . . capere, in- '' predictam, B. " in Normannia, B. 

serted in § 4, D. °° assaillire,C; assailire, " nammvum, B. 

" liceat, C. D; assallaire, B. ""• vexillam, C. 

" Om. C. " liceat, C; licuerit, B. 

'" hominem de membris suis, BC; hominem dampnare de membris suis, D. 
"« fuerit, C; esset, B. ™ Om. B. "» Normanannie, A. 

™ domini . . . curie, 1* namnum, C. "" hahebit, C. 

om. B. 'w debebit, C. >" debebit, C. 

i« liceat, C. i»8 fuerint, C. '^ in... debuit,om.BC. 

"' habuerunt . . . debuerunt, om. BC; In illis locis in guilms pertinuit habuerunt 
quod ad eos habere debuerunt, B; Habebunt quod inde habere debebunt in illis locis 
in quibus debere habebunt et quod ad quemlibet pertinebit, C. 

^* Nulli ... fuisset, ™ facto,^. '^' quis, C. ^ monetarias domos, CD. 

om. D. "9 fecent, C. »» i, B. 

"s liceat, C. ^o sit, C. ^* octo, C. 

"' mercatorem, D. "^ liceat, C. "^^ marca, B; hdinare,C. 

™ fecerit, C. From this point to the middle of the following paragraph (iustidis) 
the ends of the lines are wanting in B. 

^ erit,C. ^^ fecerit, C. ^^ fieri, C. "<> monetam falsam, C. ^ forisfaciet,C. 



284 



APPENDIX D 



Hec autem que superius dicta sunt scripta sunt "^ quia ^'^ magis neces- 
saria sunt. Remanet autem multum extra hoc scriptiun de iusticia mo- 
nete et reliquis iusticits Normannie, sad propter hoc quod non scribitur 
nichil '*• perdunt "' comes Robertus "° et rex Guillelmus ^'^ de iusticia quam 
pater eonmi habuit neque barones de hoc quod habuerunt tempore regis 
GuiUeImi.138 

14. Nulli licuit ™ pro guerra ''"' hominem capere vel redimere nee de bello 
vel conflictu pecuniam portare vel arma vel equum ducere.'^ 

'^ scripta sunt, cm. C. ™ Om. B. "» Uceat, C. 

"^ que, B. ^ W, B. i« uuerra, B. 

^ nil, B. "« WiUdmi, B. •« El sic finis, add. C. 

"' perdent, C. 



APPENDIX E 

UNPUBLISHED CHARTERS OF ROBERT CURTHOSE^ 

1 
Shortly after September 1087 

Robert confirms to Saint-Mienne of Caen the manor. of Vains as granted 
by his father in his last illness, reserving the toll from those outside the 
manor. 

A, original lost; B, brief cartulary of Vains, MS. Caen 104, f. 150; 
C, MS. Lat. n. a. 1406, f. 58, from B. 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 13. Cf. Deville, Analyse, p. 31; and, for the 
toll, the inquest of 1171 in DeUsle, Henri II, p. 345. 

In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis patris et filii et spiritus sancti. Ego 
Robertus dux Normannorum et princeps Cenomannonun concedo ecclesie 
Dei quam W. rex Anglorum pater meus pro salute anime sue et mee, matris 
mee, fratrum meorum, antecessorum et parentum nostrorum in honore Beati 
Stephani prothomartyris construxit, donum de manerio de Vain ' quod idem 
pater meus in infirmitate qua defunctus est eidem ecclesie fecit, ita integre 
solide Ubere et quiete sicut ipse ia ea die qua defunctus est idem manerium 
tenebat. Retineo tamen in manu mea ad censum mei vicecomitatus eiusdem 
manerii theloneum alivmn, hoc est Ulud theloneum de hominibus qui de 
foris scilicet venientes in ipso manerio aliquid emunt vel vendunt, theloneum 
vero residens, hoc est de hominibus in ipso manerio manentibus ceteraque 
tocius ville de Vasono, quietum et liberum relinquo et concedo predicte 
ecclesie. 

Ad hanc autem donationem confirmandam consilio meorum fidelium 
scriptum hoc fieri precipio et manu mea firmavi firmandamque fratri meo 
Henrico predictisque meis fidelibus tradidi. Huius etpam] donationis con 
{sic) fieret a patre meo simt testes Robertus comes Moretonii, Robertus 
comes de MeuUent, Henricus comes frater eius, Yvo Taillebosc, et alii plures. 



1096 

Robert attests an agreement between Gilbert, abbot of Saint~£,tienne of 
Caen, and Gerento, abbot of Saint-B&nigne of Dijon, exchanging Saint- 

' See the full list of Robert's charters, supra, pp. 66-70, to which the references 
by number are made in the text. For convenience the alphabetical order of the 
beneficiaries has been retained here. Vernier's edition of nos. 6 and 7 arrived after 
they were in type. 

' Vains, Manche, canton of Avranches. 

28s 



286 APPENDIX E 

Eippolyte of ' Curtbertalt ' for Saint- Aubert-sur-Orne and Saint- 
Martin de Longchamps. 

A, original, never sealed, in Archives of the Calvados, H. 1847. 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 17. Cf. Deville, Analyse, pp. 26, 31; Le- 
chaude, M. A. N., vii. 270, no. 8; Hippeau, M. A. N., xxi. 29, 523; Le 
Prevost, Eure, ii. 323. 

The date is fixed by the presence of Abbot Gerento in Normandy in 
1096: supra, p. 75. The grant of Longchamps to Saint-Benigne 
under Richard II is mentioned in the chronicle of the abbey (Analecta 
Divionensia, ix. 175), which says nothing of this exchange and gives no 
means of identifying Curtbertalt among the abbey's possessions. 

Notum sit omnibus futuris et presentibus quod domnus Gislebertus abbas 
Cadomensis et domnus lerento Divionensis fecerunt inter se conunuta- 
tiones quasdam de rebus ad utrasque §cclesias pertinentibus. Cadomensis 
enim gcclesia sita in. Normannia habebat in BiKgundia §cclesiam Sancti 
Ypoliti de Curtbertalt cum appenditiis datis et adquisitis, quam contulit 
Sancto Stephano Cadomensi Roclenus episcopus CabUonensis. Similiter 
Divionensis sita in Burgundia habebat in Normannia gcclesiam Sancti 
Alberti cum sibi pertinentibus et gcclesiam de Longo Campo ^ iuxta silvam 
qug dicitur Leons cum terris et decimis. Quia ergo res utraque in longinquo 
posita erat et longinquitas itineris non sinebat tantumdem commodi prove- 
nire quantum f aceret si esset in vicinio gcclesig, communi decreverunt consilio 
ut gcclesia Cadomensis acciperet gcclesiam Sancti Alberti cum appenditiis et 
gcclesiam de Longo Campo cum terris et dedmis, quod erat ixoris gcclesig 
Divionensis, et gcclesia Divionensis haberet gcclesiam Sancti Ypoliti cum 
omnibus Ulis qug monachi Sancti Stephani inibi habitantes videbantur pos- 
sidere. Hgc itaque mutationis conventio facta est communi consilio conununi 
decreto et ut in postermn servaretur stabiUtmn est cartanim antiquarum 
commutatione et huius nova conscriptione et abbatum utrorumque et frat- 
rum utriusque gcclesig subscriptione. 
Sigmun Gisleberti abbatis Cadomensis + Signmn Rodulfi+ 
Signmn lerentonis abbatis Divionensis + Signum Humberti monachi +Sig- 
num Hugonis capellani4- Signum Roberti monachi + 
+Signum Roberti comitis Normannorum filii Willelmi regis Anglorum. 

3 
1101-1105 

Robert grants to Saint-£iienne of Caen a Sunday market and an annual 
fair at Cheux. 

A, original, 42 x 19 centimeters with projecting tag of 14 centimeters, 
in Archives of the Calvados, H. 1832. L6chaude, copied by Round, 

' Saint-Aubert-sur-Ome, Orne, canton of Putanges; Saint-Martin de Long- 
champs, Eure, canton of £tr6pagny. 



CHARTERS OF ROBERT CURTHOSE 287 

says, "Le sceau de cette charte, scellee en queue, est brise"; but 
nothing now remains of it. 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 18; Lechaude, M.A.N., vii. 271, no. 9; 
Round, no. 451; cf. Deville, Analyse, p. 16, where the text gives the 
names of the bishops of Bayeux and Coutances, Thorold and Ralph; 
Hippeau, M. A. N., xxi. 495, who says the charter was given at Saint- 
Pierre-sur-Dive (!). 

IN NOMINE sanctg at individug trinitatis patris et filii et spiritus sancti. 
Ego Robertus dux Normannorum concede gcclesig Dei quam Willelmus rex 
Anglorum pater meus pro salute animg sug et meg, matris meg, fratrum 
meorum, antecessorum et parentiun nostrorum in honore Beati Stephani 
Cadomi construxit, habere mercatum ad diem dominicam in manerio de 
Ceus' hereditario et perpetuo iiu:e possidendimi et unam feriam in anno ad 
iUum terminum quem abbas et monachi eiusdem gcclesig elegeiint. Quod 
siquis banc donationem, scilicet hoc mercatum et banc feriam qug ego pro 
salute animg meg et pro salute animg patris mei et matris meg, fratrum 
meorum, antecessorum et parentum nostrorum gcclesig Sancti Stephani de 
Cadomo donavi, eidem gcclesig auferre aliquo modo temptaverit, concede 
ego cerde et ere mee et manu mea cenfirmo ut ex auctoritate Dei patris omni- 
potentis et filii et spiritus sancti sit excemmimicatus et a regno Dei in per- 
petuum exclusus. 

Signum Roberti cemitis Nermannig+ Signum Eustachii de Bretulie + 
Signum WiUekni Rethomagensis archiepiscopi+ Signum Rannulfi episcopi 
Duhelmensis + Signum WiUelmi camerarii + Signum episcopi Baiocensis + 
Signum WiUelmi cemitis de WarennaH- Signum Roberti de Monteforti+ 
Signum Gisleberti de Aquila + Signum Rainaldi de Aurea vaUe + Signum 
WUlelmi de Ferreriis+ Signum Rodulfi Taissen+ Signum episcopi 
Constantiensis+ Signvun Roberti Marmion+ Signum Roberti de Gren- 
tonis maisiulio+ Signum Roberti DoisneH- 



1088-1091 

(o) 7 Jidy 1088, Robert, when about to cross to England, restores to 
Fecamp and frees from all secular dues the land of William of Bee, of 
Hunspath, and of Hunloph, possessions at IgnauiMle, Bures, and 
Bouteilles, and land at Ficamp which his father had taken from the 
abbey. 

(b) Thereafter Robert grants to the abbey a fair at Fecamp each year as 
long as the catch of herrings lasts, as well as a meadow for the monks' 
dairy. 

' Cheux, Calvados, canton of Tilly-sur-SeuIles. 



288 APPENDIX E 

(c) Jo8g-iogi, Robert, having defeated Robert of Mortain, son of 
William of Bee, and given his land to Gohier, again restores it to FScamp 
and invests the abbot per lignum. 

A, originals, tied together and retaining portion of attached seal, in 
Musee de la Benedictine, no. 6 (fragment of b separately preserved as 
no. 58). As they existed in 1764 they are described by Dom Lenoir as 
follows: " Cette charte est en quelque fajon composee de trois parties. 
... La premiere et la seconde sont sur une feuille de parchemin de 12 
pouces de haut et 13 de large, et la 3^ est sur une autre feuille de par- 
chemin qui a 13 pouces de haut et sept et demi de large, ce qui forme 
comme deux chartes couchees Time sur 1' autre et jointes ensemble par 
une laniere d'un cuir blanc fort epais et d'un pouce de large a la- 
quelle est attache par derriere la grande charte im sceau de deux 
pouces et demi de diametre. Ce sceau est d'une espece de pate en 
mastic d'tui gris blanc qui s'emie tres facilement. H est si fort endom- 
mage qu'il est impossible d'y rien distinguer." B, copy from A, by 
Lenoir, Collection Moreau, cccxli, f. 21; C, copies of a and c in the 
cartulary, MS. Rouen 1207, f. 14, no. 40, with several of the wit- 
nesses omitted; D, copy of C, MS. Lat. n. a. 2412, no. 40. 

Supra, Chapter II, nos. 20-22. a and c are analyzed from C by 
Round, no. 117, and Davis, no. 297; cf. DuCange, rnider gravaria. 
Extract from b in S. B. de la M. Noel, Histoire des piches (Paris, 1815), 
p. 379, from Chronicon ArchimonasterU Fiscampnensis, p. 356. 

b and c are anterior to the grant of Fecamp to Wilham Rufus in 
1091 ; c is posterior to the accession of Abbot Ralph of Seez in 1089. 

(0) [In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis. Anno ab incarnatione 
Domini miUesimo] LXXXVIII mense lulio septima die mensis feria vi. [ego 
Robertus] Dei gratia [dux et princeps Normannonmi pro salute] animg meg 
et patris mei W. regis Anglorum matrisque meg Mathildis reging [et aliorum 
predecessorum meorum reddo et] concede ecclesig Sancte Trinitatis Fis- 
canni et abbati Willelmo Dei providentia [eiusdem ecclesig preordinato pas- 
tori terras illas qug] antea de casamento prefatg gcclesig subtractg fuerant: 
scilicet totam terram [Willelmi de Becco quam tenebat de me, simili]ter 
terram Hunspathi et terram Hunloph de Mamolins et totam terram de 
HisnelvUla' [et quicquid ad earn pertinet decimamque molen]dinorum de 
Biuris et duos burgenses cum duabus salinis in villa qug dicitur [ButeUias ter- 
ramque burgensium Fiscanni quam] pater meus ira commotus ante obitus sui 
diem subtraxerat ab eadem gcclesia. Has autem [terras reddo et concedo 
quietas de gravaria] et ab omni laicali consuetudine consilio et nutu Heinrici 
fratris mei aliorumque [obtimatum meorum quorum subscriptione] presens 
carta roboratur. 

' Ignauville, canton of F6camp; Bures, canton of LondiniSies; Bouteilles, 
canton of Offranville, all in Seine-Inf6rieure. 



CHARTERS OF ROBERT CURTHOSE 289 

[Si+gnum Rotberti comitis Signum+ Gisleberti episcopi Ebroicensis] 
Si+gnum Henrici comitis +Signum [Willelmi monachi de Archis]. 

(6) [Ego qui supra Rotbertus Dei gratia dux et princ]eps Normannorum 
[concedo] Sanctg Trinitati et gcclesig Fiscannensi in ipso loco Fiscanni [apud 
gcclesiam Sancti Stepharii nundinam unam qug vulgo] feria dicitur omni anno 
quandiu captura haringorum duraverit. Et ut Pigc mea concessio firma 
maneat signi mei auctoritajte firmavi et fidelium meonun quorum inferius 
nomina annotata sunt [attestatione roboravi. Hi sunt] Helias de Sancto 
Sydonio, Bemardus de Brus, Willelmus +fi]ius Girardi, et Willelmus Grenet. 
Ex parte Sanctg [Trinitatis: Willelmus abbas, lohannes cellerarius], 
Willelmus Malus conductus, et Ingelrannus. Concedo etiam quoddam 
pratum quod Grandis campus vocatur ad vacariam unam faciendam ad 
opus monachorum. 

(c) Post hgc omnia consurrexit adversum me et adversum abbatem 
Fiscanni Rotbertus de Moritania filius Willelmi de Becco et in ipsa terra 
quam de Sancta Trinitate et Fiscannensi abbate tenebat castrum firmavit et 
servitia qug terradebebatc'ontratenuit. At egoDeo auxiliante pariter et fide- 
libus meis annitentibus non solxmi eum conquisivi varum et castrum ipsiun 
destruxi simul et incendi et terram Ulam Gohero dedi. Quod abbas de cuius 
feodo terra erat audiens me rnde requisivit, dicens quod terra ilia de dominio 
sancti antiquitus fuerit et quod ego eam quando in Angliam transire debui 
cum aliis terris ecclesig reddiderim. Hoc ego verum esse cognoscens simul 
et volens ut suum sancto maneret, Fiscannum veni et terram aiam cum aliis 
terris ac rebus qug in alia carta annotatg sunt Sanctg Trinitati reddidi et 
dedi et inde donationem hoc lignum in manus abbatis misi et utramque 
cartam sigillo meo auctorizavi, et hoc ideo feci nequis de cetero existat qui 
dicere possit quod terra ista de dominio sancti non fuerit et quod ego eam 
gcclesig non reddiderim et donaverim. 

Signum Rotberti +comitis Signum Radulfl + abbatis Sagii. 
Ad hoc barones mei testes fuerunt Goherus, Rotbertus de Donestanvilla, 
Radulfus de Grainvilla, Gislebertus filius Raineri, Willelmus filius Girardi, 
WiUehnus Grenet, Rotbertus filius Turstini, et Gislebertus Belet. Ex parte 
Sanctg Trinitatis: Willelmus abbas, Willelmus filius Teoderici, Rogerius de 
Scilletot, Ricardus Harela, lohannis cellerarius, Willelmus Malus conductus, 
Hugo de Ichelunt, Ancherus de Nevilla, Ansfredus Bordet, Ingelrannus et 
Hugo Gohun. 

5 
1087-1091 

Robert grants to the abbey of Ficamp the land of Hugh Mursard at 
Ficamp. 

A, original lost; B, copy in cartulary, MS. Rouen 1207, no. 35, 
omitting the witnesses; C, MS. Lat. n. a. 2412, no. 35, from B. 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 23. Probably anterior to the grant of F6camp 
to William Rufus in 1091. 



290 APPENDIX E 

Ego Robertus comes Normannie pro salute anime mee et parentum 
meorum do atque concedo Sancte Trinitati et domno Willelmo abbati tercio 
et monachis in Fiscanno Deo servientibus terrain Hugonis Mursardi que est 
in eodem Fiscanno cum domibus et edificiis que in ea sunt, ita liberam et 
quietam et sine aliqua consuetudine sicut idem Hugo ipsam terram tenuit, ut 
eam in etemum iure hereditario possideat. 

6 

30 March 1088 

Robert attests a charter of Ralph Fitz AnserS ^ granting to JumUges the 
allod of Beaunay with its appurtenances and the tithe of 'Anslevilla.' 

A, original in Archives of the Seine-Inf erieure, /o«<f5 Jumieges; the 
entries respecting the execution of the transaction were made in the 
spaces left vacant by the signatures and list of witnesses. B, copy of the 
late twelfth century, ibid. ; C, modern copy by A. Deville, in MS. Lat. 
n. a. 1243, f. 185, no. 136, where the date is wrongly given as 1087. 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 24; Vernier, no. 37; cf. Eistoire de S. -Pierre 
de Jumikges, ed. J. Loth, i. 218. 

m NOMINE SANCTE ET INDIVIDTJ5 TRINITATIS. ANNO IPSO QUO GLORIOSIS- 

SIMUS ATQUE REVERENTissiMUs| | Deoque amabiUs Guilelmus rex Anglorum 
comesque Nortmannig de ista vita nequam assumptus est et ut credimus 
celestem patriam consecutus est, iii. kal. Aprilis, ego Radulfus filius Anseredi 
stultum et vanum prospiciens et ad utilitatem meam minus proficiens quod 
egomet adhuc in ista vita subsistens et potestatem mei habens ut aliis 
precipiam post mortem meam dare quod vivens melius et utilius pro me pos- 
simi tribuere, dedimus ego et uxor mea Sanctg Marig et Sancto Petro Gime- 
giensis monachisque ibi servientibus alodiiun quod iure hereditario in 
villa qug vocatur Belnaicus " habebam omne sicuti trans ripam citraque 
ripam fluminis illius villg contra Reinaldum filium Rainerii et Bemardum 
partior, quod alodium uxori meg in dote dedi eam accipiens. Dedi etiam 
decimam Anslevillg ' pro anima mea uxorisque meg et pro animabus domi- 
norum meorum ad quos hg res pertinebant, concedente et libenti animo 
donante domino meo Radulfo filio Rogeri Mortemaris ad quem hg res perti- 
nebant omne quod in his rebus habebat, accipiente ipso die propter istam 
donationem fratemitatem atque societatem Ulius loci et quindecim libras 
Rotomagensium recipiente ab ipsis monachis illius loci; et hoc quod ad istud 
alodium pertinet quod adiacet in Ulfranvilla • et in Bemivoldi villa; ^ et hoc 

' On whom see Lot, S.-WandriUe, no. 43 and note. 
' Beaunay, Seine-Inf^rieure, canton of T6tes. 

• Perhaps Anneville-sur-Scine: Vernier, i, p. cxxxiv. 

* Offranville, Seine-Inffirieure, chef-lieu de canton. 

' Bemouville, Seine-Inf6rieure, canton of OffranviUe. 



CHARTERS OF ROBERT CURTHOSE Zgi 

quod in duobus molendinis illius villg scilicet Belnaici habebam quod ad istud 
alodium non pertinebat concedimus ut perpetualiter gcclesia Gemmeticensis 
possideat, scilicet in terns et in silvis et in aquis etiam et in §cclesia et in 
vineis post mortem Radulfi uxorisque eius in dominio; et qui de dominio 
abstulerit anathema sit. 

Signum Radulfi filii+ Rogeri Morte maris Signum Mabilig+ uxoris eius 
Signiun Radulfi filii Anseredi+ Signum uxoris eius+ Signum Rogeri Sancti 
Laurentii militis Radulfi filii Rogeri + Signum Gislebert;i Warenng+ Signum 
Ricardi filii Richerii de Aquila+ Signum Vuidonis Carcois de ArenisH- 
Signiun Vualteri de Wesneval+ Signum Hugonis+ Signum Bemardi BeU- 
naci+ Willelmi archiepiscopi Rotoniagensis+ 

Signum Rotberti comitis NormannigH- Signum Hen+rici comitis fratris 
eius Signum VuiUehni comitis Ebroicensis+ 

Isti sunt testes ex parte Rodulfi filii Anseredi: Normannus Peignardus, 
Rotbertus Ivi Maisnerii, Turstenus filius Helewise, Petrus armiger eiusdem 
Radulfi. Ex parte monachorum: Rotbertus filius Dut, Salomon de Chare- 
celviUa, Radulfus marescaUus, Herveus filius Ricardi Oseii, Durandus cel- 
lararius, Gislebertus coquulus, Radulfus vastans granum, Herbertus Maloei, 
lohannes Grossus, Rotbertus presbiter, et alii multi. 

Signum Engelrani filio (sic) Hilberti+ Vuilebni cubicularii+ Signum 
Ricardi Bustelli+ Signiun Engelranni capellani+ Signum lohannis militis + 
Signum Constantini militis + Benedicti archidiaconi+Fulberti archidia- 
coni+ Ursonis archidiaconi+ 

Et Guarinus telonarius eiusdem Radulfi recepit easdem quindecim libras 
Rotomagensium iussu eiusdem Radulfi in viUa que dicitur Sancti Victoris* et 
Fulco mercator numeravit. Petrus Bassum villg famulus Radulfi Morte- 
maris saisivit monachos Gemmeticenses de eodem alodio iussu eiusdem 
Radulfi videntibus et audientibus hominibus illius viUg vidente etiam et 
audiente Hoello homine eiusdem gcclesig Sancti Petri Genuneticensis. 
Rogerius prior eiusdem loci et Rotbertus filius Dodonis RoduUusque Montis 
Durclari cum eo receperunt istam saisitionem et inde habuerunt decem et 
septem denarios. 



1091-1095, at Lisieux 

Robert confirms a charter of Ralph Fitz Anseri granting to JumUges 
half of £,tables and the custom of its wood, and invests the monastery 
therewith. 

A, original in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, the charter proper (a) 
being accompanied by a long and narrow strip of parchment con- 
taining (b); modem copies in MSS. Lat. 5424, p. 38, and n. a. 1245, 
f. 189. 

' Saint- Victor-l'Abbaye, Seine-Inf£rieure, canton of T6tes. 



292 APPENDIX E 

Supra, Chapter II, no. 25; Vernier, no. 38. The date is fixed by 
the accession of Bishop Serlo in 1091 and the death of Abbot Guntard 
in 109s; Roland of Dol received the pallium in 1093. 

(o) IN NOMINE SANCTE ET INDIVIE {sic) TRINITATIS PATEIS ET FtLII ET 

spiRiTus SANCTi. 1 1 Ego Rodulf US filius Anseredi et uxor mea Girberga medie- 
tatem vill§ de Stablis' tam in agris quam in aquis et unum molendinum 
providentes saluti nostrarum animarum Sanct§ Masiae Gemmetici pari con- 
sensu donamus. Denique oinnem consuetudinem quam in sUva habemus 
videlicet pasturam nostris aniroalibus et ligna nobis nostrisque famulis ad 
calefaciendum necessaria prefatf fcdesig similiter concedimus. Hanc autem 
donationem ut inposterum rata foret Rotbertus dux Northmannorum in- 
presentiarum baronum suorum Luxovii confirmavit. Testes denique huius 
donationis hi sunt: Signum+ Roberti comitis S. Willelmi-I- archiepiscopi 
S. Gisleberti+ episoopi predictf urbis S. Odonis+ episcopi Baioc[ensis] S. 
Gisleberti+ episcopi Ebroic[ensis] S. Serlonis+ episcopi Sagii S. Rodulfi 
Anseredi+ S. Girberge uxoris eius S. Roberti comitis Mellent S. Ingel- 
ranni+ S. Rodulfi Toenei S. Rodulfi Mortui Maris S. Walteri Broc+ S. 
Roberti fill Ansch[etilli]+ S. RoH- landi episcopi de Dol Willelmi de Bre- 
t[olio]+ S. Ricar-f- di archidiaconi S. Walteri + S. Ful-|- berti ardudia- 
coni S. Osbemi+ abbatis' + + + 

(6) DONATIONEM DE STABLIS ROBERTUS DUX NorthmannOrum PER HOC 

LIGNUM misit ad Sanctam mariam gemmetici. Testes autem huius rei sunt: 
Engelrarmus filius Ilberti, RauUus de Mortuo Mari, Vualterus de Quercu, 
Robertus filius Anschetilli, Vualterius Broc. Hgc denique facta sunt apud 
Lexovium per eiusdem loci abbatem Gimtardum. 

' £tables, Seine-Inf6rieure, canton of Longueville. 
» Of Bernai. 



APPENDIX F 

UNPUBLISHED CHARTERS OF HENRY I 

With two exceptions, the following documents have not been indi- 
cated or analyzed by others. It was planned to print a fuller selection 
from Henry I's unpublished charters, but the difficulties of copying and 
collation under present conditions have led to the omission of many 
documents of which pubUshed analyses are avaDable. Other charters 
and writs of Henry are printed above in the text and notes of Chapter 
ni and on p. 223 of Chapter VI. 

1 

1 106-1 107, at Rouen 

Charter of William, archbishop of Rotten, confirming, with Henry's 
assent, the church of Notre-Dame at Saint-Sever to Bee as the abbot and 
monks proved their right before the bishops and barons of Normandy. 

A, original, formerly sealed sur double queue and now much damaged 
by gallstones, in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, fonds Bonne-Nou- 
velle; B, modern copy in MS. Lat. 13905, f. i8v, from which the 
illegible portions have been suppHed; C, modern copy in MS. Lat. 
10055, f. 82, ' ex chartulario Beccensi.' Cf. Poree, Bee, i. 396, note 2. 

The date is fixed by the mention of Thorold, bishop of Bayeux, who 
is last found attesting in a charter of 7 November 1106 {Gallia Chris- 
/?OMa,xi.uistr. 1 2 7), and whose successor came in in 1107. OnThorold's 
biography see W. Tavernier, in the Zeitschrift fur franzosische Sprache 
und Litterafur, xxxvi ff. 

Ego Willelmus Dei gratia Rotomagensis archiepiscopus concedo et con- 
firmo ut g[cclesia Sanctg Marig Becci lure hereditario] possideat ecclesiam 
Sanctg Marig de ErmentrudisviUa ' sicut Willelmus abbas eiusdem loci et 
monachi deraciocinati sunt earn in capitulo [Sanctg Mar]ig Rotomagensis 
presente me et episcopis et baronibus Normannie, concedente domino nostro 
Henrico rege Anglorum et annuentibus supradictis episcopis et baronibus, 
Turoldo videlicet Baiocensi episcopo et Turgiso Abrincensi et Roberto de 
Belismo et Roberto comite de Mellent et Eustachio Bononiensi et Henrico 
comite Augensi et archidiaconis nostris, Fulberto videlicet. Benedicto, 
[Ricardo, UrseUo, et quam plujribus aliis clericis [et laicis]. 

'■ £mendreville, now Saint-Sever, a suburb of Rouen. 



294 APPENDIX P 



After 7 October 1118, at Arganchy 

Notification by Henry that, with the advice of the archbishops of Canter- 
bury and Rouen and bishops and abbots, he has decided the controversy 
between Samgny and Saint-£tienne of Caen concerning Mortain. 

A, original, with incisions for double queue, in the Ubrary of Rouen, 
MS. 3122, no. 2; B, cartulary of Savigny, in Archives of the Manche, 
f. 6, no. 5. Printed in Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. in, where a line of 
the text and most of the witnesses are omitted; translated in C. 
Auvry, Histoire de la congregation de Savigny, i. 290-292. Cf. DeviUe, 
Analyse, p. 47. The date is fixed by the council of Rouen, 7 October 
1118 (Ordericus, iv. 329; cf. Round, Geoffrey de MandevUle, p. 423, 
note). 

Ego Henricus Dei gratia rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum, cum 
archiepiscopis Radulfo Cantuariensi et Gaufrido Rotomagensi et episcopis 
Ricardo Baiocensi, Turgiso Abrincatensi, Rogerio Constantiensi, Willelmo 
Exoniensi, Ildeberto Cenomanensi, cum abbatibus etiam et aliis religiosis 
viris compluribus qui nobiscum huic diffinitioni presentes interfuerunt, con- 
sulentes et presentium memorig et futurorum scientig, omnibus catholicg 
pacis et unitatis cultoribus nostrarum beneficio litterarum manifestare 
decrevimus qualiter per Dei misericordiam et nostram instantiam inter 
Eudonem Cadumensium fratnun abbatem et Vitalem Saviniensis monasterii 
fundatorem super Moritoniensi elemosina quam eidem fratri Vitali ad 
honorem Sanctg Trinitatis pro amore Dei Willelmus comes contulerat, pacta 
sit et celebrata concordia ... [as in Gallia Christiana] 

Testes enim ex utraque parte subscribi precepimus Stephamun Mori- 
toniensem comitem, Ricardum comitem, Rotbertum filimn regis, Hame- 
linum Meduanensem, Willelmum de Albineio et NigeUum et Hunfridum de 
AIbin[eio], Willelmum camerarium de TancarviUa, Willelmum Patricium, 
Thomam de Sancto lohanne, Willelmum Piperellum de Airam, Gaufridiun 
de Clintona, Rotbertum de Haia Putei, Hugonem de Guilleio, Edwardum 
Salesberiensem, Rannulfmn canceUarium, lohannem Baiocensis episcopi 
filium, Rotbertum Peccatum, Gaufridum capeUaniun, Waltermn de Culleio, 
Rannulfum de Dusseio. 

Hec diffinitio fuit diffinita et hec carta sigillata ante me apud Argenteium. 
Teste (sic) episcopo Luxoviensi lohanne et Eudone Cadumensium mona- 
chorum abbate et monachis Wine de Allemania et Nigello et comite de 
Pertica Rotroco et Rogero Marmione et Ricardo capellano et Symone de 
Molins et Hamelino de Lesclusa. 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 295 



1 1 19, at Rouen ' in thalamo regis ' 

Confirmation of charter of Robert, earl of Leicester, on behalf of Bee 
and SaitU-Nicaise of Meulan. 

A, original lost; B, modem copy in Bibliotheque Nationale, Collec- 
tion du Vexin, iii. 171, no. 246. 

Anno ab incamatione miUesimo centesimo decimo none ego Robertus 
comes Leicestrie do ecclesie Sancte Marie Becci et ecclesie Sancti Nigasii de 
Mellento decern libras et quinque solidatas terre in manerio de Pinpra in 
escambium pro terra RaduM Piquet ^( ?) de Blinchefeld que reddebat viii 
libras et quinque solidos, et pro quadraginta solidos quos debebat pater 
meus eidem ecclesie Sancti Nigasii in manerio de Hungrefort.^ Et hoc feci 
pro deliberatione anime patris mei. Ego Henricus rex Dei gratia rex Anglorum 
hoc donum concedo et signo et sigUlo meo confirmo. Testes Galerannus 
comes Mellenti, NigeUus de Albegneio, GuUlelmus de TancarviUa, Gauf ridus 
de MagnaviUa, WiUelmus fiUus Roberti, Odardus dapifer de Mellento, Ra> 
Pinter '( ?), Gaufridus de Curvilla, in thalamo regis apud Rothomagum. 



1117-1119, at Rouen 

Writ confirming the nuns of Saint-Amand in their livery at 
Vaudreuil (Eure).^ 

A, original lost; B, copy in hand of the twelfth century, at the end of 
quasi-original of foundation charter in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure;, 
C, vidimus of Philip IV in 1313, ibid., and Archives Nationales, JJ. 49, 
f. 26v. 

' H. rex Anglorum vicecomiti de vaUe Rodolii salutem. Precipio quod 
moniales de Sancto Amando ita bene et plenarie habeant liberationem de 
elemosina mea Rodolii sicut unquam aliquis antecessor iUarum eam melius 
habuit. Et hoc habeant a die ilia qua lohannes Rubi presbiter antecessor 
earum fuit mortuus in antea. Testibus Radulfo archiepiscopo Cantuariensi 
et Rannulfo canceUario, apud Rothomagum. 

' MS. Piqc followed by a blank. 

" Pimpeme, Blandford (co. Dorset), Hungerford (co. Berks). 

' MS. Pit'. 

' Cf. Stapleton, i. in. 



296 APPENDIX F 



1106-1120, at Rouen 

Order to Hugh de Montfort to restore to the abbot of Bee certain lands of 
Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle and the church of Saint-Ouen[-de-Flancourt] 
(Eure)} 

A, original lost; B, modern copy in MS. Lat. 13905, f. 83, with 
omissions. 

H. rex Anglorum Hugoni de Monteforti salutem. Precipio tibi ut facias 
resaisiri abbatem de Becco de viginti acris terre que pertinent ecclesie 
Sancti Philiberti et de ecclesia Sancti Audoeni quas Galefridus dapifer tuus 
saisivit. Et ecclesiam et decimam fac eum tenere in pace et quiete. . . . 
Nolo enim ut quis eum placitet de aliqua re unde fuit saisitus die qUa dedi 
tibi honorem de Monfort nisi coram me. Apud Rothomagum. 

6 
1 124, at Evreuz 

Confirmation to Savigny of the gift of Robert de TStes in Escures 
(Calvados). 

A, original sealed sur simple queue, in Archives of the Manche, a 
considerable portion of the seal, in brown wax, still remaining; B, 
cartulary of Savigny, ibid., i. 51, no. 197, where it is preceded (no. 196) 
by the charter of Robert, witnessed by Richard, bishop of Bayeux, and 
dated 11 24. Cf. Auvry, Eistoire de la congregation de Savigny, i. 404. 

H. rex AngI[orum] episcopo Baioc[ensi] et omnibus baronibus et fidelibus 
suis de Beisin salutem. Sciatis me concessisse ecclesig Sanctg Trinitatis 
de Savinneio et monachis ibi Deo servientibus donationem terrg quam 
Rotbertus de Testis habebat in viUa de Scuris et quam Rotbertus Gaufr[ido] 
abbati et ipsis monachis dedit et concessit in elemosinam concessu Ricardi 
episcopi Baioc[ensis] de cuius feodo terra ipsa est. Et volo et firmiter pre- 
cipio ut bene et in pace et honorifice teneant sicut predictus Rotbertus earn 
eis dedit et concessit in possessionem perpetuam. 

T[estibus] Turstino Eboracensi archiepiscopo et fratre eius Oino Ebroi- 
censi episcopo et lohanne Baioc[ensi], apud Ebroicas. 

' Saint-Ouen-de-Flancourt, granted to Bee and Saint-Philbert in 1097 (Porfe, 
Bee, i. 407), seems more probable than Saint-Ouen-du-Bois-Toustain, which also 
belonged to Bee (now La Noe-Poulain: Le Prfivost, Eure, ii, 4.72). 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 297 



1118-1126, at Rouen 

Confirmation to the abbot and monks of Lire of the mills and forge of La 
Neuve-Lire (Eure). 

A, original lost; B, copy in lost cartulary of the thirteenth century 
formerly " parmi les mss. de la bibliotheque du college des jesuites de 
Paris "; C, copy from B by Dom Lenoir at Semilly, xxiii. 453, kxii. 
329; D, extracts from B in Collection Moreau, xlvii. 65. 

Robert became earl of Leicester on the death of his father, Robert 
of Meulan, in 1118; and Ralph of Toeny was dead by 1126 (Ordericus, 
ii. 404). 

Henricus rex Anglie G[aufrido] archiepiscopo Rothomagensi et omnibus 
episcopis et iusticiariis et abbatibus et baronibus et fideUbus suis totius Nor- 
mannie salutem. Sciatis me concessisse Deo et ecclesie Sancte Marie de Lyra 
et abbati et monachis ibi Deo servientibus per petitionem comitis Roberti de 
Leicestria et Guheri de MoreviUa et concessionem eonmi molendina de nova 
Lira et forgiam in eadem viUa in elemosinam sicut Radulfus de Witot ea eis 
reddidit et concessit in elemosinam. Et vole et firmiter precipio ut abbas ea 
ita bene et in pace et honorifice et quiete in elemosinam ipse et monachi sui 
teneant sicut ecclesia iUa melius et honorificentius tenet aliam elemosinam 
suam et sicut predictus Radulfus ea eis concessit et reddidit. 

Testibus Oino episcopo Ebroicensi et lohanne episcopo Luxoviensi et 
Radulfo de Todeneio et Radulfo pincerna et Roberto de Novo Burgo et 
Emaldo de Bosco, apud Rothomagum. 

8 
1 127 (?), after 26 August 

Confirmation of the gifts of Jordan de Sai and his wife in founding the 
abbey of Aunay. 

A, original lost; B, vidimus of Philip VI in 1335, Archives Nation- 
ales, JJ. 69, no. 100. Cf. vidimus of 1347 in Archives of the Calvados; 
Ms. Lat. n. a. 1245, f. 28. 

If the date is correctly given in the vidimus, it should replace the date 
of 1 13 1 usually given for the foundation of Aunay: Gallia Christiana, 
xi. 443; G. Le Hardy, Rtude sur Aunay-sur-Odon, in Bulletin des 
Antiquaires de Normandie, xix (1897). Otherwise we must emend 

Mcxxxn. 



298 APPENDIX F 

In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis. Ego Henricus Dei gratia rex 
Anglorum et dux Normannonun anno M°.C°.XXVIP. ab incamatione 
Domini, pro salute anime mee ac patris et matris mee uxorumque mearum et 
prolis mee, donacionem quam fecit Jordains de Saieio et Lucia uxor eius et 
filii sui, videlicet Engerannus, Gilebertus, Petrus, concessu Stephani comitis 
Moretoniensis et auctoritate Richardi Baiocensis episcopi, pro animabus 
suis et antecessonmi suorum, ecclesie Sancte Trinitatis de Akieio et domno 
Viviano abbati et monachis concedo et regali auctoritate confirmo: videlicet 
ad Alneium partem foreste que est inter iuferiorem viam et torrentem, ubi et 
ecclesiam predictis monachis construxerunt, et ex altera parte eiusdem tor- 
rentis de propinquiori terra decem acras et decimam molendinorum suo- 
rum et peccorum; et ecclesiam de Herovilla*; et in Rin villa quod habet in 
ecclesia et in decima; et ecclesias de Cenilleio sicut Gislebertus filius Gun- 
duini possedit, a quo predictus Jordains habuit concessione Richardi Con- 
stanciensis episcopi; insuper et terram elemosinariam que pertinet eisdem 
ecclesiis, et decimam molendinonmi de RoumiUeio, et ad Haneiras terram 
duos modios frumenti reddentem, et in Anglia de redditu sexaginta solidos 
sterlingorum. Hec autem supradicta precipio ut quiete et libere possideant 
monachi, et hoc propria manu signo sancte crucis corroboro. 



1123-1129, at Vaudreuil 

Notification to the bishop of Worcester and the sherif and men of Wor- 
cestershire that Henry has confirmed to Walter de Beatichamp the land 
granted him by Adeliza, wife of Urse of Abbetot. 

Subsequent to 1123, being witnessed by Geoffrey as chancellor, and 
anterior to 1130, when Roger 'gener Alberti' was dead (Pipe Roll, p. 
39). Eyton (British Museum, Add. MSS. 31941, f. 58, and 31943, 
f. 79) dates it ca. October 1128. 

A, original lost; B, copy by Dugdale in his MSS. in the Bodleian 
Library, L. 18, f. 41, copied for me by the kindness of Professor H. L. 
Gray. 

H. rex Anglorum episcopo Wigomie et vicecomiti et omnibus baronibus et 
fidelibus suis Francis et Anglis de Wirecestresira salutem. Sciatis me con- 
cessisse Waltero de Bellocampo terram que fuit Adeliz uxoris Ursonis de 
Abbetot, sicut ipsa Adeliz eam ei concessit. Et volo et firmiter precipio ut 
teneat ita bene et m pace et honorifice et quiete de omnibus consuetudinibus, 
sicut Urso antecessor suus unquam melius et honorificentius et quietius tenuit 
in vita sua, cum socha et sacha et tol et theam et infangeneteof et cum omni- 
bus aliis consuetudinibus suis cum quibus Urso imquam melius tenuit, in 
bosco et piano, in aqua et terra et omnibus aliis lods. 

' The places mentioned are Hgrouville, Ranville, and AsniSres in Calvados, and 
Cenilly and Rfmilly in La Manche. 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 299 

Testibus Gaufrido cancellario et Roberto de sigillo et Willelmo Pevrello 
Dovre et Willelmo filio Odonis et Willelmo de Pontearcarum et Pevrello de 
Bellocampo et Pagano de Bellocampo et Roberto filio Willelmi de Stochis et 
Willelmo Malotraverso et Roberto de Monteviron et Gaufrido de Abbetot et 
Roberto filio Radulphi de Hastingis et Roberto de Guernai et Roberto filio 
Fulcheri et Rogero genero Alberti et lohanne hostiario et Henrico del Broc. 
Apud Rodoliimi. 

10 

February rrai, at Rouen 

Grant to Siez cathedral of the fief of William Goth at Laleu {Ortie). 
A, original lost; B, copy in Livre rouge of Seez, f. 77, formerly in 
possession of the bishop; C, copy from B in MS. Lat. 11058, f. 3. 

Henricus Dei gracia rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum archiepiscopo 
Rothomagensi et episcopis et abbatibus, baronibus et omnibus fideUbus et 
filiis sancte ecclesie per Normanniam constitutis ^ salutem. Sciatis quod ego 
Henricus per graciam Dei rex Anglormn et diix Normannonmi dedi in ele- 
mosinam et concessi pro salute animarmn patris et matris mee et parentum 
meorum et pro remissione peccatorum meorum et pro statu et incolumitate 
regni nostri et ducatus Normanie Deo et ecclesie sanctorum martirum 
Gervasii et Prothasii de Sagio in dominium ecclesie et proprium usum epis- 
copi totum feodum Alodii quern tenuit GuiUehnus Goth: hoc est quicquid 
ipse Guillelmus Goth habuit inter Sartam et Tancham tarn in terris quam in 
pratis et aquis et molendinis et silvestribus ^ nemoribus et hominibus et the- 
loneis et consuetudinibus et omnibus omnino rebus, sicut idem Guillelmus 
<iuietius et hberius' tenuit tempwre patris mei. Quem feodum ego emi de mea 
propria pecimia de Avelina nepte ipsius GuiUelmi et Ricardo de Luceio filio 
ipsius Aveline et iustis heredibus predicti Alodii, quod ipsi, Avelina scilicet et 
Ricardus et iusti heredes eiusdem feodi, eum in manu Roberti filii comitis 
Gloescestrie videntibus multis reddiderunt et postea vendicionem istam 
coram me cognoverunt et confirmaverunt et eam quietam de se et suis 
heredibus clamaverunt. Et ego predictum feodum Alodii ita hberum et quie- 
tum ab eis et omnibus heredibus concedo et confirmo Sanctis martiribus 
Gervasio et Prothasio et episcopo in elemosinam sicut supra dictum est. 

Hanc ergo donacionem meam factam anno ab incamacione Domini 
millesimo centesimo trigesimo primo laudo et concedo, confirmo et iUi* 
ecclesie in perpetuum obtinendam regia potestate et a Deo michi auctoritate 
collata corroboro. Teste presencia et audiencia Hugonis archiepiscopi 
Rothomagensis,' lohannis Lexoviensis, Audini" Ebroicensis episcopi, Ri- 
chard! episcopi Baiocensis, lohannis episcopi tunc Sagiensis, Roberti de 
sigillo et Nigelh nepotis episcopi de Saresberia, Roberti comitis Gloescestre 

* MS. constitute. * MS. iUe. 

' MS. silvestris. ^ MS. Hugone archid[iacono\ Rothomagensi. 

' MS. quietus et liberus. ' MS. Actini. 



300 APPENDIX F 

filii mei, Guillelmi comitis Warenne et Walerani comitis Mellenti et Ro- 
berti comitis Legrecestrie, Roberti de Haia dapiferi et Hugonis Bigot dapi- 
feri et Rabelli cammerarii et Brientii filii comitis conestabularii et Gaufridi 
de Clintone.' Apud Rothomagum mense Februario. 



11 
Summer 1131, at Dieppe 

Coftfirmaiion of the establishment of Augustinian canons in Siez 
cathedral, grant of land at Brighthampton, and confirmation of lands and 
churches in Normandy and affixed revenues in the farm of Argentan and 
the tolls of Exmes and Falaise. 

A, original lost; B, collated copy therefrom in 1521 also lost; C, 
copy from B in Coppies de tiltres du chartraire (1633) at Alengon, 
MS. 177, f. 98; D, copy in Liwe rouge of Seez, f. 69; E, copy from D in 
MS. Lat. 11058, f. 8. Extracts \a.E.H.R., xxiv. 223; Ordericus, iv. 
471, note; supra, Chapter I, note 174; Chapter III, p. 106. Cf. charter 
of Bishop John, MS. Lat. 11058, f. 5; incomplete in Gallia Christiana, 
xi. instr. 160. 

In nomine sancte et individue trinitatis patris et filii et spiritus sancti 
amen. Henricus rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum archiepiscopis, epis- 
copis, abbatibus, comitibus, baronibus, et omnibus fidelibus suis tocius Anglie 
et Normannie salutem. Quoniam regie sublimitatis insignia gerimus et iura 
Christiane religionis et solicitudinem ecclesiastice defensionis adndnistramus, 
oportet nos interim oronibus sancte ecclesie filiis benefacere precipueque 
pauperibus et in Christo religiose viventibus misericorditer subvenire, et 
quorum preces et vite sinceritas terram elevat celum incUnat imaque iungit 
superius, eorum quieti atque necessitatibus clementer iatendamus ut omni- 
potentis Dei servicio valeant vacare liberius. Quapropter Sagiensem eccle- 
siam temporalibus et spiritualibus bonis admodum desolatam ad normam 
rectioris vite studuimus erigere et ad lucem vere religionis excitare, et 
quoniam reverende memorie papa Honorius per apostolicas litteras in remis- 
sionem peccatorum meorum mihi iniunxerat ut ad regulares canonicos in 
ecclesia Sagiensi introducendos intenderem et eos de meis facultatibus 
misericorditer sustentarem; idcirco fratribus regularibus in ipsa Sagiensi 
ecclesia Dei gratia iam introductis et sub regula Beati Augustini omnipotenti 
Deo servire studentibus et professis, ipsis inquam eorumque successoribus 
concedimus atque confirmamus in predicta Sagiensi ecclesia pontificalis sedis 
potestatem libere et canonice Domino servienti atque ut post decessionem 
aliorum canonicorum in communes ususregularium statimtranseantbeneficia 
prebendarum, ita quod ipsis viventibus constituti redditus eorum nullatenus 
minuantur. 

' MS. Dint. 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 30I 

Ipsis etiam fratribus regularibus damus et confirmamus in regno nostro 
in Anglia decern libratas terre in manerio nostro de Bentona, videlicet Bristel- 
metonam '■ que est ^ membrum ipsius manerii, et volo et regia auctoritate 
confirmo ut bene et honorifice et in pace et libere et quiete teneant semper et 
in perpetuum de hidagiis et geldis et dangeldis et auxiliis et operacionibus, 
cum socha et sacha et tholl et theam et infangenteof et omnibus consuetudi- 
nibus et libertatibus et placitis et querelis et omnibus rebus cum quibus ego 
tenebam dum esset in meo dominio, et homines eorum placitent in hallmoto 
suo de Bristelmetona in submonicione eonmidem canonicorum vel ministro- 
rum suorum. 

Ipsis quoque fratribus regularibus damus et confirmamus quindecim 
libras Rothomagensis monete quas dedi in dedicacione ipsius ecclesie in 
unoquoque anno habendas, scilicet septem libras et decem solidos in teloneo 
meo de Falesia et septem libras et decem solidos in teloneo meo de Oximis. 
Concedimus etiam atque confirmamus predictis fratribus regularibus 
donationem eis factam ecclesiarum de BeUimensi pago cum omnibus rebus 
ad eas pertinentibus, scilicet ecclesiam Sancti lohannis de Foresta et eccle- 
siam Sancti Quintini.^ 

Ad dominium autem et proprium usum Sagiensis episcopi damus et con- 
firmamus totum feodum Alodii * quem tenuit Guillelmus Ghot, hoc est 
quicquid ipse habuit inter Sartam et Tancham tam in terris quam in pratis et 
aquis et molendinis et silvis et hominibus et teloneis et consuetudinibus et 
omnibus omnino rebus, sicut idem Guillelmus quietius et liberius tenuit 
tempore patris mei; quem feodum ego emi de nostra propria pecunia de 
Avelina nepte ipsius GuiUelnii et Ricardo de Luceio filio ipsius Aveline et de 
iustis heredibus predicti Alodii, et ipsi, Avelina scilicet et Ricardus, et iusti 
heredes eiusdem feodi eum in manu Roberti filii nostri comitis Glocestrie 
videntibus multis reddiderunt et postea coram me vendicionem istam 
cognovenmt et confirmaverunt et eam quietam de se et suis heredibus con- 
cesserunt. Et ego predictum feodum Alodii ita hberum et quietum ab eis 
et omnibus heredibus concedo et confirmo Sanctis martyribus Gervasio et 
Protasio in dominium et proprios usus episcopi. 

Quecumque etiam preter supradicta ecclesia Sagiensis hodie' possidet tam 
ad proprium usum episcopi quam ad usum canonicorum, hoc est ad usum 
episcopi dimidietatem burgi Sagii cum terra et pratis que in dominio habet 
episcopus circa civitatem et dimidietatem telonei ipsius civitatis et villam 
Floreii ' ciun omnibus suis appenditiis, preterea in Bellimensi pago villam 

1 Bampton, Brighthampton (co. Oxford). The land was in the hamlet of Hard- 
wicke, as appears from the heading in the cartularies: ' Charta et confiimatio 
Henrici regis Anglie de redditibus canonicorum regularium in ecclesia Sagiensi et 
redditibus eorundem canonicorum in Normannia et in Anglia apud Hardric (E: 
Hardore) et apud Bristelametone.' Cf. Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 52, from which it 
would appear that the ten librates were originally in Essex or Herts. 

2 Om. C. 

' Saint- Jean-de-la-For6t and Saint-Quentin-le-Petit (Ome). 
* Laleu (Ome). 
' Fleur6 (Orne). 



302 APPENDIX F 

Sancti Frogentii,' que omnia antiquitus tenuit episcopus Sagiensis; ad 
usum vero canonicorum Bodevillam,' [ecclesias de Condeto et de Estretz,]* et 
decimam telonei Sagii, scilicet illius partis que est episcopi, et partem mei que 
dicitur Croleium,' et terram que est apud Lurieium/" que omnia tempore 
patris nostri canonici eiusdem ecclesie tenuerunt; preterea duodecim libras 
in firma nostra de Argentomo et viginti et unum solidos in teloneo eiusdem 
ville et sexaginta solidos et decem denarios de teloneo meo de Oximis, que 
dedenmt pater meus et mater mea ecclesie Sagiensi ad victum canonicorum 
duorum, quod antiquitus in elemosinam statutum fuerat. 

Hec, inquam, que supradicta sunt et quecumque in futurum nostra vel 
successorum meorum concessione iuste poterunt adquirere ipsis, scilicet 
episcopo et canonicis, concedimus et confirmamus. Preterea consuetudines et 
quietudines quas a tempore patris mei habuenmt tam episcopus quam 
canonici in terra et in forestis Guillelmi de Belismo ipsis, episcopo scilicet et 
fratribus regularibus, concedimus atque confirmamus. Quecumque ergo 
persona contra huius nostre donacionis et constitucionis decretum venire 
tentaverit, secundo tercioque commonita, nisi digne satisfecerit, regie 
maiestatis rea nostre vindicte subiacebit. 

Et ut hec nostra donatio et constitutio certior habeatur et firmior, propria 
manu nostra atque sigiUo nostro muniri fecimus. Facta est autem atque 
confirmata hec pagina apud Diepam anno ab incamatione dominica mil- 
lesimo centesimo trigesimo primo, me Henrico in Anglia regnante et Nor- 
mannorum ducatum tenente, Innocentio papa secundo Ausonie cathedre 
presidente. S. Hugonis archiepiscopi," Audini episcopi Ebroicensis, loannis 
episcopi Lexoviensis, Roberti de Haia dapiferi, Unfredi de Bohun dapiferi, 
RabeEi camerarii, GuiQielmi filii Odonis conestabularii, Guillelmi Maledocti" 
camerarii. 

12 
After August 1131, at Waltham 

Grant to Siez cathedral of ten Ubrates of land, namely Brighthampton, 
from the king's manor of Bampton. 

A, original lost; B, copy therefrom in 1521 also lost; C, copy from 
B in MS. Alengon 177, f. 103; D, copy in Livre rouge, f. 71; E, copy 
from D in MS. Lat. 11058, f. 11. 

» Saint-Fulgent-des-Ormes (Ome). 

' This I have not identified. 

' 'Ecclesias . . . Estretz' is corrected in E in Delisle's hand from 'cum omnibus 
appendiciis suis,' which is also the reading of C. I do not know the source of Delisle's 
correction, unless it be a marginal note in D. These churches, Cond6-sur-Ifs and 
Estr^es-la-Campagne (Calvados), were both dependencies of S6ez cathedral: Lon- 
gnon, PouilKs de la province de Rouen, p. 232. 

» Goleium, E. " Archidiaconi, CE. 

" Lieurey (Calvados) ? « Maledicii, C. 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 303 

Henricus rex Anglie archiepiscopb, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, 
baronibus, vicecomitibus, et omnibus ministris et fidelibus suis Francis et 
Anglis salutem. Sciatis me dedisse et concessisse ecclesie sanctorum marty- 
nun Gervasii et Protasii de Sagio ad usiun canonicorum in dedicatione 
ipsius ecclesie decern libratas terre de manerio meo de Bentona, videlicet 
Bristelmetonam que est membrum ipsius manerii, ami omnibus appendiciis 
suis pro remissione peccatorvun meorum et pro animabus patris et matris mee 
et predecessorum meorum et successorum meorum et pro statu regni nostri. 
Et vole et firmiter precipio ut bene, honorifice, et in pace et libere et quiete 
teneant semper et in perpetuum de hidagiis et geldis et danegeldis et auxiliis 
et operationibus, cum socha et sacha et toll et theam et infangeteof et omni- 
bus consuetudinibus et libertatibus et placitis et querelis et omnibus rebus 
cum quibus ego tenebam dum esset in meo dominio, in terris et aquis et 
pratis et pascuis et molendinis et nemoribus et in piano et in omnibus locis, 
et homines sui placitent in haUimoto suo de Bristelmetona in submonicione 
canonicorum Sagii vel ministronun suonun. 

Testibus Guilielmo archiepiscopo Cantuariensi et Turstino archiepiscopo 
Eboracensi et Alexandro episcopo Lincolniensi et Henrico episcopo Wi[n]to- 
niensi et Gilberto episcopo Londiniensi et Rogerio episcopo Salesberiensi et 
Gaufrido canceUario et Roberto de sigiUo et Roberto comite Glocestrie et 
Waleranno comite de MeUent et Hugone Bigot dapifero et Unfredo de 
Bouhim dapifero et Milone de Gloecestria et Roberto de Olleio et Pagano 
filio loannis et Eustachio filio loannis et Henrico de Ferrariis et Gaufrido 
filio Pagani et Richardo Basset. Apud Waltham videntibus et audientibus 
istis confirmata est hec pagina anno ab incamatione Domini millesimo 
centesimo trigesimo primo. 

13 
1 107-1 133, at Westminster 

Order to William of Pont de I'Arche to deliver, on the oath of the men of 
Bosham, thirty solidates of land in Walton {co. Sussex) in exchange for 
land which the king has given to Notre-Dame-du-PrS. 

A, original lost; B, copy in Public Record Office, Cartae Antiquae, 
R. 22. 

H. rex Anglie WiUelmo de Pontearcharum salutem. Libera WiUelmo filio 
Aemulfi .XXX. solidatas terre per sacramentiun hormnum vicinitatis de 
Boseham, et hoc de illis .1. solidatas terre quas Robertus tenebat in Waletona, 
pro escambio terre sue quam ego dedi Sancte Marie de Prato. Et precipio 
quod ita bene et honorifice et quiete teneat earn sicut melius et honorabilius 
tenuit terram suam de Normannia. Teste episcopo Saresberie apud Wes- 
monasterium. 



304 APPENDIX F 

14 
1106-113S, or 1154-1173 

Charter of Henry I or Henry II confirming to the monks 0} Conches 
free election and freedom from customs in England and at Dieppe. 

A, original lost; B, incomplete copy in CotUumier of Dieppe, Ar- 
chives of the Seine-Inferieure, G. 851, f. 59. 

Henricus rex Anglorum, etc. Sciatis me concessisse et present! carta mea 
confirmasse pro salute anime mee et antecessorum meorum monachis et 
ecclesie^ Sancti Petri de CasteUionis domino servientibus liberam et quietam 
eUectionem abbatis secundam regulam Sancti Benedict! et quod homines 
eorum in Anglia manentes sint Uberi et quieti de omnibus consuetudinibus 
et querelis ad me pertiaentibus. Et iu Normannia apud portum qui vocatur 
Deppa sint ^ monacbi et omnes res eorum et proprii famuli liberi et quieti de 
omni passagio et de omni consuetudine in villa, et de omnibus hominibus 
eorum ibi manentibus habeant dicti monachi les euces,' et si homines eorum 
habuerint naves in mari piscantes, quicquid de navibus illis ad me pertinet 
amore Dei concedo predictis monachis. In verbis predicUs est tola libertas que 
in carta continetur. 

15 
1107-1135, at Argentan 

Writ directing that the monks of Troam shall not be impleaded concern- 
ing the castle church at Vire by the monks of La Couture, who defaulted in 
their suit before the king at Argentan. 

A, original lost; B, copy therefrom (' sigillata est ') in Chartrier 
rouge, MS. Lat. 10086, f. 40V. 

H. rex Anglorum omnibus baronibus, etc., totius Normannie salutem. 
Precipio ne monachi de Truarcio mittantur in placitum aliquando de ec- 
clesia de Vira quam dedi eis in elemosina propter clamorem monachorum de 
Cultura, quoniam apud Argent[omum] coram me defecerunt de clamore 
quam mihi fecerant, etc. Et ideo per finem iusti iudicii remansit monachis 
de Truarcio eadem ecclesia de Vira. Teste H[amone] de Falesia apud 
Argent[omum]. 

16 

1107-1135, at Rouen 

Writ of protection for Saint-P&re of Chartres. 

A, original, formerly sealed sur simple queue, in MS. Lat. 9221, no. 7. 

H. rex Angl[orum] archpepiscopo] Roth[omagensi] et ep[iscop]is et omni- 
bus baronpbus] suis Norm[annie] sal[utem]. Precipio quod abbas S. Petri 

' MS. ecclesia. ' MS. sine. ' ues? 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 305 

Cani[otensis] et monachi teneant ecclesias et terras et elemosinas et omnes 
decimas et redditus suos de Nonn[annia] et omnes quietat[iones] suas ita 
bene et in pace et honorifice sicut melius tenuerunt tempore patris mei et 
meo et sicut iuste tenere debuerint. Et prohibeo ne ullus eis super hoc quic- 
quam forifaciat. T[este] ep[iscop]o Lex[oviensi] apud Rothom[agum].^ 

17 
1107-H35, at Rouen 

Grant to the chapter of Rouen of rights in the forest ofAUermont and the 
king's share of pleas and forfeitures from the men of Saint-Vaast-d'- 
£guiquemlle and Angremlle (Seine-InfSrieure). 

A, original lost; B, copy in the Cartulaire de Philippe d'Alenqon in 
Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, G. 7, p. 792; C, copy in MS. Baluze 
Ixxvii. 123. Round, no. 8. 

The name of Robert the mcomte places the charter in the earlier part 
of Henry's reign. 

Henricus Dei gratia rex Anglie dux Normannorum archiepiscopo Rotho- 
magensi omnibusque comitibus baronibus et iusticiariis Normannie salutem. 
Sciatis me dedisse ecdesie Beate Marie Rothomagensi in elemosinam quod 
decanus eiusdem ecclesie et canonicus qui habet prebendam de Angerville 
habeant in foresta nostra Dalihermont omnes consuetudines suas liberas et 
quietas de vivo iacente et mortuo stante et ligna ad herbergagia sibi et homi- 
nibus eorum et pasnagium et herbagium et omnes redditus foreste et quicquid 
ad me pertinet ia placitis et catallis forefactis in misericordiis de omnibus de 
Sancto Vedasto et de Angervilla. 

Testibus lohanne episcopo Lexoviensi, Roberto vicecomite, apud Rptho- 
magum. 

18 

Ca. 1128-1135 

Writ of protection for Saint-Martin of SSez. 

A, original lost; B, modern copy in MS. Fr. 18953, P- 45- 

Henricus rex Anglorum Odoni vicecomiti de Pembroq salutem. Precipio 
tibi quod facias abbati et monachos deSagio tenere omnes res suas in ecclesiis, 
terris, decimis, elemosinis, et omnibus aliis ita bene et in pace et iuste sicut 
tenuerunt tempore Amulphi et Vilfridi episcopi et Walteri Glocesteriensis,' 
ne super hoc eis inde aliqua ioiuria fiat et ne super hoc clamorem audiam. 

1 Two other originals of Heniy I for Saint-PSre are in the same MS.: no. 6, 
printed above, p. 223; and no. 8, printed in the Cartulaire, ed. Gu6rard, p. 640. 

' Walter's son and successor Miles was in office the year before the Pipe Roll of 
1129-1130 (pp. 72, 76, 107). 



3o6 APPENDIX F 

19 
1121-1135, at Rouen 

Confirmation to Bee of a grant of William Peverel in Touffremlle 
{Eure). 

A, original lost; B, fragment of cartulary of Bee in Archives of the 
Eure, H. 91, f. 35. 

H. rex AngI[orum] archiepiscopo Rothomagensi et vic[ecoinitibus] et 
omnibus fidelibus Francis et Anglis de Normannia salutem. Sciatis me con- 
cessisse Deo et ecclesie Sancte Marie de Becco et monachis ibidem Deo 
servientibus terram et res quas Willelmus Pevr[ellus] eis dedit et concessit in 
elemosina de Turf reiviUa cum omnibus consuetudinibus et quietacionibus de 
pannagio et omnibus rebus que terre simili pertinent et cum quibus WiUelmus 
liberius tenuit. Quare volo et precipio quod ipsi eam terram et omnia que ad 
eam pertinent bene et in pace et libere teneant in perpetua elemosina nunc et 
usque in sempitemmn sicut Willelmus ea eis dedit et concessit, salva tamen 
rectitudine parentum Willelmi si quam in ea habent. 

T[estibus] R[oberto] de sigillo et G[aufrido] fil[io] Pag[ani] et A[nselmo] 
vic[econiite], apud Rothom[agum]. 

20 
1124-1135, at Argentan 

Writ of freedom from toll in favor of the monks of Vignats (Saint- 
A ndri^en-Gouffem) . 

A, original lost; B, copy in cartulary of Saint-Andre in Archives of 
the Calvados, f. 19, no. 72. 

H. rex Anglorum baronibus et omnibus vicecomitibus et ministris tocius 
Anglie et Normannie et portuum maris salutem. Precipio quod totum corri- 
dium et onmes res monachonmi de abbatia de Vinaz quas servientes eorum 
affidare poterunt pertinere suo dominico victui et vestitui sint in pace et 
quiete de theloneo et passagio et omnibus consuetudinibus. Et super hoc pro- 
hibeo quod nullus eos disturbet iniuste et super .x. libras forefacture. Testi- 
bus episcopo I[ohanne] Sagiensi et comite de Moritonio, apud Argentomum. 

21 

Ca. 1130-1135, at Argentan 

Grant of a house at Argentan in fief to the king's loricarii Robert and 
Hamelin} 
A, original, MS. Lat. 10083, no. 4; B, copy in cartulary of Saint- 

1 Cf. the charter of the Empress Matilda, issued before 1141, when her brother 
took the title of earl of Cornwall (Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 68, 271), 



CHARTERS OF HENRY I 307 

Andre-en-Gouffem, in Archives of the Calvados, f. i8v, no. 69; C, 
modern copy in MS. Lat. 10084, no. 37. Cf. M.A.N., viii. 388, no. 136. 

H. rex Anglorum'iustic[iis] Normannie et vicec[omitibus] et baronibus et 
fidelibus suis et preposito et omnibus ministris et burgensibus de Argentom[o] 
salutem. Sciatis me dedisse et concessisse in feodo et hereditate quiete 
Roberto et Hamelino loricariis meis de Argentom[o] unam mansuram terre 
in Argentom[o] in fossato inter burgum et calciatam sibi et heredibus suis 
quietam de omni consuetudine. Quare volo et firmiter precipio quod ipsi eam 
bene et in pace et quiete et hereditabiliter teneant. T[estibus] R. de Curci et 
lohanne mar[escallo] et Wigan[o] mar[escaIlo] et Rain[aIdo] fil[io] comptis], 
ap[ud] Argentom[um]. 

22 
1131-1135 (probably after 1133),* at Seez 

Confirmation to SSez cathedral of a gift by Enguerran Oison of land f of 
the housing of the canons regular. 

A, original lost; B, copy therefrom in 1521 also lost; C, copy from 
B in MS. Alenjon 177, f. 104; D, copy in Livre rouge, f. 71V; E, copy 
from D in MS. Lat. 11058, f. 12. 

Henricus Dei gratia rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum archiepiscopo 
Rothomagensi Hugoni, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, iusticiariis, baronibus, 
vicecomitibus, et omnibus fidelibus suis tocius Normannie salutem. Sciatis 
quoniam Ingebannus Oison et Guilielmus filius eius coram me et baronibus 
meis apud Sagium in perpetuam elemosinam concesserunt Deo et ecclesie 
Sagiensi tres mansuras terre quas idem Ingelrannus de episcopo tenuerat, 
scilicet mansuram que fuerat Gualteri filii Constantini et aliam que fuit 
Rogeri Britonis et terciam ^ que fuit Roberti canonici, ad domos regulariimi 
et' canonicorum eiusdem ecclesie edificandas. Has vero mansuras dedit cum 
Ingelranno filio suo quem episcopus canonicum regularem fecit ibidem, et pro 
hac donacione dedit ei episcopus vi. boves et imiun palefridum in pretiimi 
centiun solidorum Cenomannensium. Hanc itaque concessionem' in perpe- 
tumn valituram eis regia auctoritate confirmavi et sigilli mei impressione 
munivi. 

Testibus loanne episcopo Lexoviensi et Galtero filio Pagani et Goscelino de 
BaUleul et Roberto de sigillo,' apud Sagium. 

which grants to Robert loricarius a house in Caen: original in MS. Lat. 10083, 
no. 3 (cf. Delisle, Henri II, p. 141, no. 4, M. A. N., viii. 388, no. 137). 

' Subsequent to the general confirmation of 1131 (no. 11), issued apparently on 
the eve of the king's departure for England, whence he returned in 1133. 

' etiam, C. • So MSS. * cessionem, C. ' MSS. Sagio. 



308 APPENDIX F 

23 
1133-113S1 at Falaise 

Grant of freedom from toll to the nuns of VUlers-Canivet. 

A, original, torn at the right, formeriy sealed sur simple queue, in 
Archives of the Calvados, no. 47-66; B, vidimus of G., bishop of Seez, 
in the sa,mt fonds, no. 48, from which the gaps have been supplied. 

H. rex Anglforum] iustic[iis] et omnibus vic[ecomitibus] et ministris 
[tocius Normannie] et portuum maris salutem. Predpio quod totum corre- 
dium et [omnes res sanctimon]ialiiun Sancte Marie de Vilers quas homlDes 
earum poterunt [affidare suas] esse dominicas sint quiete de theIon[eo] et 
passag[io] et omni [alia consuetu]dine. Et nullus eas nee homines earum 
super hoc iniuste [distiurbet super] .x. libras forifacture. Testibus A. episcopo 
Carlolii et R. comite [Gloecestrie et R. de Ver], apud Falesiam. 



APPENDIX G 

THE NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I, 1106-1135 

Or the twenty-nine years of Henry I's reign as duke more than half 
were spent in Normandy, so that the history of these Norman so- 
journs constitutes an essential part of the general history of his rule as 
well as a not inconsiderable portion of the annals of the duchy. In the 
absence of any connected narrative of these Norman years, a founda- 
tion must be laid by constructing a detailed itinerary, such as Canon 
E)rton prepared for Henry II, in which the fragmentary statements of 
the chroniclers shall be supplemented by the evidence of such docu- 
ments as can be dated and placed with suflScient exactness. Nothing 
definitive of this sort can be attempted before the completion of this 
portion of Davis's Regesta, but in the meantime the following pro- 
visional itinerary may prove of service. A distinction is made between 
such events and documents as can be assigned to a specific date, and 
those which can be assigned only to a given year or a particular royal 
sojourn. No attempt has been made to group the charters which 
require wider limits: many of Henry's documents can never be dated 
with any degree of definiteness, while others must await a comprehen- 
sive collection and a diplomatic analysis of the more abimdant records 
on the EngUsh side of the Channel.' 

I: 1106-U07 

1106 28 September. Battle of Tinchebrai. 5«^a, Chapter III, note 6. 
Falaise. Ordericus, iv. 232. 
RoxTEN. Ibid., iv. 233. 
ca. 15 October. Lisieux. Council. Ibid.,iv. 233. 

7 November. Rotten. Court. Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 127. 

• No special study has been made of Henry's charters. See the notes to Warner 
and Ellis, Facsimiles of Royal and Other Charters in the British Museum, i; many 
scattered observations of Round; and Birch's paper on his seals in the Journal of the 
British Archaeological Association, xxix. 233-262 (1873). The best study of his 
itinerary is that of "Eytan, British Museum, Add. MS. 31937, f. 122 ff. See also 
H. F., xii. 934-937; Andrew, in Numismatic Chronicle fourth series, i; and Ramsay, 
Foundations of England, u 



3IO APPENDIX G 

1106 30 November. Rouen. Chapter III, note 14. 

25 December. In NoKiiANDY. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 

1 107 January. Falaise. Coimdl. Ordericus, iv. 239(?), 269. 
Maxch. LisiEUX. Council. Ihid., iv. 269. 

1106-1107 Rouen. Charter for Bee: Appendix F, no. i. 

LiLLEBONNE. Writs Concerning York issued with 
Queen Matilda {Historians of York, iii. 31; Mon- 
asticon, viii. 1179) belong to this year if this (An- 
nales Monastici, Winton, ii. 42) was the Queen's 
only visit to Normandy. 

Rouen. The same holds true of a charter for 
Longueville: Round, Calendar, no. 219. 

1107 Before 14 April. Departiwe, reaching Windsor before Easter (Ead- 

mer, p. 184; Henry of Huntingdon, p. 236; A. S. 
Chronicle). 

H: 1108-1109 

1108 July-August, Arrival. Eadmer, p. 197; Robert of Torigni, i. 134; 
probably CO. i August. A. S. Chronicle. 

25 December. In Normandy. A. S. Chronicle. 

1 109 March. Neaufles. Meeting with Louis VI: Luchaire, 

Louis VI, no. 72. 

Rouen. Letter to Ansehn: Epistolae Anselmi, bk. 
iv, no. 93. 

25 April. In Noemandy. A. S. Chronicle. 

1108-1109 Argentan. Charter for Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive: 

Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 156; Neustria Pia, 
p. 503; DeUsle, Cartulaire normand, no. 1219. 

Caen. Vernier, no. 49; Round, no. 156. 

Rouen. Charter for William d'Aubigny: Calendar 
0} Patent Rolls, 1327-1330, p. 20. 
No place. Letter to Anselm: Eadmer, p. 205. 
Sainte-Vaubourg. Charter for Ramsey {Chroni- 
con, p. 215), attested by Ranulf as chancellor and 
addressed to Simon I, earl of Northampton, which 
must be placed in this year if Simon died before 1 1 1 1 
(see Warner and Ellis, Facsimiles, i. no. 26). 

1109 ca. I June. Departvu:e.* Florence of Worcester, ii. 59; cf. 

A. S. Chronicle. 

' A grant of 30 June made with Henry's consent to La Trinity de Caen (MS. 
Fr. n. a. 20221, end), does not require his presence in Normandy at that date. 



NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I 



3" 



III2 2 March. 



DI: 1111-U13 

I II I August. Aitivsl. A. S. Chronicle; Calendar of Charter Rolls, 

iii. 471, no. 4 (charter of 8 August at Waltham 
* in transitu ')■ 

AvRANCHES. Charter confirming the foundation of 
Savigny: Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. iii; Auvry, 
Histoire de la congregation de Savigny, i. 157-160 
(translation) ; Round, Calendar, no. 792, where the 
date is incorrectly given as 7 March 1113, a date 
inconsistent with the chronological elements in the 
charter, save the regnal years, and with the proba- 
bilities of Henry's itinerary.' To the long Ust of 
witnesses given by Round should be added Nigel d' 
Aubigny and ' Ricardus sigiUi custos.' Cf. the foun- 
dation charter of Ralph of Fougeres, 25 January 
II 1 2, in Martene and Diurand, Thesaurus, i. 332; 
and the confirmation of Turgis of Avranches wit- 
nessed by Henry in the cartulary of Savigny in 
Archives of the Manche, f. 170V, no. 657. 

4 November. Bonne ville-sttr-Touques. Condemnation of Rob- 
ert of BellSme: Ordericus, iv. 305. 

Vakkeville. Grant of freedom from toll to Sa- 
vigny: M. A. N., XX. 256. 

No place. Approves grant by Robert of Meulan 
to Bee of the manor of Chisenbury* (co. Wilts): 
Porfie, Bee, i. 467. 

Saint-£vroul. Ordericus, iv. 301 f.,v. 196; Round, 
no. 624. 

Bec. Confirms and seals charter of Hugh of Gour- 
nayforBec: Por6e, 5ec, i. 339. (The year is prob- 
ably incorrectly given). 

Near ALENgoN. Meeting with Fulk of Anjou: 
Ordericus, iv. 306, v. 196. 

Rouen. Ibid., iv. 302, v. 196; Round, no. 624. 

Near Gisors. Interview with Louis VI: Luchaire, 
Louis VI, no. 158. 

1-3 May. Belleme, siege. Ordericus, iv. 308. 

' Most of the elements of date can be reconciled by assuming that the style 
is that of Easter, but the difficulties of the king's itinerary would still stand in 
the way of 11 13. 

* ' Chilingueburia super Avram ' in MS. Lat. 13905, f. 2iv; the correct form 
Chesingebery in Heniy II's confirmation, Delisle-Berger, no. 433. 



II 13 2-3 February. 
[11 February] 

23-28 February. 

Early March. 
23-30 March. 



312 APPENDIX G 

1113 July. Departure (Florence, ii. 66), having spent Christ- 

mas, Easter, and Pentecost in Normandy {A. S. 
Chronicle). 



1 1 14 21 September. 



25 December. 



"IS 



IV: 1114-1115 

Arrival, via Portsmouth. A. S. Chronicle; cf. char- 
ter given 13 September at Westboume (Calendar of 
Charter Rolls, iii. 346, iv. 170; Monasticon, ii. 444). 

Rotten. Court at which barons swear allegiance to 
Prince William. A. S. Chronicle; Henry of Hunt- 
ingdon, p. 239; charter for Tiron in Cartidaire, ed. 
Merlet, i. 27; Round, no. 994. 

(year only) No place. Charter of confirmation for Saint-Georges 
de Bocherville: Round, no. 196 (also in vidimus in 
Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure and Archives 
Nationales, JJ. 64, no. 667). 

" No place. Consents to grant of Stephen of Aumale 

for Aumale: Monasticon, vii. 1103 (original in 
Archives of the Seine-Inf6rieure). 

Mid-July. Departure. Florence, ii. 68; ^4. 5. Chronicle. (The 
king was at Westminster 18 September: Calendar 
of Patent Rolls, 1358-1361, p. 7.) 



V: 1116-1120 



11 16 Just after 2 April. Arrival. 
P- 239; 



1117 



1118 July-August. 



Early September. 
September. 



October. 
October. 



A. S. Chronicle; Henry of Huntingdon, 
Robert of Torigni, i. 150; cf. Eadmer, 

P- 237- 

No place. Confirms grant to Bee by William Malet 

of Menil-Josselin (Eure): MS. Lat. 12884, i- 165; 

MS. Lat. 13905, f. 2iv; Porfie, Bee, i. 334. 

Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, Maiassis. Ordericus, iL 
453, iv. 311. 

ALEN50N and vicinity. War with Angevins; cession 
of territory to Thibaud of Blois. Ibid., iv. 323 f. 

Siege of Laigle. Ibid., iv. 325-327. 

Rouen. Ibid., iv. 327; cf. 316. 

Campaign against La Fert£-en-Brai and Nettp- 
BOtJRG. Ibid., iv. 327 f. 

Council of RotJEN. Ibid., iv. 329 f. 

Rouen. Settlement of dispute between Savigny and 
Saint-Etienne: Appendix F, no. 2. 



NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I 



313 



1 1 18 October. 



10-16 November. 
December. 



1 1 19 16-22 February. 



After 18 May. 
June. 



(probably) 

Summer. 
tt 

20 August. 



September. 
October. 



Between 22 and 
27 November. 

25 December, 
(year only) 
1117-1119 



Arganchy. Charter approving this settlement: 

ibid. 

Caen. Grant to Saint-fitienne by William d'Au- 

bigny in presence of Henry and his barons at the 

castle: Deville, Analyse, p. 47; 'Emptiones 

Eudonis,' Chapter III, no. 5. 

Siege of Laigle. Ordericus, iv. 331. 

Siege of Alencon. Ibid., iv. 333; Chroniques des 
comtes d'Anjou, ed. Halphen and Poupardin, pp. 

Breteuil, Falaise, Chateau de Renouakd. 

Ordericus, iv. 337-339. 

La Ferte-Fresnel. Ibid., iv. 345. 

LisiEUX. Court; betrothal of Prince William. Ibid., 

iv. 347 f.; cf. A. S. Chronicle. 

Rouen. Charter for Colchester: Carhdarium S. 

lohannis BapHMe de Colecestria, p. 10. 

Rouen. Charter for Colchester: tSwi., pp. 4-10; cf. 
Round, in E. H. R., xvi. 723 ; Geofrey de MandeoUle, 
pp. 423-427- 

Pont-Saint-Pierre. Ordericus, iv, 348. 
fivREUx, siege and burning. Ibid., iv. 350-352. 

Battle of Bremule. Ibid., iv. 354-363; Luchaire, 

Louis VI, no. 259. 

Breteuil. Ordericus, iv. 367 f. 

Glos, Lire. Ibid., iv. 371. 

Rouen. Ibid. 

Siege of £vreux. Ibid., iv. 393. 

ViEUX-RouEN. Ibid., iv. 395. 

Instructions to bishops going to coimcil of Rheims. 
IMd., iv. 373. 

GisoRS. Interview with Calixtus II. Historians of 
York, ii. 168 ff.; Jaffe-Lowenfeld, nos. 6788-6789; 
Eadmer, p. 258; Henry of Himtingdon, p. 242. 

Bayeux. Charter for Savigny: Round, no. 793. 

Rouen. Charter for Bee: Appendix F, no. 3. 

Rouen. Charter for Bee: ' MS. Lat. 12884, f. 167; 
Neustria Pia, p. 484. 



' The date of this and the three following documents is fixed by the attestation of 
Archbishop Ralph of Canterbury, who spent these three years in Normandy, 
leaving 4 January 11 20: Ordericus, iv. 430; Florence of Worcester, ii. 74. 



514 



APPENDIX G 



1117^1119 

1119 
1120 

Lent. 

30 May. 
Before June. 

October. 

1116-1120 



1116-1120, 

probably 11 20 

1119-1120 



1120 21 November. 



25 November. 



Rouen. Agreement in his presence between Saint- 
Wandrille and Cerisy: Lot, S.-WandrUle, no. 60. 

RotTEN. Writ for Saint-Amand: Appendix F, no. 4. 

Rouen. Charter for Saint Albans: Matthew Paris, 
Chronica Majora, vi. 39. 

No day or place given. Meeting with Louis VI and 
homage of Prince William. Luchaire, Louis VI, 
no. 298; Lot, FidUes ou vassaux?, p. 202. 

Arganchy. Charter for Colchester: Cartularium, 
i. 42; d.E.H.R.,xvi. 728. 

Caen. Charters for Colchester, probably about the 
same time: Cartttlarium, i. 21, 23. 

Vernon ( ? ' apud Vercionem ')• Interview with the 
papal legate Conon. Historians of York, ii. 186 f. 

Rouen. Letter to Archbishop Ralph on behalf of 
Eadmer: Eadmer, p. 281. 

GisoRS. Second interview with Conon. Historians 
of York, ii. 189; for the date cf. Mansi, Concilia, 
xxi. 259. 

MoRTAiN. Charter for Tiron: Cartulaire, ed. Mer- 
let, i. 42; Round, no. 995. 

Sainte-Vaubourg. Charter for Tiron: Cartulaire, 
i. 41 ; Roimd, no. 996. 

Rouen. Charter for Nostell: W. Farreis, Early 
Yorkshire Charters, no. 1433. 

Bonneville. Charter for Nostell: ibid., no. 1424. 

Rouen. Writ for Archbishop Thurstan of York: 
ibid., no. 1822. 

Barfleur. Charter for Cerisy: Neustria Pia, p. 
432; Monasticon, vii. 1075; Farcy, Abbayes du 
diocise de Bayeux, pp. 86, 89; Toustain de Billy, 
Histoire du diocise de Coutances, i, 166; cf. Revue 
catholique de Normandie, x. 441; M. A. N., xxiii, 
part I, no. 1474. 

Bareleur. Departure; loss of White Ship. Orderi- 
cus, iv. 411-419; A.S. Chronicle; Henry of Hunt- 
ingdon, p. 242; William of Malmesbury, Gesta 
Regum, ii. 496; John of Worcester, ed. Weaver,. 
P-iS- 



NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I 



3IS 



1123 II June. 



June or July. 

October. 
October, November. 



1124 



26 March. 
After 6 April. 

16 April. 



18 May-i June, 
(year only) 



II2S 



1126 21 March, 
(year only) 



VI: I 123-1 126 

Arrival, from Portsmouth. Simeon of Durham, ii. 
273; A. S. Chronicle; Florence, ii. 78; John of Wor- 
cester, p. 17; cf. Henry of Himtingdon, p. 245; 
Annales Monastici, i. 11; Rovmd, Ancient Charters, 
no. 10; id., Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 432 f. 

Confers with archbishops of Canterbury and York 
on their return from Rome. Florence, ii. 78. 

Rouen. Ordericus, iv. 442. 
MoNTFORT, Brionot, Pontaudemee, Gisors. 
Campaign against Hugh de Montfort, Galeran de 
Meulan, etc. Ordericus, iv. 443-453; Robert of 
Torigni, i. 163; Simeon of Durham, ii. 274. 

Invasion of the Vexin. Suger, Louis le Gros, ed. 
Molinier, p. 106. 

Caen. Robert of Torigni, i. 166. 

Rouen. Court; condemnation of those taken at 

battle of Bourgtheroude. Ordericus, iv. 459-463. 

Bec. Vita Willelmi tertii ahhatis, Migne, Patrologia, 

cl. 722. 

Brionne, SAiNTE-VAUBorrRG. Poree, Bec, i. 287. 

Rouen. Ihid., i. 288. 

fivREUX. Charter for Savigny: Appendix F, no. 6. 

Rouen. Charter for Athelney: Cartulary (Somer- 
set Record Society), p. 133. 

No place. Charter for Bec: Porle, Bec, i. 657. 

No place. Charter for Reading, with many wit- 
nesses: Monasticon, iv. 40; J. B. Hurry, Reading 
Abbey, p. 151. 
Seez. Dedication of cathedral. Ordericus, iv. 471. 

Sainte-Vaubourg. Decision of controversy be- 
tween John, bishop of Seez, and Marmoutier: early 
copy in Archives of the Ome, H. 2159; M.A.N., 
XV. 197; Round, no. 1191; Barret, Cartulaire de 
Marmoutier pour le Perche, no. 23. 

No place. General confirmation for Lessay: original 
in Archives of the Manche, H. 4607; Round, no. 
923. From the names of the witnesses, the confirma- 
tion of a charter of Reginald d'Orval for Lessay 
probably belongs to the same time and place: 
original in Archives of the Manche, H. 6449; 
printed in Inventaire somtnaire; Round, no, 924, 



3i6 

II23-II26( ?) 

1125-1126 (probably) 
1 1 26 II September. 



APPENDIX G 

No place. Privilege for Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive: 
original in Archives of the Calvados; GaUia Chris- 
tiana, xi. instr. 157. 

Rouen. Charter for Hyde Abbey: Monasticon, ii. 
44S (cf. the witnesses to the charter for Reading, 
ibid., iv. 41). 

Departure. Simeon of Durham, ii. 281 (as of 1127); 
cf. A. S. Chronicle; Henry of Himtingdon, p. 247; 
William of Mahnesbury, Historia Novella, p. 528. 



II27 


26 


August. 

(probably) 
(?) 


II28 


10 


June. 



17 June. 

Before the end 
of July. 

October. 
November. 



(year only) 



a a 



II27-II28 



1 1 29 2 June. 



Vn: 1127-1129 

Arrival, via Eling. Simeon of Durham, ii. 282 (as 
of 1 1 28); cf. Henry of Huntingdon, p. 247; Round, 
Feudal England, p. 268 f. 

Saint-Pierre-stjr-Dive. Charter for Ely: Monas- 
ticon, ii. 617; cf. Roxmd, op. cit., p. 269. 

No place. Charter for Aunay: Appendix F, no. 8. 

Rouen. Knighting of Geoffrey Plantagenet. On 
the year see Norgate, Angevin Kings, i. 258-260; 
Chroniqiies des comtes d'Anjou, ed. Halphen and 
Poupardin, pp. 178-180. 

Le Mans. Marriage of Geoffrey and Matilda. See 
the authors just cited. 

fipERNON. Invasion of the Mantois. Henry of 
Huntingdon, p. 247; Robert of Torigni, i. 175; cf. 
Luchaire, Louis VI, no. 414. 

Rouen. Council. Ordericus, iv. 495. 

Rouen. Uncertain charter for Saint-fivroul: 
Gallia Christiana, xi. instr. 204; supra, Chapter I, 
pp. 11-14. 

No place. Charter for Sainte-Barbe: early figured 
copy in Archives of the Calvados. 

S£ez. Attests charter of John, bishop of Slez, for 
Marmoutier. Barret, Carttdaire de Martnoutier 
pour le Perche, no. 25; Round, no. 1192. 

Probably in Normandy. Confirmation of charter of 
Count Stephen for Fumess Abbey, with incon- 
sistent year, indiction, and epact: Monasticon, 
V. 247. 

Falaise. Whitsuntide court. Supra, Chapter HI, 
no. 3. 



NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I 



317 



1129 (year only) 



I I 28-1 I 29 



1129 IS July. 



Rouen. Charters for Fontevrault: Round, nos. 
1052 f., 1459. 

Rouen. Grant to MUes of Gloucester of the lands 
and coDstableship of his father: original in British 
Museum, Cotton Charter xvi. 33. See above, p. 305. 

Departure. Simeon of Durham, ii. 283; A. S. 
Chronicle; John of Worcester, p. 29. (Henry was in 
London i August: Henry of Huntingdon, p. 250.) 



Vni: H30-1131 

1 130 ca. I September. Arrival, from Portsmouth. Robert of Torigni, i. 
182; Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, p. 125; cf. Henry of 
Huntingdon, p. 252 (Michaelmas); A. S. Chronicle. 

8 September. Bec. Robert of Torigni, i. 182. 

14 September. Rouen. Probably present at consecration of Arch- 
bishop Hugh. Robert of Torigni, i. 183. 

after 14 September. Rouen. Assents to charter of Archbishop Hugh for 
Aiunale: Archives of the Oise, H. 1302; G(^lia 
Christiana, xi. instr. 22. 



(?) 



1 13 1 13 January. 



S February. 
February. 



Rouen. Charter for Ramsey:' Warner and EUis, 
Facsimiles, i, no. 11; Ramsey Cartulary, i. 242; 
Chronicon, p. 224. 

Rouen. Charter for Notre-Dame-du-Desert: Le 
Prevost, Eure, i. 251; Gumey, Record of the House oj 
Gournay, ii. 739; Roimd, no. 411. 

Chartkes. Meeting with Innocent II. Ordericus, 
v. 25; Round, no. 1460; cf. Henry of Hunting- 
don, p. 252; Robert of Torigni, i. 184; William 
of Malmesbury, Historia Novdla, p. 534; Jaff6- 
Lowenfeld, i. 846. 

Rouen. Neustria Pia, p. 387. 

Rouen. Charter for Seez: Appendix F, no. 10. 



' The appearance together in this charter of Archbishop Hugh, consecrated 14 
September 1130, and William of Tancarville, who died in 11 29 (Histoire littiraire, 
xxxii. 204), raises an unsolved problem, unless Hugh was already designated be- 
fore the king's departure from Normandy in 11 29. On the custom of prelates 
attesting before their consecration see Eyton, Add. MS. 31937, f. 148V; Round, 
in Victoria History of Hampshire, i. 527. A charter of 1133 is dated in the fourth 
year of Archbishop Hugh: Cartukire de Tiron, i. 205. 



3i8 
1131 



9, 10 May. 

5 or 12 May. 
May (113 1 ?) 
(year only) 
Summer. 



1130-1131 



1130-1131 ( ?) 
1131 August 



APPENDIX G 

Rouen. Meeting with Innocent 11. JaflfS-Lowen- 
feld, nos. 7472 f., 7476; William of Malmesbury, 
Eistoria Novella, p. 534; Robert of Torigni, i. 185; 
id., in William of Jumieges, ed. Marx, p. 309; cf. 
Round, Ancient Charters, p. 30. 

Rouen. Charter for Climy: Bruel, Charles de 
CUmy, V, no. 4016; Round, Calendar, nos. 1387 f. 

Vernon. Meeting with Count Thibaud. Ordericus, 
iii. ii8f. 

Vaudreuil. Charter for fivreux cathedral: Round, 
no. 287. 

Aeques. Charter for Beaumont-le-Roger: vidinms 
in Archives of the Eure, H. 814; copy in cartulary in 
Biblioth6que Mazarine, MS. 3417; Cartidaire, ed. 
E. Deville, p. 7; Round, no. 373. 

Dieppe. Charter for S6ez: Appendix F, no. 11; of. 
Ordericus, iv. 471, note 4. 

Aeques. Charter for the cordwainers of Rouen: 
copies in MS. Lat. 9067, f. iS4v; MS. Rouen 2192, 
f. 189; La Roque, iii. 149; Round, no. 107. 

Arques. Charter for Saint-Georges de Bocherville: 
Round, no. 197. 

Dieppe. Charter for Saint- Wandrille: Lot, 5.- 
Wandrille, no. 64; Round, no. 168. 

Caen. Charter for Saint-fitienne: Monasticon, 
vii. 1071. 

Caen ( ?). Charters for Saint-£tienne and con- 
firmation of ' Emptiones Eudonis ': supra. Chapter 
III, no. s. 

Rouen. Charters for Fecamp: Round, nos. 122, 
123; facsimile of no. 123 in Chevreux and Vernier, 
Les archives de Normandie, no. 33. 

Rouen. Charter for Salisbury cathedral: Register 
of St. Osmund, i. 349. 

Departure, from Dieppe. A. S. Chronicle; Henry of 
Huntingdon, p. 252; Robert of Torigni, i. 185. 



NORMAN ITINERARY OF HENRY I 



319 



1 133 3 August. 



"34 



(year only) 

Shortly after 
IS April. 

3 June. 



IX: 1133-113S 

Arrival. Annals of Rotten, in Labbe, Bihliotheca, i. 
368; Annals of Canterbury, in Liebermann, Anglo- 
normannische Geschichtsqttellen, p. 79; Robert of 
Torigni, i. 192; John of Hexham, ii. 285; John of 
Worcester, p. 37. Wilham of Malmesbury, p. 535, 
gives 5 August, but the eclipse was on the 2d. 

Rotten. Charter for Bee: Round, no. 374; Poree, 
Bee, i. 460. 

MoRTEMZE. H. F., xiv. 510. 



RotTEN. Birth of Henry's grandson Geoffrey, the 
king being probably at Rouen. Robert of Torigni, i. 
192; cf. Por6e, Bee, i. 293 f., 650. 

(year only) RotTEN. Charter for Bee: Por6e, i. 377-380, 658 f. 
(two versions); Round, no. 375. 

" Rotten. Charter for Coutances cathedral: cartu- 

lary now in Archives of the Manche (cf. Chapter VI, 
note 9s), p. 348, no. 284; copy in MS. Fr. 4900, f. sv; 
Dupont, Histoire du Cotentin, i. 472; Round, no. 
959- 
1 13 5 Makes three vain attempts to cross to England. 

Ordericus, v. 45. 

Caen. Charter for Saint-Andre-en-Gouffem: Round, 
no. 590. 

Rotten. Ordinance concerning the Truce of God: 
Tris Ancien Coutumier, ed. Tardif, c. 71; Round, 
no. 290. 

August-i November. Seez, Alencon, Argentan, etc. Ordericus, v. 47, 
63- 

No place. Confirms grant of WiUiam of Warren for 
BeUencombre: Monasticon, vii. 1113. 

No place. Renews charter of 1121-1131 for Le 
Grand-Beauheu de Chartres: Cartidaire, ed. Merlet 
and Jusselin, no. i; supra. Chapter HI, no. 17. 

1133-1135 Arganchy. Writ to custodians of the bishopric of 

Bayeux: Livre noir, no. 37. No. 34 is probably of 
the same period. 

Caen. Writ for Bayeux cathedral: ibid., no. 8 
(probably during the same vacancy). 



320 APPENDIX G 

1133-113S Falaise. Charter for Ramsey: Carttdary, i. 250; 

Chronicon, p. 284. 

Faxaise. Charter for ViUers-Canivet: Appendix 
F, no. 23. 

Rouen. Charter for the bishop of fivreux: supra, 
Chapter III, no. 18; Round, no. 289. 

RotTEN. Charter for Lincohi: E. H. R., xxiii. 726, 
no. 4; MonasHcon, viii. 1275. 

S£ez. Charter for Slez cathedral: Appendix F, 
no. 22. 

1 135 25 November. Lions castle. Ordericus, v. 49. 

I December. Lions. Death. Ihid., v. 50. 



APPENDIX H 

DOCUMENTS CONCERNING NORMAN COURTS, 1139-1191 ' 



1 139, at Lisieuz 

Notice of suit before John, bishop of Lisieux, between Richard and 
Anselm of Dives and the abbey of Troarn concerning the church of Dives 
(Calvados). 

A, original lost; B, copy in lost cartulary of Troam; C, copy from 
B (' in veteri cartario folio .xxix. hec repperi ') in Chartrier rouge, MS. 
Lat. 10086, f. IS9V. 

Anno .M'-CXXXIX. defuncto Herluino presbitero de Diva movenmt 
Ricardus de Diva et Anselmus frater eius contencionem de ecclesia de Diva 
contra nos. Dicebant enim quandam partem eiusdem ecclesie esse suam et 
maxime presentacionem presbiteri. Fro qua causa iussu lohannis episcopi 
Lexoviensis perrexerunt in curiam Sancti Petri ante ipsum episcopiun, 
scilicet domnus abbas Andreas et monachi eius cum eo Rannulfus cellararius 
et Radulf us de Waravilla et Rogerius de Sancto Wandregisilo et Ricardus de 
Diva et Anselmus frater eius. Et diraciocinati sunt idem abbas et monachi 
eius quod tota ecclesia Sancte Marie de Diva sua erat et presentacio presbi- 
teri, per testimonium et iudiciiun predict! episcopi et indicium qui curiam 
tenebant et per cartam suam quam inde habebant firmatam manu Willelmi 
senioris regis et Rogerii de Belmont et Roberti filii eius et manu Hugonis 
episcopi Lexoviensis et per guarantores suos quos ibi habebant, scilicet 
Rogerium de Spineto et filios eius et Jordanum de Sulleio; et saisiti redierunt 
a curia abbas et monachi eius. His interfuerunt Herveus archidiaconus, 
Normannus archidiaconus, decanus, Rogerius de Monasteriolo, Hugo 
Teillardus, Willelmus de Capella.' 

' For other such documents seeM.A.N., xv. ig6 B.; Valin, piSces justificatives; 
and the texts cited supra. Chapters V and VI. 

' Of. the following letter of Galeran of Meulan: ' I. reverendo Dei gratia Lex- 
[oviensi] episcopo domino suo et patii G. comes Mellenti salutem. Fiecor vos quod 
Dei amore et meo teneatis et custodiatis ecclesiam Sancti Martini de Troamo et 
monachos et onmes les eorum et nominatim ecclesiam de Diva quam antecessores 
mei concesseiunt et cum Willelmo rege AnglorumaduceNonnannorumconfirma- 
verunt predicte ecclesie et monachis, et ut [non] permittatis quod Ricardus de Diva 
vel Anselmus faciat eis inde aliquam contumeliam vel [blank in MS.]. Teste Ro- 
berto de Novoburgo.' Chartrier rouge, f. 152; Chartrier blanc in Archives of the 
Calvados, no. 366. 

321 



322 APPENDIX H 



20 January 1148, at Lisieuz 

NoHficaHon by Fulk, dean of Lisieux, that in the presence of Rotrou, 
bishop of £vreux, then administering the see of Lisieux, a piece of land at 
Mesnil-Mauger (Calvados) has been recognized as alms by the giiardian 
of the honor and the old men of the manor and restored to the priory of 
Sainte-Barbe. 

A, original, with incisions for attachment of seal, in Archives of the 
Calvados, /owds Sainte-Barbe. 

Fulco Sancti Petri Lexoviensis ecdesig decanus totusque eiusdem ecdesig 
conventus dilectis in Christo fratribus Guillelmo priori de Sancta Barba 
totique ipsius ecdesig conventui salutem et fratemam dilectionem. Quia 
Hberante nos Christo non sumus ancillg filii sad libera, rarum etiam ecdesi- 
asticarum libertati quantum possiunus dacet nos providere, quatinus eas et 
ab iUicita possessione laicorum libarare studeamus et ab invasione sacrilega 
premimire. Terram igitur quam Rannulfus et Turulfus filius eius tota vita 
sua tenuisse dicuntur in elemosina apud Maisnilmalger tempore Rad[ulfi] 
filii Serlonis et heredum eius GuiUelmi et Gatif[radi] et sic, in presentia 
domini Rotroci Ebroicensis episcopi Lexoviensis episcopatus curam nunc 
agentis, per Rog[eriimi] de Hotot qui tunc honorem et heredem de Maisnil- 
malger habebat in custodia et per antiques homines eiusdem manerii pro 
elemosina recognitam, et per manus tam ipsius Rog[erii] quam Gauf[redi] 
filii Theoderici in manum prefati Rot[rocl] episcopi quibusdam ex nobis 
videntibus et audientibus ut elemosinam radditam, vobis et ecdesig vestrg 
per manus ipsius episcopi datam in perpatuam elemosinam, assensu et beni- 
volentia predictorum Rog[aru] et Gauf[redi] ceterorumque qui in eorum 
erant consilio, protestamur. Quandam etiam partem elemosing de ecdesia 
Saiicti Stephani de Maisnilmalger quam predicti Rannulfus et Turulfus 
et post eos Guill[elmus] Burgamissam tenuerunt, quam Robertus decanus 
habebat in custodia, redditam in manu eiusdem episcopi hberam a predictis 
Rog[erio] et Gauf[redo], vobis nichilominus ab ipso episcopo datam et in 
perpetuam demosinam concessam partim vidimus partim audivimus. 

Huic actioni presentes affuimus ego Fulco decanus, ex archidiaconis Nor- 
mannus et Robertus de Altaribus, ex canonicis Rad[ulfus] de Floreio, Ro- 
g[erius] filius Amisi, lohannis archidiaconi vicarius, Gmllelmus archidiac[oni] 
Ricardp] fihus, Gislebertus de Furcis, Turgisus, et alii plures. De exteriori- 
bus quoque dericis, Robertus de Hotot decanus qui totius predicti negocii 
mediator et actor fuit, Rogerius de Dotvilla decanus, Guilldmus de Teber- 
villa, et Paganus de Grandvilla. Predictam igitur pactionem terrg recognitg 
et redditg in elemosinam predictus Rog[erius] de Hotot affidavit in manu 
episcopi Rot[roci] se legitime et fidditer servaturum et contra omnes qui 
Vellent advarsari toto posse suo defensurum. Quod totum sicut supra 
scriptum est testificantes, ex precepto etiam domini Ebroicensis episcopi 
Rot[roci] conscriptione et sigillo capituli nostri corroboramus, ut Domino 



DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE COURTS 323 

cooperante et sermonem confirmante ratum et indissolubile maneat in per- 
petuum. Amen. Actum Lexovii in festivitate sanctonui martirum Fabiani 
et Sebastiani anno incamationis dominicg M''.C'*.XL°.Vin°. 



1154-1158, at Caen 

Notification by Robert de Neufbourg, seneschal and justiciar of Nor- 
mandy, that Robert,^ son of Ralph of Thaon, had, in the king's court at 
Caen, restored to the abbot and monks of Savigny the tithes and lands at 
Thaon (Calvados) to which the abbot had proved his right before the king at 
Domfront, and that Robert has given surety for the observance of this. 

A, original lost; B, cartulary of Savigny, in Archives of the Manche, 
no. 219. 

A. H. R., XX. 32, note 56. 

Robertus de Novoburgo sinescallus Normannie archiepiscopo Rothoma- 
gensi et episcopis Normannie et consulibus et baronibus et omnibus fidelibus 
Henrici regis Anglie salutem. Notum vobis fieri volumus quod Robertus 
filius Radulfi de Ttiaun Cadomo in curia regis coram me qui eram iusticia 
Normannie et coram baronibus regis Ricardo abbati et monachis Savigneii 
reddidit in pace ac dimisit et in manu abbatis posuit decimas terre eorum de 
Thaun et quatuor acras terre, quas ipse Robertus et fratres eius adversus 
abbatem et monachos antea calumniabantur et quas ipse abbas et monachi 
disrationaverunt in curia regis et coram ipso ad Danfront, et de chatallis 
suis misit se in miseratione abbatis et monachorum pro malefactis que ipse et 
fratres eius fecerant eis. Et pepigit legitime quod faceret si posset fratres 
suos facere et tenere eundem finem cum abbate et monachis quern ipse facie- 
bat, et si non posset quod legitime se teneret cum abbate et monachis contra 
fratres, et affidavit in manu mea et iuravit super sancta quod ipse hec omnia 
que hie diximus legitime teneret et conservaret abbati et monachis. Et hoc 
ipsum affidavit Vitalis de Sancto German© et Ricardus de BabainviUa et ah'i 
amici eius quos abbas voluit. Huius finis et pacis inter Robertmn et abbatem 
et monachos fuerunt testes Godart de Vans et Robertus de Sancta Honorina 
qui erant in loco episcopi Luxoviarum et Willelmus filius lohannis et Aitart 
Polciti qui erant baiUivi regis et Robertus abbas Fontaneti et Ricardus filius 
comitis Gloecestrie et lordanus Taisson et Rualen de Sal et lohannes de 
Guavrei et WiUelmus de Vilers et Gaufredus filius Mabile et Robertus fiUus 
Bemardi et Rannuhus Rufellus et Nicholaus de Veieves et Robertus de 
Chemellia et multi alii. 

^ He also appears in a suit in the king's court under Richard: cartulary of 
Savigny, no. 220. 



324 APPENDIX H 



1154-1158 

WrU of Amtdf of Lisieux and Robert de Neufbourg [the king's principal 
justices], ordering WilUam Fitz John to cause the friends of Robert of 
Thaon to give such surety as Robert had given in the preceding document, 
and directing him further to have Robert's brothers proclaimed in the 
markets of Caen and Bayeux as under the king's ban. 

A, original lost; B, cartulary of Savigny, no. 273. 

A. H. R., XX. 33, note 56. 

Emulfus Dei gratia Luxoviensis episcopus et R. de Novoburgo Willelmo 
filio lohannis salutem. Mandamus tibi atque precipimus ut facias amicos 
Roberti de Thaun quos abbas Savigneii tibi nominaverit facere fidudam 
eidem abbati et monachis ipsius quam ipse Robertus fecit Cadomi coram 
nobis, et ut facias fratres Roberti forisbanniri in communi foro Cadomi et 
Baiocis sicut forisfactos regis. 



I154-IIS9 

Notification by Robert de Neufbourg, seneschal of Normandy, that 
Robert Poisson of Fotdbec {Eure) has in the king's court and before the 
king's barons renounced all claim to the church of £paigjies (Eure) in 
favor of the monastery of Priaux, and has received from the abbot the fief of 
Ralph the priest subject to the customs which a vavassor owes his lord. 

A, original lost; B, cartulary of Preaux in Archives of the Eure, 
H. 711, no. 78; C, copy from B in MS. Lat. n. a. 1929, no. 75. Cf. 
Brunner, Schwurgerichte, p. 148, note i; Le Prevost, Eure, ii. 125. 

Notum sit tarn presentibus quam futuris quoniam in curia regis cum ego 
Robertus de Novoburgo dapifer essem Normannie Robertus Piscis de Fule- 
becco calumpniam suam de ecclesia de Hispania quietam clamavit ecdesie 
Sancti Petri Pratellensis tempore MichaeUs abbatis. Ipse vero abbas pre- 
dicto Roberto Pisci feodum quod tenuit Radulfus sacerdos in Hispania red- 
didit salvis omnibus consuetudinibus quas vavasor compatriota domino 
facere debet. Et quoniam hec ante meam presentiam in regis curia et ante 
regis barones factum est, sigilli mei munimento ratum fore in posterum con- 
firmo. Testibus Laurentio archidiacono, Willelmo de AnsgerviUa, Godardo * 
de VaUibus, Roberto filio Hemerici, Etardo Pulcin, Roberto de luvineio, 
Gaufredo de Novoburgo, Henrico de Warewic, Gisleberto de Hotot, et aliis. 

' MS. Godardus. 



DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE COURTS 325 

6 
1154-1164, at Rouen 

Notification that before Rotrou, bishop oj£,vreux, and Richard du Horn- 
met, constable, as justiciars, the presentation of Brucourt (Calvados) was 
quitclaimed to Michael, abbot of Preaux, in full assize at Rouen. 

A, original lost; B, cartulary of Preaux, in the Archives of the Eure, 
H. 711, no. 18; C, copy from B in MS. Lat. n. a. 1929, f. gv. 

^.ff.2?., XX. 33, notes9. 

Notum sit tarn presentibus quam futuris quoniam cum ego R. episcopus 
Ebroicensis at Ricardus de Hmmneto constabularius regis essemus iusti- 
ciarii regis, Galfredus de Bruecourt et Gislebertus de Bniencourt et Robertas 
filius Matildis in presentia nostra in plena assisia apud Rothomagum da- 
maverunt quietam imperpetuum presentationem ecclesie de Bruencourt 
Michaeli abbati et ecdesie PrateUensi, de qua diu controversia inter eos 
fuerat. Testibus Hugo [sic] de Gomaio et Matheo de, Gerardivilla et Nidio- 
laus [sic] de Stutevilla et G. de Vallibus et Roberto de Pessi et Gisleberto de 
Vascoil et Roberto de luveneio. 



1154-1175, probably ca. 1160, at Rouen 

Grant by the dean, Geoffrey, and the chapter of Rouen of their mill at 
Maromme {Seine-Inferieure) to the hospital of Saint- Jacques, made in 
the presence of the king's justices. 

A, original, injured, in Archives Nationales, S. 4889, no. 6; B, 
modem copy, ibid., from which the missing portions of the original 
have been supplied. 

A.H.R.,XK.S5, note 79. Frequently cited by DeUsle, Henri II, who 
makes the sUp of attributing the document to Geoffrey's successor, 
Robert, and thus placing it after Geoffrey's death in 1175; this error 
vitiates several of DeUsle's biographical notes (pp. 100, 377, 417, 422, 

449. 491)- 

Gaufridus Rothomagensis gcdesig decanus et tocius eiusdem ecdesif 
conventus presentibus et futuris salutem. [Not]um esse volumus sancte ma- 
tris ecdesie filiis quod m[olendinu]m nostrum de Marrona concedimus 
domui infirmorum de Rothomago [in ec]desia Sancti lacobi tenendum in 
perpetuum sicut tenuerunt iure hereditario Macharius et heredes eius a 
quibus ipsum emerunt pro .xv. marcis argenti, salvo ibi censu nostro scilicet 
tribus solidis usualis monete singulis annis in festo Sancti Remigii reddendis. 
Hec autem em[ptio publice] celebrata est in presentia nostra cui interfuerunt 



326 APPENDIX H 

etiam [iustitie regis] Rainaldus de Sancto Walerico, Godardus de Vallibus, 
[Adam de W]aniievilla, Willelmus de Malapalude/ Radulfus filius Urselini, 
Ro[celin filius] Clar embaldi, Rainaldus de Sancto Philiberto. 

8 
1160-1164, at Rouen 

Notification of a decision, in the king's court at Rouen, before Rotrou, 
bishop of £,weux, and Reginald of Saint^Valery as justiciars, adjudging 
to Gilbert, abbot of Conches, rights in the granary of Varengeville {Seine- 
Infgrieure). 

A, original lost; B, cartulary of Conches in the Archives of the 
Eure, H. 262, f. loiv; C, copy among Delisle's papers from a MS. 
relating to the family of Chambray, from which the gaps in B have 
been filled in. 

A. H. R, XX. $2, note 59; extract in Delisle, Henri II, p. 455. 

Rotrodus Dei gratia Ebroisensis episcopus universis sancte matris ecclesie 
filiis salutem. Notificamus vobis quod Gilbertus Sancti Petri Castellionensis 
abbas stramen grangie de Warengevilla et palleas cum revaneis iudicio curie 
domini regis' obtinuit contra Mathilde[m] de Monasteris et contra Matheimi 
filiimi eius disracionavit, quoniam monachos prefate ecclesie inde multum 
diu placitis et altercationibus indiscussis vexaverant. Hoc autem judicium 
factum est apud Rothomagum in monasterio Sancti Gervacii me presente, 
Reinnoldo de Sancto Walerico iusticia in curia existente plenissuna pliui- 
monim virorum qui huius rei testes fuerunt: Amulphus Luxoviensis episco- 
pus, Frogerius Sagiensis episcopus, Henricus abbas Fiscannensis, Hugo de 
Gumaio, Godardus de Vallibus, Robertus de Freschenes, Adam de Martine- 
villa, Goselinus Rossel, Robertus Harenc de WaldeviUa, Rogerius Mahiel, 
et alii multi. 

9 

1164-1178 

Letter of William de la Seule ^ to Rotrou, archbishop of Rouen, asking 
him to do justice to the monks of Aunay in their appeal from Richard, 
bishop of Coutances, with respect to the champart of Saint-Martin-de' 
Bon-Foss6 (Manche), and referring to a recent decision of the king 
concerning the division of the champart. 

* William de Malpalu also appears as justice in a document of Richard Talbot for 
Mont-aux-Malades (Archives of the Seine-Inffirieure), where an agreement is sworn 
to ' coram Willelmo de Mala Palude tunc regis iusticiario.' 

' On William de la Seule, see Delisle-Berger, i. 278, 301, ii. 365; Deville, Analyse, 
p. 2S; H. F., xxiii. 696. 



DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE COURTS 327 

A, original in Archives of the Manche, H. 3. 
A. H. R., XX. 27, note 13. 

Reverentissimo patri suo et domino carissimo R. Rothomagensi archiepis- 
copo et omnibus hoc audientibus et recte iudicantibus Willebnus de Sola 
salutem. Testimonixmi cuiusdam donationis quam feci monachis de Ahieto 
vobis per Utteras meas significare curavi. Habebam quondam in manu mea et 
adhuc habere poteram si voluissem duas garbas decime in parrochia de Bono 
Fosseio, ex quibus unam dedi monachis et aliam ecdesig eiusdem viUe, per- 
sona vero ecclesie suam terciam garbam habuit sibi in pace et habet. Verum 
tunc temporis talis erat consuetudo circa nos quod tercia tantum garba red- 
debatur persone, de iUis sciUcet terris que pro campardo tradebantur, due 
vero cum eodem campardo tenebantur, que nunc Deo donante et domino 
rege nostro iudicante ubique in territoriis nostris reddimtur, quas monachi et 
gcdesia in suam partem volunt habere. Quod quidem rectissimimi videtur 
sed persona contradicit ill[is]. Quam contentionem declarandam domino 
Ricardo Constantiensi episcopo commiseram et non semel aut secundo me 
donationem attestante coram ipso indicium distulit facere. Qua de causa 
monachi in eius curia aggravati cmn Gaufrido mihte persona vestram appel- 
laverunt presentiam. Unde obnixe vestram deprecor auctoritatem quatinus 
vos pro Deo quod unicuique pertinet, et persone et monachis et ecclesie, recta 
consideratione restituatis. Valete. 

10 
1176-1178, at Montfort 

NoUjkation by William de la Mare of an agreement between Robert 
Neveu of Trouville and Gilbert of Yainville made before him and the other 
justices of the king after judgment rendered at an assize at Montfort} 

A, original, formerly sealed sur simple quette,ia Archives of the Seine- 
Inferienre, fonds Jumieges; B, copy thence by Delisle among his 
papers in MSS. Fr. Printed, with serious errors and omissions, by 
Valin, p. 271, no. xviii (cf. p. 114); now in Vernier, no. 115. 

Ego Willelmus de Mara presentibus omnibus et futuris notam facio con- 
cordiam que facta est inter Robertxim Nepotem de Turovilla et Gislebertum 
de Eudonis vxUa in assisia de Montfort coram iusticiis regis, me scilicet vice- 
comite Sancte Marig Ecclesig et WiUehno Maleth constabulario de Ponte 
Abdomari et Hugone de Creissi constabulario Rothomagi et Seherio de 
Quenci constabvJario de Nonantcort et Alvredo de Sancto [Martino] con- 
stabulario de Drincort, et quibusdam ahis. Robertus siquidem movebat 
calumpniam contra Gislebertum de hereditagio suo de Turovilla, sciUcet de 
hospite suo WiUehno Cave et de terra quam habet apud maram de Becco et 
iuxta domiun Morini Planchun. Sed quoniam in eadem assisia coram predic- 

' For the justices mentioned in this document see the biographical notices in 
Delisle, Benri II; and the list of assizes, infra. Appendix J. 



328 APPENDIX H 

tis iusticiis recoidatum est et recognitum hoc esse rectum hereditagium 
Gisleberti, pro concordia et pace ab utrisque partibus definitum est ita, 
Roberto et Gisleberto consencientibus et iusticiis confinnantibus: Gisle- 
bertus hominium fecit Roberto et singulis annis ad festum Sancti Michaelis 
dabit ei duodecim denarios publice monete ut sit inter eos indicium et agmen- 
tum firmissime pads, nichilque amplius faciet ei; et ita hoc modo Gislebertus 
de ista querela finivit in assisia de Montfort, in curia domini regis coram pre- 
dictis iusticiis eius. Presentibus his testibus: Rogerio Cellarario, Falche- 
ranno monacho, Roberto Fychart, Radulfo Maisnerio, Rogero Filiolo, 
Roberto Clarel, Roberto de Leuga, Roberto Belfit, Hermanno Anglico, 
Matheo Marescal, Hugone de ConteviUa, et ahis pluribus. Quo tempore 
Ricardus Wintoniensis episcopus in Normannia post regem iudex erat et 
maior iusticia. 

11 

1189-1191,^ at Caen 

Grant by William de Motdt to the nuns of Almentches of a rent of 
twenty-five sous Angevin in Moult {Calvados) and all claim to the tithe of 
Ingowiille (Calvados), done at the Exchequer at Caen before William Fitz 
Ralph, seneschal of Normandy. 

A, original, formerly sealed, in Archives of the Ome, H. 3916. Cf. 
A. H. R., XX. 282, note 28. 

Omnibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit Willelmus de Mool miles 
salutem. Noscat universitas vestra quod ego Willelmus intuitu caritatis et 
antecessorum meorum remedio ecclesie Sancte Marie de Almanesches et 
monialibus ibidem Deo servientibus dedi et concessi .xxv. soUdatas Ande- 
gavensium monete in feodo meo laicali apud Mool assignatas, scilicet: in 
Willelmo filio Leiardi viii. solidos et ii. gallinas, in Gauchero Escorchechine 
.iii. solidos, in Ricardo Musel .xii. denarios, in Serlone Buffei .ii. sextarios 
avene ad magnam mensuram de Argentiis et .iii. panes et .iii. gallinas et 
.XXX. ova, in Hugone filio WiUelmi .xii. denarios; prefatis monialibus in 
puram et perpetuam elemosinam hbere et pacifice possidendas. Preterea 
omni iiuri quod Simon filius meus persona ecdesie de Mool super duabus 
garbis decime de feodo sanctimonialium vendicabat apud Ingulfrevillam 
penitus renunciavit. Et ut hoc rescriptimi perpetue firmitatis robur futuris 
temporibus optineat nee aliqua possit oblivione deleri, pro me et Simone 
filio meo sigilli mei munimine roboravi. Actum est hoc apud Cadomum 
ad scacarium coram Willehno fiho Radulfi tunc Normannie senescallo, 
testibus his: Anschetillo de Arre, Radulfo de Lexoviis, Daniele, magistro 
Gaufredo de Cortone, dericis de scacario, R. abbate Sancti Andree de 
Gofer, Ricardo Haitie, Turofredo de Cyemi, Willehno filio comitis lohannis, 
Henrico de Mool, Radulfo de Rupetra, Ricardo de Argenciis, Radulfo 
Martel, et aliis pluribus. 

1 Robert became abbot of Saint-Andr6-en-GoufEem ca, 1189; William succeeded 
his father John as count of Ponthieu in iigi. 



APPENDIX I 

THE EARLY LEGISLATION OF HENRY H 

The record of Henry II's legislation is lamentably incomplete. The 
chief reason is doubtless that indicated by Maitland, ' the administra- 
tive character of his reforms,' embodied usually in instructions to his 
justices and quickly absorbed ' as part and parcel of the traditional 
common law '; ^ but the result is none the less fatal for the study of 
constitutional and legal development. We know nothing, for example, 
of the estabUshment of the grand assize, even its date must be re- 
covered by inference;'' while no formulation of law has reached us 
anterior to the Constitutions of Clarendon, and no formal ordinance 
anterior to 1 166. The recovery of any texts for these early years is per- 
haps a vain hope, but it is none the less important to search out all 
traces of legislative activity on both sides of the Channel, even if its 
formal expression still escapes us. 

The fullest report of any early legislation is given by the Bee annaUst 
in 1159:' 

Rex Anglorum Henricus ad Natale Domini fuit apud Falesiam, et leges 
instituit ut nuUus decanus aliquam personam accusaret sine testimonio 
vidnorum circuminanentium qui bone vite fama laudabiles haberentur. De 
causis similiter quorumlibet ventilandis instituit ut, cum iudices singularum 
provinciarum singulis mensibus ad minus simul devenirent, sine testimonio 
vicinorum nichU iudicarent, iniuriam nemini facere, preiudicium non irro- 
gare, pacem tenere, latrones convictos statim punire, quemque sua quiete 
tenere, ecdesias sua iura possidere. 

This account reads like a rapid summary, by headings, of the ordi- 
nance, and could hardly have been written in this form without some 
reference to the act itself. Its chief importance, as has aheady been 
indicated,* consists in its requirement of the accusing jury, which here 
makes its first appearance under the Anglo-Norman kings. Especially 
noteworthy is the evident connection between the first provision of 
this ordinance and § 6 of the Constitutions of Clarendon: 

» Pollock and Maitland, i. 136. * See Round, E. B. R., xxxi. 268. 

' Robert of Torigni, ii. 180. 

* Supra, Chapter VI. Cf. Stubbs, Coftsiitutionai History, i. 497; Pollock and 
Maitland, i. 151. 



330 APPENDIX I 

Laid non debent accusari nisi per certos et legales accusatores et testes in 
presentia episcopi, ita quod archidiaconus non perdat ius suum nee quicquam 
quod inde habere debeat. Et si tales fuerint qui culpantur, quod non velit 
vel non audeat aliquis eos accusare, vicecomes requisitus ab episcopo fadet 
iurare duodedm legales homines de visneto seu de villa, coram episcopo, 
quod inde veritatem secundum conscientiam suam manifestabimt.' 

It is true that only the court of the archdeacon is here mentioned, 
while the ordinance of Falaise speaks only of deans; but the cases 
which have reached us show both dignitaries associated in the abuses 
of which the king complains,* and in the Inquest of Sheriffs (1170) he 
groups them together without distinction.^ The subject was not new 
in 1164 nor, as we shall see, in 1159. 

The exactions of the archdeacon's jurisdiction were one of the serious 
abuses of the twelfth century. Appointed usually when very young 
and by family interest, learning their law in the schools of Paris or 
Bologna, laymen often in all but name, the English archdeacons of the 
period were notorious for their cupidity and extortion.^ Men even dis- 
cussed whether they could be saved — an possit arckidiacotms salvus 
esse.^ Archbishop Theobald, one of their patrons, had twinges of con- 
sdence respecting their exactions and seems to have instituted a check 
upon them in his diocese by the appointment of John of Salisbury as 
his secretary,*" in whose correspondence may be found many instances 
of their misdeeds in the early years of Henry II." It is not surprising 
that the sixth section of the Constitutions of Clarendon was one of 
those ' tolerated ' by Alexander III,*^ who was subsequently informed 
that the archdeacons of the diocese of Coventry, among other things, 

' Stubbs-Davis, Select Charters, p. 165. 

' See the cases from Scarborough and London mentioned below, and Gilbert 
Foliot, Ep. 24. Cf. also c. 7 of the council of Tours of 1163 (Mansi, xxi. 1178), 
which shows that the archdeacon's jurisdiction was often sublet to rural deans. For 
the jurisdiction of a Norman dean in criminal matters see Barret, Cartulaire de 
Marmoutier pour le Perche, no. 18 (1092-1100); for Maine, Celier, Catalogue des 
actes des Svlques du Mans, nos. 81, 266, 267. 

' ' Et similiter inquiratur per omnes episcopatus quid et quantum et qua de 
causa archidiaconi vel decani iniuste et sine iudido ceperint, et hoc totum scribatur ' : 
c. 12, Stubbs-Davis, p. 177. 

' Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Mediaeval and Modem History 
(1900), pp. 152 f., 160, 347-349; id-> introduction to Ralph of Diceto, i, p. xxvi f.; 
L. B. Radford, Thomas of London (Cambridge, 1894), p. 163 f. 

• Cf. John of Salisbury, Ep. 166. 

" Id., Ep. 49; Stubbs, Lectures, p. 347 f. 

" John of Salisbury, Epp. 27, 34, 69, 80, 89, 93, 107, 118, 166. 

" Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, v. 75; Mansi, xxi. 1194. 



EARLY LEGISLATION OF HENRY n 33 1 

were in the habit of extorting 30 d. from every man or woman who 
went to the ordeal of fire or water.** 

Just when these abuses first attracted the attention of Henry II is 
not clear, but it was quite early in his reign. At the outset he was 
hardly favorably disposed by the fact that he had inherited from 
Stephen a controversy respecting the punishment of Archdeacon 
Osbert of York, accused of poisoning his archbishop;" and he soon took 
up the case of a citizen of London despoiled by a dean et longe aliter 
iniuriatus quam civem Londoniensem oporteret}^ By the beginning of 
1 1 58 he had legislated on the subject, as we learn from Fitz Stephen.*' 
The narrative teUs how a burgess of Scarborough complained to the 
king at York that the local dean had, without any supporting accuser, 
accused his wife of adultery and taken twenty-two shillings from him, 
twenty of which the dean subsequently declared had gone to the arch- 
deacon. Such accusations had already been forbidden by the king, 
-who had the dean brought before him and demanded judgment from 
his prelates and barons, declaring that the archdeacons and deans of 
the kingdom got in this way more money in a year than the king 
himself received: 

Quidam decanus abstulerat ei viginti et duos solidos, uxorem ipsius in 
capitulis plurimis vexans et deferens sine alio accusatore ream adulterii, 
■contra quam consuetudinem rex legem prohibitionis ediderat. 

John, treasurer of York, gave it as his opinion that the money should be 
returned to the burgess and the dean should be at the archbishop's 
mercy with respect to his office, whereupon Richard de Lucy asked, 
-Quid ergo domino regi iudicdbitis, in cuius iste incidii constitutionem ?; 
and upon the answer that the king had no claim from a clerk, he left the 
court. The king appealed to the archbishop but did not follow up the 
matter, being called over seas in July by the death of his brother 
Geoffrey. 

Here we have two distinct references to previous legislation, the men- 
tion of the king's law in the narrative and the reference of Richard de 

" C. 3, X. 5, 37; Jaff^Lowenfeld, no. 14315 (1174-1181); cf. Maitland, Domes- 
■day Book and Beyond, p. 282. That some payment was due the archdeacon at such 
times is assumed by Henry of Huntingdon, himself an archdeacon: Liber Eliensis, 
p. 170. For otiier forms of archidiaconal exactions see Cartulary of St. Frideswide's, 
i. 33, no. 31; Ramsey Cartulary, ii. 152. 

" John of Salisbury, Ep. 122; cf. Epp. 108, no, in. " Id., Ep. 80. 

" Materials, iii, 44 f.; cf. Radford, Thomas of London, pp. 193-195. For the 
presence of the king and Richard de Lucy at York see Farrers, Early Yorkshire 
■Charters, no. 419. 



332 APPENDIX I 

• 
Lucy to the constiMio regis. The first is specific enough to show that 

this ordinance dealt with the same problem as that of 1159 and the 

Constitutions of Clarendon, unsupported accusations against laymen in 

ecclesiastical courts. That the king intended to pursue the question is 

further shown by the fact that in all probability he repaid the burgess 

of Scarborough and thus took over his interest in the case, for in the 

Pipe Roll of 1 1 58 we find a payment to a merchant of Scarborough in 

camera curie of 225., the exact amount in question." The problem was 

postponed by Henry's long absence on the Continent from 1158 to 

1163, but it was not forgotten. At Falaise the provision of the earlier 

constitMtio is repeated and the requirement of the testimonium vicinorum 

is extended to his own local officers; and soon after his return, he makes 

the conduct of the archdeacons the first of his grievances against the 

church at the conference at Westminster." 

Another of the ' customs and dignities of the realm ' which Henry 
asserted in 1164 was the trial of all questions of advowson and pre- 
sentation in the king's court.** Some Norman precedents for this 
claim have been cited above,'" but the English evidence still awaits 
investigation. That Henry II had busied himself with this question in 
England before 1158 appears from a letter of John of Salisbury^ to 
Pope Adrian IV with reference to a dispute concerning the church of 
Henton between Arnold of Devizes on the one hand and Earl Roger 
and his clerk Osbert on the other. The archbishop had secured Arnold's 
restoration to the church, pending a decision of his court: 

Cum ergo partibus super hoc dies esset prefixa, ea die iam dictus O. et 
procuratores comitis adversus prenominatum E. petitorium instituenmt, 
dicentes ipsum iniuste occupare ecclesiam, quam sine assensu comitis et 
advocatorum eiusdem ecdesie, quam contra consuetudinem totius ecdesie et 
regni Anglorum, contra constitutionem regis et antiquam omnium procerum 
dignitatem ingressus erat manu et violentia predonis, qui prefato comiti 
totimi fundimi in quo sepe dicta ecclesia sita est diu abstulerat. Piofeiebatur 
insuper mandatum regis quo precipiebamur comiti super advocatione ec- 
desie sue iustitiam exhibere aut O. pretaxatam ecdesiam restituere, qua post 
decessum regis contra ipsius edictum fuerat destitutus. 

Whereupon Arnold, fearing the influence of his opponents and the king, 
appealed to the Pope, and Osbert gave up the fight. Evidently the 
proceedings had begun under Stephen, but the edictum was of Henry U 

" Pipe Roll 2-4 Henry II, p. 146. 

" Summa cause, in Materials, iv. 201; cf. Anonymus II, ibid., iv. 95. 

» C. I. »» Supra, Chapter V, p. 171 f. a Ef. 6. 



EARLY LEGISLATION OF HENRY II 333 

and so also, apparently, was the constUuHo. We cannot press too 
closely the terms of the writer's classical Latinity, yet while the 
edictum may relate only to the particular case, like the mandatum, the 
consUtuHo is evidently a decree of general scope respecting advowson. 
K we may turn the classical iustitiam exhibere back into the legal 
rectum tenere, the writ to the archbishop (mandatum) is also interesting 
for the early history of the writ of right. 

The procedure in such cases in these years is illustrated by the 
recently pubUshed report of an inquest respecting the church of St. 
Peter, Derby (1156-1159). Twenty-four men, including burgesses, 
knights, and priests, were summoned by royal writ before the sheriff 
and the archdeacon; their declaration awarded the advowson to 
the successors of the lord in whose patrimony the church had been 
founded.^ 

" F. M. Stenton, An Early Inquest relating to St. Peter's Derby, in E. B. R., xxm. 
47 f- (1917)- 



APPENDIX J 

NORMAN ASSIZES, 1176-1193 » 

Assizes of the early part of Henry II's reign are noted in Chapter V 
(supra, pp. 165-168). The following Ust includes such assizes * as I 
have noted in the latter part of this reign and the early years of Rich- 
ard; when he appears in them William Fitz Ralph regularly has the 
title of seneschal. The list is based almost entirely upon charters, for 
the roll of 11 80, imlike the contemporary Pipe Rolls, throws no light 
upon the judges' circuits, save for the mention of William Fitz Ralph 
on page 57 and of Geoffrey le Moine on page 52 (cf. p. 78 and Round, 
no. 517); such indications are more abundant in the roU of iigS- 

1. 1 1 77, January; Caen. Richard, bishop of Winchester, Simon de 
Tomebu, Robert Marmion, William de Glanville as justices. Livre noir, 
no. 9S; Delisle, p. 347; Round, no. 1446. 

2. 1176-1178; MoNTPORT. Justices: William de Mara, j/icowfe of Sainte- 
Mdre-£glise, William Malet, Hugh de Cressi, Seher de Quinci, Alvered de 
Saint-Martin, constables respectively of Pontaudemer, Rouen, Nonancomt, 
and Neufchatel (Drincourt). Supra, Appendix H, no. 10. 

3. No date; Montfort. ' Ista autem donatio facta est apud Montem- 
fortem et recitata in plena asisia coram iusticiis domini regis, scilicet Seherio 
de Quenceio, Alveredo de Sancto Martino, etc' Fragment of Bee cartulary 
in Archives of the Eure, H. 91, f. 88v, no. 4. 

4. 1178-1179; Neutchatel. William Fitz Ralph holds coiut. Staple- 
ton, i. S7- 

5. 1 180; Argentan. Agreement 'in plena assissa . . . coram iusticiis 
domini regis.' Witnessed by William Fitz Ralph, ' qui preerat assisse loco 
domini regis,' WiUiam de Mara, Richard Giffart, John, coimt [of Ponthieu], 
Fidk d'Aunou, Ralph Tessun, and others. MS. Lat. 5424, p. 91; Collection 
Moreau, kxxiv. 76; Vernier, no. 128. 

5a. Ca. 1180; Caen. Fine ' in curia mea coram iusticiis meis.' Roimd, 
no. 303; Delisle-Berger, no. 564. 

6. Before 1182; Rouen. Judgment ' in assisa apud Rothomagum in 
curia mea.' Valin, p. 271; Roimd, no. 26; Delisle-Berger, no. 586. 

7. 1 183, January 20; Caen. ' In curia domini regis ... in plenaria 
assissa ' before William Fitz Ralph and many others. Valin, p. 274; Roimd, 
no. 432; Delisle-Berger, no. 638. 

' Revised from A.H.R., xx. 289-291 (1915). 

' General mentions of an assize without indication of date, place, or judges 
(e. g., Sauvage, Troarn, p. 141, note 6) are not included. The list of cases before 
the Exchequer (Chapter V, note 12s) should be compared with this list of assizes. 

334 



NORMAN ASSIZES 335 

8. 1183; Caen ( ?). William Fitz Ralph and many others, none styled 
justices, but including WiUiam de Mara, Hamo Pincema, Geoffrey Du- 
redent, Jordan de Landa, Richard Fitz Henry, William de Calux, and 
Roger d'Arri. Delisle, p. 349; Valin, p. 276; Round, no. 437. 

p. 1 1 78-1 183; LoNGTTEViLLE. William Fitz Ralph and many other jus- 
tices. Valin, p. 273. 

10. 1184; Saint-Wandrille. Grant ' in plenaria assisia coram Willelmo 
filio Radulfi senescallo et iustitia Normannie et multis aliis iusticiis, scilicet 
Willelmo de Mara, Seherio de Quinceio, GosceUno Rusd.' Collection 
Moreau, kxxvii. 157 (cf. f. 159), from lost cartulary of Lire; Le Prevost, 
Eure, ii. iii. 

11. 1 1 84; Caen. 'Hec finalis concordia facta fuit apud Cadomum in 
assisia coram WiUelmo filio Radulfi senescaUo Normannie et pluribus aliis 
qui time ibi aderant inter Robertum abbatem Sancte Marie de Monteborc 
et Henricum de TiUeio de ecclesia Sancte Marie de TeviUa, unde placitum 
erat inter eos in curia domini regis. . . . Testibus W. de Mara, Hamone 
Pincema, W. de Romara, Radulfo de Haia, Rogero de Arreio, magistro 
Paridi, Radulfo de Wallamint, lordano de Landa, Roberto de Curie, W. de 
Sauceio, lohanne de Caretot, Willelmo Quarrel et pluribus aliis.' Cartulary 
of Montebourg (MS. Lat. 10087), no. 474. 

12. 1185; Caen. William Fitz Ralph and other justices hold assize; the 
final decision is given at the Exchequer before an important series of wit- 
nesses. Valin, p. 277; Round, no. 438; Delisle-Berger, no. 647. 

isa. 1185; LoNGTJEViLLE. Recognition concerning presentment 'in 
assisia domini regis.' Delisle-Berger, no. 651. 

13. 1186, 30 January; Bayeux. Henry, bishop of Bayeux, William de 
Mara, Archdeacon John d'firaines, and other justices whose names are not 
given. Liwe noir, no. 240. 

14. 1 1 86; Rouen. Agreement before William Fitz Ralph and Robert 
d'Harcourt (without title). Collection Moreau, lix. ro6, from the original; 
cartulary of Fecamp (MS. Rouen 1207), f. 8iv; Round, no. 140. 

Z5. 1186; Caen. Grant in presence of WiUiam Fitz Ralph, William de 
Mara, WiUiam Calviz, Richard Fitz Henry, Geoffrey de Rapendun ' tunc 
baiUivus regis,' and others. MS. Lat. n. a. 1428, f. 18, from original at 
Carleton Castle. 

16. 1187; Seez. Grant in assize ' coram iusticiariis domini Henrid regis, 
scilicet coram lohanne archidiacono de Arenis et WiUelmo de Mara et aliis 
pluribus.' Livre hlanc of Saint-Martin of Seez, f. ii8v. 

i6a. 1188-1190; probablyatRoTJEN. Grant of WiUiam, abbot of Morte- 
mer, ' testibus hiis: lohanne de Constantiis decano Rothomagensi, WiUelmo 
fili n Radulphi senescaUo Normannie, Roberto de Harecort, Ricardo de 
Montigneio, WiUelmo de Martigneio, Ricardo Ospinel, WiUelmo Tolemer, 
..." Original in Archives of the Seine-Inferieure, fonds Saint-Ouen. 

17. 1189-1190; Bernai. Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de la Trappe (ed. 
Charencey), p. 199; d. Valin, p. 116, note. 

18. 1 190, August 10; Argentan. Question of presentation 'in curia 
domini regis. . . . Testibus lohanne archidiacono Arenensi, Richardo de 
Argentiis, Willelmo de ObviUa constabulario Falasie, qui prefatam assisiam 



336 APPENDIX J 

tenuerant die festi Sancti Laurentii anno primo peregrinationis Philippi 
regis Francie et Ricardi regis Anglorum.' Cartulary of Saint-Evroul (MS. 
Lat. iioss), no. 250. 

ig. 1 190, August; S£ez. Agreement in assize ' coram iusticiariis domini 
regis lohanne Oximensi archidiacono, Ricardo de Hummez comestabulario, 
W. de Ovilla, Ricardo de Argentiis.' lAvre blanc of Saint-Martin of Seez, 
f. 134. 

20. 1190; Bernai. * Coram Robert de Harecourt et Willelmo de Mara 
tunc iusticiis, Willelmo Tolomeo clerico, Richardo Sylvano, comite de 
Alengon, Richard Deri, et pluribus aliis.' An assize at Montfort under 
Henry II is mentioned. Archives of the Calvados, H. suppl. 486, f. 9; cf. 
supra, Chapter V, note 95. 

21. 1190; Caen. Ardiivesof the Calvados, H. 1872; Jf. il. iV., xv. 199; 
Roimd, no. 461. 

22. 1191, October; Caen. William Fitz Ralph, Richard SUvain, Richard 
d'Argences, Hamo Pincema, Richard Fitz Henry, Robert, abbot of Fon- 
tenay, Roger d'Arri, Eudo de Vaac, Turstin of Ducey, Geoffrey the chamber- 
lain, ' Lucas pincema, et alii multi ' witness transaction in assize. Archives 
of the Calvados, H. 1868 (no. 46-18). 

23. 1 191; RoDEN. Valin, p. 279. 

24. 1 191; Caen. Agreement 'in curia domini regis apud Cadommn 
coram Willelmo filio Radulfi tunc temporis senescallo Normannie et Willelmo 
de Humetis constabulario domini regis et Roberto Wigomiensi episcopo et 
Ricardo Selvain et Ricardo de Argentiis, Willelmo Caluz, Ricardo filio 
Henrici, et pluribus aliis.' Roger d'Arri is among the witnesses. Archives of 
the Calvados, H. 7077. 

25. 1 192; Rouen. Agreement in presence of WiUiam Fitz Ralph, William 
de Martigny, Richard d'Argences, Durand du Pin, and other justices. 
Chevreux and Vernier, Les archives de Normandie et de la Seine-InfSrieure, 
no. 3S; Vernier, no. 164. 

2(5. 1187-1193; Caudebec. Agreement ' in plena assisia.' Lot, SaitU- 
WandrUle, p. 179, no. 114. 

27. Undated; Caen. Grant of Richard Avenel in curia before William 
Fitz Ralph and the king's justices and barons, witnessed by William du Horn- 
met constable, WiUiam de Mara, Hamo Pincema, Jordan de Landa, Richard 
Silvain, Richard d'Argences, and others. Archives of the Manche, H. 212.' 

28. No date; Bayeux. Grant ' coram iustitiariis scilicet Willelmo 
Tolemeir et Ricardo de Argentiis dictam assisiam tenentibus.' Archives of 
the Manche, H. 309. 

2p. No date; Bayedx. Grant in assize before William Pesnel, arch- 
deacon of Avranches, WiUiam Tolomert, Hamo Pincema, justices. Reper- 
toire of de GerviUe (Collection Mancel at Caen, MS. 296), p. 275, no. 21. 

• Cf. Richard d'Argences, Hamo Potelier, and William de Caluz as witnesses in 
a document of this period: Farcy, Abbayes de I'ivichi de Bayeux, Fontenay, p. 96. 



APPENDIX K 

DOCUMENTS FROM THE AVRANCHIN 

The destruction of the records of the bishop and chapter of Av- 
ranches, scarcely less complete than the destruction of the cathedral 
itself, has left us no original documents of the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries. The only surviving cartulary, the Lkre vert (MS. Avranches 
206), has Uttle that is early; the Livre blanc is known only through 
scattered extracts; the modern copies are few and unsatisfactory.^ 
Were it not for the monasteries of Mont-Saint-Michel and Savigny> 
the whole diocese would have little to tell us of this epoch in its history. 
Curiously, however, certain documents which have reached us from 
this region are of unusual significance. The earliest extant notice con- 
cerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction is the agreement drawn up between 
Bishop John and the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel in 1061.^ One of the 
clearest pieces of evidence regarding early knight service is found in a 
document of the same bishop in 1066.' A few years later Mont-Saint- 
Michel gives us an important convention respecting feudal tenure and 
jurisdiction,* and for the inquest of miUtary tenures in 1 172 the only 
detailed statement is that of its abbot.* The only surviving portion of 
the returns from the great royal inquest of 11 71 is that relating to the 
Avranchin. 

' See Archives de la France monastique, xvii. 91-95; the extracts from documents 
in E. Le Hericher, Awanchin monumental el hislorique (Avranches, 1845-1865); and 
the additional pieces in E. A. Pigeon, Le diocise d' Avranches (Coutances, 1888), 
who has utilized the copies of Gu^rin in his possession. P. Chesnel, Le CotenUn et 
I' Avranchin sous hs dues de Normandie (Caen, 19 12) adds nothing new. A few late 
copies are in MS. Regina 870 of the Vatican. No ducal charters for Avranches are 
known save one of Henry II (Pigeon, ii. 661). What once existed may be inferred 
from later enumerations of the grants of Robert the Magnificent (Pigeon, ii. 667; 
supra. Appendix C, no. r) and the mention by Lucius III of grants of Henry I: 'Ex 
done Henrici primi regis Anglie dimidiam partem nundinarum Sancti Lamberti, 
decimam nundinarum Sancti Andree, decimam nundinarum de Ponte; in Campo 
Cervorum duas garbas decime de terra Igerii de Lohf et Ranulfi de Burganoles; 
decimam molendini de Cantarana; duas . . . (where a gap follows in the MS., 
Livre vert, i. 2v). Cf. Stapleton, ii, p. vi. 

2 Migne, cxlvii. 265; Pigeon, ii. 658; see supra. Chapter I, note 137. 

» Le Prfivost, Eure, iii. 183; supra, Chapter I, note 58. 

* Supra, p. 21. ' Robert of Torigni, ii. 296-303, 

337 



338 APPENDIX K 

This fragment, copied on the fly-leaf of a text of Hrabanus Maurus 
from the abbey of La Luzerne, was first published by Delisle in 1909.* 
Headed by a list of twenty-six milites iuratores and nine burgenses 
iuratores de Abrincis, it is clearly the return of an inquest. It contains 
a clear and orderly statement of the royal rights in the vicomte of 
Avranches, including the farm, the proceeds of tolls and the fair of 
St. Andrew, the parcels of demesne in city and country, and the hold- 
ings of the tenants in capite in the Avranchin. The pleas of the crown 
appear as a part of the demesne under a special custodian, who gives 
us our only glimpse of a Norman coroner.^ As regards the date of the 
dociunent, Delisle * placed it imder Heiuy II but after the death of 
Hugh, earl of Chester, in 1181, apparently on the theory, for which 
the text itself gives no support, that the mcomtS was in the king's hands 
at the time of the inquest. Powicke at first ' assigned it to the reign of 
Richard because of the phreise tempore regis B.; but under Henry H 
this is constantly used to designate Henry I and can be actually con- 
nected with him in the inquest itself, which refers to the grant of the 
vineyard at Avranches to Savigny by a rex Henricus who is in this 
instance known to have been Henry I.'" Not only does the inquest 
belong to the reign of Henry II, but it can be specifically dated therein. 
It is subsequent to 3 March 11 70, for the fief of Gilbert d'Avranches, 
who was then drowned," has passed to his heir, likewise so retmned on 
the roU of military tenants in 1172; "^ yet this heir, his brother-in-law 
Fulk Painel, has not yet got possession of the rights over the king's 
demesne which he enjoys in 1180." Similarly William de Ducey, 
mentioned in the text as lord of Ducey, died before 1180, when his suc- 
cessor, WiUiam de Hueceon, owes a relief for this honor." Certain of 

• Henri 77, pp. 345-347. The bishop's fiefs are of course not mentioned; theyare 
enumerated when in the king's hands in 1 198: Stapleton, ii. 361. v 

' Powicke, The Pleas of the Crown in the Avranchin, E. H. R., xxv. 710 f. 

« Henri II, pp. 333, 387, 420, 423, 448. 

' E. H. R., xxv. 710. Later he accepted the date here proposed: ibid., xxvi. 326; 
Loss of Normandy, p. 68. 

"> Cartulary of Savigny, in Archives of the Manche, no. 6. Cf . M. A . N., xx. 256; 
Delisle, &ludes sw la dasse agricole, pp. 443, 445; Delisle-Berger, no. 80. 

" Robert of Torigni, ii. 17; Benedict of Peterborough, i. 4. 

^ Red Book of the Exchequer, ii. 640. The abbot's record, however, has been 
brought up to date: Robert of Torigni, ii. 297. 

" Stapleton, i, pp. Ixviii, 11. 

" Ibid., i, pp. kv, II. Evidence that William de Ducey was dead by 1182, if not 
by 1 1 79, is also contained in charters of Richard, bishop of Avranches (d. 1182), 
reciting gifts made in William's last illness to Savigny (cartulary, no. 127; Auvry, 



DOCUMENTS FROM THE AVRANCHIN 339 

the items recovered by the mquest evidently served as the basis for the 
corresponding entries in the Exchequer Roll of ii8o.>^ There can be 
no question that the inquiry was held between 11 70 and 1180, and 
these limits can be drawn much closer if we identify the ' Robertus 
fihus Regis ' of the inquest with the Robert Fitz Roy who married 
Matilda of Avranches and is said by the chronicle of Ford Abbey to 
have died 31 May 1172.^* In any case, between 11 70 and 11 80 there is 
every reason for ascribing it to 1171, when, according to Robert of 
Torigni," 

Rex Henricus senior fecit investigari per Normanniam terras de quibus 
rex Henricus avus eius fuerat sasitus die qua obiit. Fecit etiam inquiri quas 
terras et quas silvas et que alia dominica barones at alii homines occupa- 
verant post mortem regis Henrici avi sui; et hoc mode fere dupUcavit 
redditus ducatus Normamue. 

No other records of this investigation are available for comparison, but 
the Avranchin document is in exact accord with the accoimt of the 
chronicler, himself writing at Mont-Saint-Michel, and there can be no 
reasonable doubt that we have here a contemporary, or nearly contem- 
porary, copy of the original retmrns of the inquest of 11 71 in the 
Avranchin. 

The following notice relates to the ecclesiastical rather than to the 
political institutions of the diocese of Avranches, but it is here printed 
because it appears to have escaped the attention of local historians. 
It is found in a manuscript of co. 1200 in the Vatican,'* MS. Regiiia 946, 

Histoire de la congregation de Savigny, iii. i88; cf. Delisle-Berger, no. SQi) also 
anterior to 1182) and to Montmorel (Cariulaire, ed. Dubosc, no. 113). Both are 
attested by Ralph, prior of Montmorel, who according to the Gallia Christiana 
(xi. 537) became prior before 1171 and ruled eight years. For other references to 
William's donations see Carttdaire de Montmorel, nos. 8, 10, 12, 109, 110-115, p. 305; 
Round, no. 72r; Pigeon, Le diocese d' Avranches, ii. 671 f.; Le H^richer, L' Avranchin, 
»■ 371. 376 f., 387, 423 i; ii- 26, 587. 

" Stapleton, i. 11; cf. Powicke, E.H.R., xxv. 710. 

" Monasticon, v. 378. Matilda, between 1162 and 1171, grants as ' uxor Robert! 
filii regis ' to the bishop of Avranches: Pigeon, Le diocese d' Avranches, ii. 339; cf. 
Delisle-Berger, no. 214. Too much weight must not, however, be attached to the 
Ford chronicle, which is not earlier than the fourteenth century. The entries which 
follow in the Avranchin inquest would lead us to expect a possessive in place of the 
nominative: ' Reinaldus de Cortenai feodum Roberta filii R. in Valle Segie.' This 
emendation is the more probable since Reginald de Cortenay married the daughter 
or stepdaughter of Robert {Monasticon, v. 378; Stapleton, ii, p. cxlv f.),'and Robert 
may well have died before 1171. 

" ii. 28. 

" On the MS. see Pertz's Archiv, xii. 311; Liebermann, Gesetze,i, p. xMi. This 



340 APPENDIX K 

S. 72V-74V ; certain additions in a different and slightly later hand 
are printed in itaUcs. The date can be fixed only in general by the 
age of the codex and by the reference to William de Saint- Jean, who 
is mentioned in Norman documents from 1133 to 1203.^' Anterior 
to the death of William, the text is subsequent to his endowment of 
La Luzerne in 1162 *" and to the erection of Montmorel into an abbey 
not long after ii^i.^ The monasteries mentioned are well known, so 
that special annotation is unnecessary. 

(F. 72v). Prior et conventus monachorum Sancte Mari§ de Moretonio ab 
antiquis temporibus, quia in eius iurisdictione sunt, debent episcopo Abrin- 
censi sollennem processionem et annuam procurationem et tarn episcopo 
quam gcclesig Abrincensi obedientiam. Similiter sanctimoniales de More- 
tonio debent sollennem processionem episcopo et tam episcopo quam 
gcclesig Abrincensi obedientiam. 

Priorissa autem et conventus sanctimonialiiun de Moutons subditi sunt 
episcopo et gcclesig Abrincensibus. 

Abbatia de Liicema subdita est episcopo et gcclesig Abrincensibus duplici 
de iure, quia fundata est et sita in episcopatu Abrincensi et quia sita est in 
feodo Beati Andrgg et episcopi Abrincensis, quem feodum tenet et habet 
Guillelmus de Sancto lohanne ab episcopo et inde facit ei ut domino suo 
hominagium. Abbas vero predicti cenobii debet interesse duabus sinodis et 
festo hiemali Beati Andrgg, vel si interesse non potest duos mittere de 
canonicis ecdesie sue. Similiter debet facere et tenetur abbas de Monte 
Morelli. 

Abbatia vero Montis Morelli subdita est episcopo et gcclesig Abrincen- 
sibus duplici ratione, quia sita est in episcopatu Abrincensi et constituta et 
funddta in feodo Beati Andrgg et episcopi. Isti duo abbates debent et pro- 
mittunt obedientiam ecdesie et episcopo Abrincensibus cum ipsi sunt bene- 
dicendi. 

(f. 73r). Notiun sit indubitanter tam presentibus quam futuris quod 
abbatia Sancti Michaelis de periculo maris tam episcopo quam ecdesie 
Abrincensi multum est obnoxia, quia de bonis et prediis Beati Andree sibi 
coUatis a Beato Auberto Abrincensi episcopo fundamentmn et institutionem 
accepit et in episcopatu Abrincensi sita est. Unde de antiqua consuetudine 
ratione obnoxietatis abbas et conventus predicti cenobii singulis annis in 
hiemali festo Beati Andree debite reddunt ecdesie Abrincensi ut matri 
gcdesig novem pondera cere secundum pondus predicti cenobii, que equiva- 
lent et equiponderant quatuor magnis ponderibus communibus et dimidio pon- 

is doubtless one of the two MSS. relating to Avranches whidi ate mentioned by 
Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Mamiscriptorum, i. 80. 

" Tardif, Tfis Ancien Coutumier, p. iii f.; Delisle, Eenri II, p. 500 f. 

'" Cartulairede La Luzerne, eA.'Du\>os,c,'D.a^. 6, T, NeustriaPia,p.jgii.; Pigeon, 
Le diocise d'Awanches, ii. 374-376. 

" GaUia Christiana, xi. 536 f.; cf. Cartulaire de Montmorel, ed. Dubosc. 



DOCUMENTS FROM THE AVRANCHIN 34I 

deri. Sumnja harum librarum est triginta et sex libre cgre.' Reddiint etiam 
predictus abbas et monachi debite ecclesie Abrincensi in predicto festo tres 
libras incensi et episcopo tres libras piperis.' Reddit insuper predicta abbatia 
singulis annis ecclesie Abrincensi in purificatione Beate Marie tres cereos 
formatos continentes ad minus quatuor libras cere. Reddit preterea decano 
Abrincensi singulis annis in Pascha Domini .vi. libras Andegavensium 
monete pro pellitia grisia. Tenetur etiam abbas predicte abbatie interesse 
hiemali festo Beat! Andree nisi legitimam habuerit excusationem, quam si 
habuerit mittet pro se duos de dignioribus ecclesie sue. Predictus vero abbas 
quando benedicitur professionem facit et canonicam obedientiam promittit 
et propria manu firmat et earn obedientiam promittit episcopo et successori- 
bus eius et ecclesie Abrincensi. Monachi autem predicti monasterii singulis 
annis ecclesiam Abrincensem de antiquo usu, ut matrem ecclesiam cui 
honorem debent, in die martis post octavas Pentecostes cum soUenni pro- 
cessione tenentur adire et missam in honore Beati Andree sollenniter 
celebrare. Confirmatio autem electionis abbatis predicti monasterii ad epis- 
copum Abrincensem pertinet. Tenetur etiam predicta abbatia electum 
Abrincensem in episcopum consecratum cum soUenni processione recipere. 
Confirmatio vero populi et consecrationes ecclesiarum predicti Montis et 
ordinationes monachorum et dericorum ad soliun episcopum Abrincensem 
pertinent. Clerici autem predicti Montis bis in anno tenentur interesse 
sinodo ecclesie Abrincensis. Similiter et abbas Montis Sancti Michaelis 
eisdem sinodis debet interesse. Preterea abbas et conventus predicti monasterii 
debent et tenentur singulis annis reddere episcopo Abrincensi in octavis Pen- 
thecostes apud Abrincas per nuncios suos sine requisitione .vii. libras Ande- 
gavensium monete. 

(f. 73 v). Consuettido autem est antiqua ut episcopus Abrincensis si vo- 
luerit singulis annis ad predictam accedat et veniat abbatiam in ultimo festo 
Beati Michaelis ad celebrandum ut episcopus ibi divina. In vigilia vero 
Beati Michaelis habet ex debito antiquo et procurationem et mansionem cum 
comitatu suo episcopus. In die autem festivitatis post sollennitatem et cele- 
brationem misse habet episcopus cum comitatu suo procurationem et inde 
post quo voluerit debet recedere. Consuevit preterea episcopus de antiquo 
usu predicttmi monasterium adire si voluerit in quarta feria ante Pascha 
Domini annuatim causa absolvendi monachos et clervun et populum a 
sarcina peccatorum, et tunc habet ibi episcopus procurationem suam cum suo 
comitatu. Salva est autem episcopo Abrincensi in predicta abbatia in omni- 
bus canonica iusticia.' Prioratus autem predicte abbatie in episcopatu 
Abrincensi constituti debent de consuetudine episcopo Abrincensi annuam 
procurationem et priores eorum debent ei obedientiam. 

Abbas Sancti Stephani de Cadomo de consuetudine debet interesse hiemali 
festo Beati Andree in propria persona vel debet mittere unum monachorum 
suorum cum litteris suis ad probandam rationabilem excusationem sue 
absentie. Hac vero de causa debet interesse abbas predicto festo ut episcopus 

' Cf. Longnon, Pouillis de la province de Rouen, p. 162 (1412). 
' Cf. the abbot's render to the king: Delisle, Henri II, p. 346. 
' For the bishop's justice over the men of the Mount, see Chapter I, note 137 



342 APPENDIX K 

Abrincensis prioratum suum Sancti Leonard! et priorem et monachos ibi 
manentes et possessiones eorum manuteneant et contra eis iniviriantes 
ecclesiastica censura eos def endat et tueatur. 

Similiter abbas Sancti Severi debet interesse hiemali festo Beati Andr§§ 
de consuetudine vel mittere debet cum litteris suis sufficientem et idoneimi 
excusatorem cum assignatione rationis sue absentig. Hac veto de causa 
debet interesse abbas Sancti Severi predicto festo quia habet in episcopatu 
Abrincensi capellam quandam et prioratum cum quibusdam decimis prope 
Haiam Paganelli, que omnia pertinent ad iurisditionem et defensionem 
episcopi et ecclesie Abrincensium.* Et in eodem episcopatu habet ecclesiam 
de Lucerna. 

(f . 74r) .' Sciant proculdubio omnes tam presentes quam f uturi quod inter 
episcopales ecclesias et sedes provintie Rotomagensis prima et dignior est 
ecclesia Baiocensis, secunda sedes et dignior post Baiocensem est ecclesia 
Abrincensis, ut legitur scriptum in quodam libro qui nocte et die est super 
altare Beate Marie Rotomagensis. Baiocensis vero episcopus est decanus 
Rotomagensis provintie, subdecanus autem eiusdem provintie est episcopus 
Abrincensis. Vacante autem sede Baiocensi vel eius episcopo in remotis 
partibus existente, superstes episcopus Abrincensis sanctum crisma et oleum 
et sacros ordines et cetera spiritualia ecclesie Baiocensi et eius clericis admi- 
nistrat nee ecclesia Baiocensis aliunde debet ea accipere, et econverso. 

In supradicto vero libro qui vocatur Tabule ° sic scriptum legitur in ecclesia 
Rothomagensi: Rodomus vel Rothomagus metropolis est. Continet enim sub 
se sex episcopales civitates, primam scilicet Baiocatarum, secundam scilicet 
civitatem Abrincatarum, tercia civitatem Evatinorum que dicitur Ebroicas, 
quartam civitatem Solarium que dicitur Sagium, quintam civitatem Lexovi- 
arum, sextam civitatem Consianciarum. 

(f, 74v). Cum omnes ecclesie in quolibet episcopatu constitute in potes- 
tate sint diocesanorum episcoporum et subdite sint matri §cclesi§, indubi- 
tanter sciatur ab omnibus ecclesiam Sancti Guillelmi Firmati de Moretonio 
in episcopatu Abrincensi constitutam esse subditam episcopo et gcclesi§ 
Abrincensibus. Debent autem et tenentur canonici predicte gcclesig episco- 
pum Abrincensem consecratum de antiqua consuetudine cum sollenni pro- 
cessione recipere et ei debent annuam procurationem; cessare vero tenentur a 
divino servitio et officio ad eius mandatum, quia ei debent obedientiam 
exhibere ut subditi prelato. Mittunt preterea de inveterata consuetudine 
duos de canonicis suis ad duas sinodos gcclesig Abrincensis. Consecratio 
autem gcclesig sue et aliarum ecclesiarum suarum et altariiun suorum et 
ordinationes canonicorum et clericorum predicte gcclesig ad solum episcopum 
Abrincensem pertinent. 

Abbatia Savigneii in episcopatu Abrincensi sita debet episcopo Abrincensi 
soUennem processionem et annuam procurationem et tam episcopo quam 

* Cf . Le H6richer, ii. 40. 

' Evidently this folio or its contents has been reversed, as the two final para- 
graphs belong here. 

' Probably the Liber ebumeus, now MS. Rouen 1405, in which this paragraph 
is found (p, 26), 



DOCUMENTS FROM THE AVRANCHIN 343 

§cclesi§ Abrincensi canonicam obedientiam, quam abbas cum benedicendus 
est in ecclesia Abrincensi publice profitetur. Dedicatio autem ecclesie Savig- 
neii et consecratio altarium eius et ordinationes monachorum ad solum 
episcopum Abrincensem pertinent. Abbas vero Savigneii et abbas Sancti 
Michaelis de Monte et alii abbates diocesis Abrincensis et omnes principales 
persone conventualium ecclesiarum episcopatus Abrincensis debent interesse 
processioni Abrincensis ecclesie ad recipiendum cum honore episcopum 
Abrincensem redeuntem a sua consecratione, vel debent mittere duos de 
dignioribus ecclesiarum suarum pro se si non possunt interesse. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Mediaeval names of persons aie arranged alphabetically under the English form of the Christian 
name. When names of places have been identified, the modem form is given; otherwise the form 
occurring in the document is used. 



Abacus, 17s, 176. 
Abbot, see Monasteries. 
Abingdon (co. Berks), 235. 
Achard, bishop of Avranches, 216. 
Adam, 7. 

de Beaunai, 127. 

de Martainville, 326. 

de Sottevast, 138. 

de Wanneville, 166, 168, 219, 326. 

Adams, G. B., 6, 56-58, 97, 179, 217. 

Adela, wife of Richard III, 59. 

Adelard of Bath, 131. 

Adelehn, 7. 

Adeliza of Abbetot, 298. 

countess of Aumale, 29. 

daughter of Richard II, 274. 

Adelolf, chamberlain of Bayeux, 63. 

bishop of Carlisle, in, 120, 124, 

308. 
Adrian IV, Pope, 332. 
Advowson, 171-174, 218, 332, 333. 
Agy (Calvados), 109. 
Aids, feudal, 19, 21, 22, 187. 
Aimo, see Haimo. 
Aiulf du March6, 96. 
Aizier (Eure), 93, 226, 253, 254. 
Alan, 20. 

Ill, count of Brittany, 261, 269; 

272. 
Alberic, bishop of Ostia and legate, 154. 
Aldwin, ' forbator,' 118. 
Alenfon (Ome), 124, 311-313, 319; MSS. 

at, 42, 60, 70, 106, 244, 245, 300, 302, 

307; see Ome, archives of. 
Alexander de Bohun, 138, 139, 142, 145, 

162, 220. 

bishop of Lincoln, 124, 303. 

II, Pope, 30. 



Alexander III, Pope, 181, 330. 

son of Theold, 224. 

Alfred, etheling, 275. 

the Giant, 270, 271. 

brother of Godebold, 92. 

de Ludreio, 63. 

Malbedenc, 22. 

de Saint-Martin, constable of 

Neufch^tel, 327, 334. 
Alg', 102. 
Algar, bishop of Coutances, 130, 146, 

220. 

de Sainte-Mfere-figlise, 100. 

Alice Trubaud, 173. 

Ahermont (Seine-Inf.), 140, 148, 149, 

151, 221, 305. 
Allod, 6, 290. 

Almeneches (Ome), abbey, 132, 133, 328. 
Alvered, see Alfred. 
Amfreville-la-Mi-Voie (Seine-Inf.), 70. 
Ancher de Neville, 289. 
Andrew of Baudemont, 108. 

abbot of Troam, 98, 321. 

Andrew, W. J., 122, 309. 

Angers (Maine-et-Loire), 129; bishop of, 

35, 232- 

Saint-Aubin, abbey, 231. 

Saint-Serge, abbey, 231. 

Anglesqueville-sur-Saane (Seine-Inf.), 

260, 262. 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 61, 78, 128, 310- 

317- 
Angoht, 7. 

Angreville (Seine-Inf.), 305. 
Anjou, 4, 35, 44, 46, 47, 56, 123, 124, 136, 

137, 142, 145, 146, 148, 150, 151, 154, 

155, 162, 230-232, 241, 312. Counts: 

Fulk, Geoffrey Plantagenet. 



348 



INDEX 



Anneville-sur-Seine (Seine-Inf.), 69, 290. 
Anquetil d'Arri, 180, 328. 

de Hotot, 96. 

priest, 7. 

Ansaud de Beauvoir, 108. 

Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, 86, 

93. 310. 

de Dives, 321. 

vicomte, 306. 

Ansfred Bordet, 289. 

abbot of Prfiaux, 279. 

abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 228. 

seneschal, 5°, 275. 

de Sorquainville, 262. 

Anslec, sons of, 262. 

Anslevilla, 290. 

Appasilva, 261. 

Aragon, 195. 

Archdeacons, hereditary, 7; jurisdiction 

of, 31, 34, 35, 88, 171, 227, 228, 23s, 

329-332. 
Archives, 221, 241-246; see Paris, and the 

several departments. 
Ardeneta, 219. 
Ardevon (Manche), 69, 185. 
Arganchy (Calvados), 94, 95, 294, 313, 

319- 
Argences (Calvados), 4, 39, 49, 252, 259- 

261, 272, 328. 
Argentan (Ome), 42, 70, loi, 105-107, 

119, 121, 124, I2S, 128, 132, 134, 136, 

139, 141-143, 151, 152, i6s, 176, 183, 
184, 300-302, 304, 306, 307, 310, 319, 

334, 335- 
Arlette, 268, 269. 
Arnold of Devizes, 332. 
Amulf, 305. 

chancellor of Bayeux, 226. 

of Choques, chaplain of Robert II, 

74- 

bishop of Lisieux, 125, 130, 153, 

IS4, 158, 163, 165-168, 1 71-173, 
188, 203, 219, 221, 324, 326. 

of Montgomery, 70. 

fitz Peter, 236. 

Arques (Seine-Inf.), 42, 100, 129, 131, 

140, 143, 149, iSi, 152, 253, 254, 258, 
360, 261, 274, 318, 



Arras (Pas-de-Calais), abbey of Saint- 
Vaast, 59- 

Arriire-ban, 8, 23, 24, 187. 

Ars (Manche), 21. 

Asnifires (Calvados), 298. 

Asselin, chaplain, 91. 

Assize, 105, 149, 150, 159, 165-169, 172- 
174, 179, 180, 184, 187-189, 198-201, 
209-219, 234, 238, 325-327, 334-336; 
of Arms, 23, 159, 192, 193; of Claren- 
don, 188. 

Athelney (co. Somerset), 315. 

Atina (province of Caserta), 233. 

Atto, 40. 

Atzelin, 7. 

Auberville (Calvados), 63. 

Aubrey de Vere, chamberlain, 121. 

Auchy (Seine-Inf.), 67. 

Audoin, bishop of £vreux, 111, 170, 296, 

297, 299, 302. 

Audrieu (Calvados), 70. 

Auffai (Seine-Inf.), 49. 

Auge, 108, 181. 

Aumale (Seine-Inf.), 29, 78, 312, 317. 
Count: Stephen. Countess: Adeliza. 

Aunay-sur-Odon (Calvados), abbey, 13s, 
163, 297, 316, 326, 327. Abbot: 
Vivian. 

Auvers (Seine-et-Oise), 45. 

Auvray, L., 247, 281. 

Avelina, niece of William Goth, 299, 301. 

Avoui, 36. 

Avranches (Manche), 34, 35, 43, 129, 
165, 166, 180, 311; archives, 244; 
bishop of, 8, 18, 19, 34, 35, 37, 76, 
87, 167, 227, 228; his rights over 
monasteries, 340-343; chapter, 43, 
180, 272; fair, 191, 337, 338; MSS. 
at, 33, 41, 59, 69, 128, 142, 244, 245, 
273, 277, 281, 337; vineyard, 338. 
Bishops: Achard, Herbert, John, 
Maingisus, Michael, Richard. 

Avranchin, 8, 9, 128, 129, 160, 185, 188, 
191, 337-343- 

Bacqueville (Seine-Inf.), 20. 
BaW, bailliage, baUlivi, 105, 147, 151, 
152, 163, 168, 177, 182-186, 2og. 



INDEX 



349 



Baldwin of Beaumont, 68. 

son of Clare, 91, 92. 

bishop of fivreux, 51. 

count of Flanders, 262, 275. 

Bampton (co. Oxford), 300, 301, 303. 

Banbury (co. Oxford), 235. 

Banlieue, 8, 29, 49, 117, 152, 153, 206, 
262, 279. 

Bapeaume (Seine-Inf.), 216. 

Barcelona, county, S- 

Barentin (Seine-Inf.), 253-255. 

Barfleur (Manche), 43, 119, 314. 

Bari (province of Bari), 233. 

Barons, of curia and Exchequer, 89, 95, 
179, 180, 185. 

Barony, 9-24. 

Bastebourg (Calvados), 128. 

Bateson, Mary, 48, 49, 114. 

Bath priory (co. Somerset), 66. 

Battle abbey (co. Sussex), 49. 

Baudri, 20. 

de Bocquencfi, 7, 11, 12. 

son of Nicholas, 11, 12. 

Serjeant, 118. 

Bavent (Calvados), 63. 

Bayeux (Calvados), 7, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 
34, 39, 42, 43, 71, 75, 85, 86, 118, 124, 
128, 129, 143, 159-161, 163, 166, 167, 
183, 202, 205, 207, 213, 215, 216, 222, 
270, 280, 324, 335, 336; archdeacon, 
32, 34; bishop of, 6, 14-18, 22, 37, 76, 
87, 91, 98, 103, 104, 133, 135-137, 149, 
ISO, 152, IS4. 161, 171, 199, 201-215, 
244, 319, 342; chapter of, 66, 73, 99, 
100, 137, 180, 222-224; chaplains of, 
51, 52, 181; Livre noir, 133, 149, 197- 
215, 224-226, 244, 248; other MSS. at, 
67, 244. Bishops: Henry, Hugh, Odo, 
Philip, Richard of Kent, Richard fitz 
Samson, Thorold. 

Saint-Vigor, 66, 67, 73, 75, 76. 

Beaubec (Seine-Inf.), 94, 126. 

Beaumont-le-Roger (Eure), 68, 230, 318. 

Beaunay (Seine-Inf.), 69, 290, 291. 

Beaurepaire, C. de, 45, 151, 160, 244. 

Beautemps-Beaupr£, C.-J., 123, 136, 146, 
230-232. 

Beauvais (Oise), 267, 269, 271. 



Beauvais, Saint-Lucien, 67. 

Bec-Hellouin (Eure), Le, abbey, 10, 29, 
34, 49, 68, 71, 74, 80, 82, 87, 89, 104, 
126, 127, 131-133, 136-138, 143, 159, 
166, 220, 224, 242, 245, 247, 272, 293, 
29s, 296, 306, 310-313, 31S. 317, 319, 
329, 334. Abbots: Herluin, Roger, 
William. 

Becco, ' mara de,' 327. 

B£danne (Seine-Inf.), He de, 260. 

Bfidier, J., 269, 271. 

Beeding (co. Sussex), 83. 

Bell^me (Ome), 268, 311. 

Bellencombre (Seine-Inf.), 319. 

Bellou (Ome), 33. 

Below, G. von, 25. 

Benedict VIII, Pope, 251. 

of Peterborough, 193. 

archdeacon of Rouen, 68, 291, 293. 

Benet, A., 246. 

Bennetot (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 

Benoit de Sainte-More, 268. 

Berger, E., 130, 132, 133, 138, 158, 162, 
201, 249. 

Berkshire, in, 121, 235. 

Berlin, MS. at, 76. 

Bemagium, 39, 63, 70, 77, 80, 82, 222. 

Bemai (Eure), 8, 9, 26, 27, 59, 60, 184, 
24s, 251, 257, 260, 261, 335, 336. 
Abbot: Osbert. 

Bernard de Beaunay, 291. 

de Brus, 289. 

de Clairvaux, 154. 

bishop of St. David's, 94. 

de Saint-Valery, 187. 

the scribe, 88. 

Bemer, 82. 

Bemeval-sur-Mer (Seine-Inf.), 9, 10, 25, 
26. 

Bemouville (Seine-Inf.), 291. 

Besse, Dom J.-M., 241. 

Bessin, 9, 43, 47, 129, 159-161, 167, 168, 
213, 214, 222, 296. 

Beuville (Calvados), 63. 

B6ziers, M., 206. 

Bigelow, M. M., 196, 197, 221, 234, 237, 

Binbrook (co. Lincoln), 81. 

Birch, W. de G., 309. 



3SO 



INDEX 



Bishops, appointment and control of, 
36, 37, 153, 154; in curia and admin- 
istration, 37, S4-S8, 60, 77, I4S, 146, 
149, IS4, 181, 27s; military service of, 
8, 9, 14-19; rights over monasteries, 
340-343. See Church, Courts, eccle- 
siastical. 

Bitetto (province of Bari), 233. 

Biville-la-Martcl (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 

Blandford (co. Dorset), 295. 

Bloc, sons of, 261. 

Blood feud, 32, 38, 60, 278. 

Bocherville, Saint-Georges de (Seine- 
Inf.), abbey, 106, 183, 226, 244, 312, 
318. Abbots: Louis, Victor. 

Bocolunda, 261. 

Bocquencfi (Ome), 11-14. 

Bodevilla, 302. 

Bohmer, H., 9, 30, 35, 36, 66, 86, 130, 
153. 154, 251, 278. 

Boiavilla, 259. 

BoUeville (Manche), 243. 

Bologna, 330. 

Bonaria, bonata, 255. 

Boniface, 122. 

Bonneville-sur-Touques (Calvados), 70, 
77, 93, 186, 311, 314. 

Bonnin, T., 248. 

Borrelli de Serres, 182. 

Bosc-Lehard (Seine-Inf.), 81. 

Bosham (co. Sussex), 303. 

Bdt, 280. 

Bougy (Calvados), 16, 17. 

Boulogne (Pas-de-Calais), 126. Counts: 
Eustace, Stephen. 

Bourges (Cher), 45. 

Bourgtheroude (Eure), 315. 

Bourrienne, V., 66, 67, 146, 197, 200, 201, 
206. 

Bouteilles (Seine-Inf.), 287, 288. 

Brfimule (Eure), 313. 

Bresslau, H., 52. 

Breteuolles, 252. 

Breteuil (Eure), 313; laws of, 49. 

Bretteville-sur-Odon (Calvados), 216. 

Brian fitz Count, constable, 120, 300. 

Brighthampton (co. Oxford), 300-303. 

Brionne (Eure), 49, 166, 168, 230, 315. 



Briouze (Ome), 77. 

Briquessart (Calvados), 129. 

Brittany, Bretons, 35, 128, 227, 241, 269. 

Counts or dukes: Alan III, Geoffrey, 

Odo. 
Brix (Manche), 102. 
Brucourt (Calvados), 325. 
Brunner, H., 3, 7, 25, 26, 56, 150, 157, 

189, 196-200, 204, 207, 209, 211, 214, 

217, 221, 223, 227, 277. 
Brunville (Seine-Inf.), 259. 
Brussel, N., 27, 36. 
Bures (Seine-Inf.), 138, 287, 288. 
Burgage, 186. 
Burgus, 48, 49. 
Bur-le-Roi (Calvados), 183. 
Butler, SI, 77, 81, 89, 113, 180, 275. 



Cabourg (Calvados), 216. 
Caen (Calvados), 39, 41-43, 48, S8, 71, 
78, 81, 86, 94-98, 104, 107, 118-120, 
I2S, 128, 129, I4S, 151, 159, 165-168, 
174, 176-178, 179. 182-184, 199, 213- 
216, 223, 242, 260, 262, 270, 271, 278, 
280, 307, 313-31S, 323, 324, 328, 333- 
336; council of, 37, 276; MSS. at, 69, 
91, 126, 24s, 246, 28s, 336; see also 
Calvados, archives of. 

La Trinity, abbey, 33, 43, 62-64, 

69, 74, 161, 188, 244, 248, 274, 
310. Abbess: Cecily. 

Saint-fitierme, abbey, 9, 14, 19, 33, 

34, 40, 43, 57, 69, 74, 78, 80, 81, 
94-96, 98, 103, 127, 166, 169, 173, 
179, 215-217, 238, 244, 267, 278, 
285-287, 294, 312, 313, 318, 341, 
342. Abbots: Gilbert, Odo, 
William. 
Cailly (Seine-Inf.), 153. 
Calabria, 234. 
Calixtus II, Pope, 313. 
Calloenses, 92. 

Calvados, archives of the, 13, 34, 40, 57, 
69, 9°, 91, 93, 96, 108, 109, 133, 142, 
164, 172, 179, 2i6, 228, 229, 245, 246, 
260, 286, 287, 297, 306-308, 316, 321, 
322, 336. 



INDEX 



351 



Cambremer (Calvados), 49, 206, 207, 

211-213. 
Camera, ducal, 40, 41, 44, 58, 108, 113, 

180, 194, 257. 
Campeauz (Seine-Inf.), 255. 
Cannon, H. L., 190. 
Cantaiana, 337. 
Canterbury (co. Kent), 161, 183, 235. 

Archbishops: Anselm, Lanfranc, 

Ralph, Theobald, Thomas Becket, 

William. 
Canute, king of England, 261, 275. 
Capdlaria, 52. 

Carbone (province of Potenza), 234. 
Carcagny (Calvados), 207. 
Carentan (Manche), 165. 
Cartellieri, A., 193. 
Castles, 38, 60, 64, 6s, 86, 107, 118, 119, 

14s, 176, 191, 194, 278; castle guard, 

8, 19-21. 
Catalogus baronum, 23, 24. 
Caudebec (Seine-Inf.), 228, 336. 
Caux, 168, 181, 254, 260, 262. 
Ceaux (Manche), 41, 81. 
Cecily, daughter of WiUiam I and abbess 

of Caen, 75. 
Cefalu (province of Palermo), 234. 
Celestine II, Pope, 203. 
Celibacy, sacerdotal, 35, 66. 
Celier, L., 148, 330. 
Ceneau (Coenalis), R., 247. 
Cenilly (Manche), 163, 298. 
Census, 41. 

Centena, centenarius, 25, 46. 
Cerisy-la-Foret (Manche), abbey of 

Saint-Vigor, 9, 10, 43, 48, 245, 265, 

269-272, 27s, 279, 314. Abbots: 

Durand, Hugh. 
Cesny-aux-Vignes (Calvados), 63. 
Chamberlain, 41, 50, 51, 77, 8g, 90, 112, 

113, 116, 119-121, 162, 183, 275. 
Chambray (Eure), 326. 
Champart, 103, 326, 327. 
Champcervon (Manche), 337. 
Chancery, Angevin, 136, 140, 142; 

Anglo-Saxon, 53; Prankish, 51; in 

Normandy, 51-54. 59. 74-76, 82, 112, 

IIS, 13S-143, iSS, IS7, 162, 191, 274. 



Chandai (Ome), 172. 

Channel Islands, 129, 189; jee Guernsey, 

Jersey. 
Chanteloup (Manche), 21. 
Chapel, chaplains, ducal, 51-54, 74-76, 88, 

89, no, 112, 118, 136, 137, 181, 275. 
Charentonne, the, 11. 
Charts aux Normands, 190. 
Charters, see Chancery, Diplomatics, and 

the several dukes. 
Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), 317; chapter of, 

33, S9, 80, 108, 162, 245. Bishops: 

Fulbert, Ives. 
lepros^ry, 106, 107, 125, 126, 151, 

24s, 319- 

Saint-Pere, abbey, 7, 33, 43, 59, 

100, 171, 223, 245, 304. 
Chslteau-du-Loir (Sarthe), 27. 
Ch4teau-rHermitage (Sarthe), 129. 
Chefifreville (Calvados), 207, 211, 212. 
Cherbourg (Manche), 43, 78, r46, 152, 

167, 180,. 183, 186, 220; canons of, 43, 

53; MSS. at, 246. 

abbey De Voto, 116, 136, 186. 

Chesnel, P., 21, 47, 337. 

Chester, 121; earl of, 161, 236. Earls: 

Hugh, Ranulf, Richard. Countesses: 

Lucia, Matilda. 
Chesterfield (co. Derby), 236. 
Cheux (Calvados), 68, 286, 287. 
Chevreux, P., 246, 258. 
Chisenbury (co. Wilts), 311. 
Church, Norman, 6, 7, 30-38, 60, 65, 66, 

80, 86, 125, 126, 129, 130, 146, 153, 

154; see Bishops, Councils, Courts, 

Jurisdiction, Monasteries. 
Circada, 170. 
Clare of Rouen, 91, 92. 
Clarendon, Assize of, 188; Constitutions 

of, 169, 171-174, 198, 220, 226, 237, 

329, 330, 332- 
Clerks, jurisdiction over, 31, 32, 171. 
Clermont (Puy-de-D6me), council of, 

65, 66. 
Cluny (Sa6ne-et-Loire), 106, 133, 245, 

253, 254, 318. Abbots: Odilo, Peter. 
Coinage, 28, 29, 38, 39, 60, 65, 86, 113, 

171, 182, H87, 280, 281. 



3S2 



INDEX 



Colchester (co. Essex), 313, 314. 

Colmant, P., 245. 

Colombelles (Calvados), 63. 

Comes palaiii, 51. 

Conches (Eure), abbey, 49, 79, 245, 304, 

326. Abbot: Gilbert. 
Cond6-sur-Ifs (Calvados), 302. 
Cond6-sur-Noireau (Calvados), 49. 
Conon, bishop of Palestrina and legate, 

314- 
Conquest, Norman, 3, 4, 5, 8, 16, 61. 
Constable, 50, 31, 89, 95, 121, 152, 162, 

180, 182, 184, 186, 187, 27s, 317- 
Constantine, knight, 291. 
Constantinople, 267, 270. 
Constilutio domus regis, 108, 1 13-120. 
Consuetudines, ducal, 27-29, 33-39, 46, 

271, 279; episcopal, 33-3S, 251. 
Consuetudines et iusticie, 4, 28, 29, 38, 48, 

64, 65, 78, 243, 276-284. 
Corbuzzo, chamberlain, 50. 
Corhulma, 260, 262. 
Cormeilles (Eure), 49; abbey, 10, 187, 

245. Abbot: William. 
Coronation, 190. 
Coroner, 188, 338. 
C6te-d'0r, archives of the, 66, 67. 
Cotentin, 9, 43, 47, 63, 64, 71, 87, 100- 

102, 124, 127, 129, 136, 141, 149, 246, 

276. 
Councils, ecclesiastical, 4, 6, 30-38, 65, 

66, 170, 276, 294, 309, 310, 312, 313, 

316, 33°- 

Count, as title of Norman dukes, 26, 73, 
274. 

Counterfeiting, 86, 171, 187. 

Courb€pine (Eure), 8. 

Courcy-sur-Dive (Calvados), 143. 

Courts, baronial, 22, 24-30, 89, 97, 103, 
150, 166, 172, 184, 187, 228-230, 278, 
279; ducal, see Assize, Curia, Exche- 
quer; ecclesiastical, 30-37, 169-174, 
179, i8s, 188, 220, 223-228, 321-3231 

327, 329-332; forest, 48, 103; suit of 
court, 22, 24. See Jurisdiction. 

Coutances (Manche), 43; bishop of, 6, 

8, 30, 36, 39. 43. 76, 133. 137. 141, 
149, 171, 220,319,342; ecclesiastical 



archives, 220, 221, 242, 244, 247. 

Bishops: Algar, Geoffrey, Ralph, 

Richard, Robert, Roger. 
Coutumier des forSls, 160; de Normandie, 

see Tres Ancien Coutumier. 
Coventry (co. Warwick), 330. 
Coville, A., 5S, 190. 
Cramesnil (Calvados), 210, 212. 
Creech (co. Somerset), 81. 
Cristot (Calvados), 70, 216. 
Croix-Saint-Leufroy (Eure), 24s. 
Croleium, 302. 
Crusades, 65, 71. 74. 7S. 79. iS9, 205, 

230. 
Cullei (Ome), 11-14. 
Curia, Capetian, 49; of Norman dukes, 

32, 33, 47. 49-60, 70, 76, 77. 83, 87- 

100, 104, 114, I2S, 147-149, ns, 163- 

165, 171-174. 178-189, 194, 27s, 323- 

326, 334-336. See Assize, Court, 

Household. 
Curtbertalt, 286. 
Customs, see Consuetudines. 

Danegeld, 40, 116, 166, 177. 

Daniel, Master, 328. 

Danvou (Calvados), 16. 

Dapifer, see Seneschal. 

Darrein presentment, 172. 

David, C. W., 62, 76. 

Davis, H. W. C, s, 31, Si, SSSS, 81, 82, 

8S. 87, I2S, 249, 309. 
Deans, rural, 37, 171, 226, 329-332. 
Delisle, L., 4, 36, 39, S7, loi, 117, 130, 

132-134. 137. IS7. 158, 162, 166, 174, 

178, 190, 191, 197, 199-201, 209, 218, 

221, 241, 243, 246-249, 2SS-2S7. 263, 

276, 278, 325-327, 338. 340. 
Derby, 23s, 333- 
Deslandes, E., 197. 
DeviUe, A., 5, 144, 193, 247, 248, 25s, 

2S8. 

E., 97, 248. 

Dialogue on the Exchequer, 40, 43, 113, 

114, 158, 174-178, 191. 242, 280. 
Dieppe (Seine-Inf.), 42, 118, 119, 130, 

131, 14s, 149, 131, 152. 178, 300, 304, 
318. 



INDEX 



353 



Dijon (CAte-d'Or), 75; see C6te-d'0r. 

Saint-B6mgne, abbey, 40, 60, 66, 

67, 69, 7S, 76, 24s, 267, 28s, 286. 
Abbots: Gerento, William I of 
Fecamp. 

Saint-£tienne, abbey, 272. 

Diplomatics, Norman, 53, 72-76, 82, 83, 
13S-143. 274, 27s. 

Dipte, 259. 

Dispenser, 77, 116. 

Dives (Calvados), 95, 173, 215, 216, 321. 

Diwan, 112. 

Dol (Dle-et-Vilaine), archbishops: Jun- 
guen€, Roland. 

Domain, ducal, 39, 86, 151, 159, 160. 

Domesday, 3, 4, 22, 29, 40, S7, 121, 207, 
234, 241, 242. 

Domfront (Ome), 64, 124, 163, 165, 183, 
186, 323. 

Dopsch, A., 26. 

Douvrend (Seine-Inf.), 6. 

Douvres (Calvados), 223, 224. 

Dover (co. Kent), 78. 

Dreux, Drogo, coimt of Amiens, 273. 

count of the Vexin, 268, 272. 

Dublin; 183. 

Ducy (Calvados), 147, 211. 

Dudo of Saint-Quentin, 4, s, 38, 52, 241, 
252. 

Duel, judicial, 28, 56, 97, 98, 104, 221. 

Dufayard, C, 190. 

Dugdale, W., 298. 

Duke of Normandy, ecclesiastical su- 
premacy of, 36-38, 66, 80, IS3, 154; 
income of, 39-45; jurisdiction of, 24- 
29, 39, 187, 188, 278-280; limitations 
on, 190; maintenance of order by, 38; 
military service due, 8-23. See As- 
size, Chancery, Coinage, Curia, Do- 
main, Household, Jurisdiction. 

Du M€ril, E., 269. 

Du Monstier, A., 248, 257. 

Dun (Seine-Inf.), 255. 

Duplessis, Dom Toussaint, no, 260. 

Durand, 7. 

cellarer, 291. 

abbot of Cerisy, 262, 263. 

du Pin, 336. 



Durham, 66, 78, 81, 119. Bishops: 
Ranulf Flambard, William of Saint- 
Calais. 

Eadmer, 36, 75, 79, 114, 115, 314. 

Easter, curia, 55, 60; style of dating, 125, 
138, 3"- 

Eaui, forest of (Seine-Inf.), 140, 151. 

Ebulus de Mallano, 233. 

£crammeville (Calvados), 63. 

ficretteville (Seine-Inf.), 253, 254, 260, 
261. 

Edward the Confessor, king of England, 
48, 261, 262, 273, 27s, 279. 

of Salisbury, 294. 

fiWtot (Seine-Inf.), 255, 260, 261. 

Elias of Saint-Saens, 289. 

Eling (co. Hants), 316. 

Elisabeth, 20. 

Ely (co. Cambridge), 23s, 316. Bishop: 
Neal. 

fimalleville, (Seine-Inf.), 8. 

fimendreville, 68, 81 (?), 82 (?), 293. 

Emma, abbess of Saint-Amand, 93. 

Emptiones Eudonis, 94-97, 318. 

Engel, A., 280. 

England, 4, 19, 29, 33, 36, 37, 40; in re- 
lation to Norman institutions, 3, 5, 6, 
30, 34, 36, 40. 46-49, S2-S4, 57, 58, 
82, 83, 85, 86, 94, 100, 103, 107, 108, 
1x2-122, 142, 143, 186, 188-193, 196, 
226, 227, 234-238, 241-243, 263, 264, 
277-280. Kings: Edward, Ethelred II, 
Henry I, II, HI, V, VI, John, Richard, 
WiUiam I, II. 

Englesqueville (Calvados, canton Isigny) 
63. 

Enguerran, 63, 289. 

chaplain, 29 x. 

son of Enguerran, canon of S£ez, 

307- 

son of Ilbert, 76, 289, 291, 292. 

Oison, 307. 

count of Ponthieu, 262, 275. 

de Vascoeuil, 92, 127, 145, 148. 

Enjuger de Bohun, 138, 145, 148, 149, 
207, 209, 210, 220. 

Enlart, C, 278. 



354 



INDEX 



Enna, ' Christ! famula,' 274. 

Envenneu (Seine-Inf.), 68, 100. 

£paignes (Eure), 324. 

£paney (Calvados), 173. 

£pemon (Eure-et-Loir), 316. 

Episcopal laws, 30-32. 

Ennenaldus the Breton, 267. 

Ermendi villa (Seine-Inf.?), 262. 

Ermenouville (Seine-Inf.), 260. 

Emald du Bois, 297. 

chaplain, 52, 275. 

Ertald, 69. 

Escures (Calvados), 147, 148, 224, 296. 

Esmein, A., 24. 

Esnecca, 121, 122. 

Essex, 301. 

Estr£es-la-Campagne (Calvados), 302. 

£tables (Seine-Inf.), 69, 291. 

£tampes (Seine-et-Oise), 45. 

£tard Poulain, 167, 168, 173, 323, 324. 

Ethelred II, king of England, 48. 

£tienne, see Stephen. 

£tigues (Seine-Inf.), 133, 253. 

£tretat (Seine-Inf.), 226. 

£tr£ville-en-Roumois (Eure), 229. 

Eu, 29, 66, 78, 79, 81, 82. Counts: 

, Henry, Robert. 

Eudo, see Odo. 

Eugene III, Pope, 154, 203-205, 211, 223. 

Eure, archives of the, 7, 29, 30, 42, 5°, 
68, 70, 82, 109, III, 126, 134, 140, 166, 
170, 172, 244-246, 273, 279, 306, 318, 

323, 324, 326, 334- 

Eure-et-Loir, archives of the, 106, 125. 

Eustace, count of Boulogne, 68, 87, 293. 

of Breteuil, 287. 

fitz John, 303. 

fivrecy (Calvados), 17. 

fivreux (Eure), 86, 105, 106, 124, 296, 
3^3> 315; archdeacon of, 87, 109; 
archives and MSS. at, 244, 246, see 
Eure; bishop of, 8, 37, 57, 76, 87, 121, 
133, 140, iSi> 181, 244, 320, 342; 
chapter, iii, 318; counts of, 29, 42, 
54, 167. Bishops: Audoin, Baldwin, 
Gilbert, Hugh, Rotrou. Counts: 
Richard, WilUam. 

Saint-Sauveur, abbey, 245. 



£vreux, Saint-Taurin, abbey, 10, 26, 29, 

42, 87, 104, 244, 260, 272. 
Exchequer, English, 40, 106, 111-113, 

174-178, 181, 191; Norman, 39-4S. 

64, 84, 88, 89, 94, 9S, 97-99. lOS-iii, 

119, 120, 151, IS7, 158, 167, 174-182, 

191, 192, 194, 242, 328, 334, 335- 
Exeter (co. Devon), 103. Bishop: 

William. 
Exmes (Ome), 42, 105, io6, 124, 151, 

300-302. 
Eyton, C, 298, 309, 317. 

F. de Tinchebrai, 222. 

Falaise (Calvados), 39, 86, 91, 105-107, 
113, 119, 121, 125, 129, 151, 159, 176, 
183, 186, 206, 219, 222, 226, 238, 300, 
301, 308-310, 313, 316, 320, 329, 330, 
332. 

Falcheran, monk, 328. 

Farm, of viconUS and prSvdte, 43-47, 105- 
107, 126, 151, 176-178, 186, 191. 

Fauguemon (Calvados), 143. 

Fealty, liege, 22. 

Fficamp (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 7-10, 25, 29, 
33> 41-43, SO, 52, 5S, S9, 60, 64, 69, 71, 
72, 78, 80, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 103, 
104, 129-131, 133, 140, 147, 160, 163, 
179, 181, 185, 188, 222, 226, 229, 244, 
246, 247, 250-264, 266, 271-273, 280, 
287-290, 318, 335; Mus6e, 246, 250- 
263, 287-289. Abbots: Henry, John, 
Roger, WiUiam. 

Felony, 188. 

Feudalism, Norman, 5-30, 60. 

Finance, see Exchequer, Farm. 

Fish, rights over, 39, 94, 161. 

Flach, J., 5, 27. 

Flanders, 4, 5, 36, 37, 44, 53, 56, S7, i93, 
241. Count: Baldwin. 

Fleurfi (Ome), 301. 

FUche, A., 49, 64, 79, 80. 

Florence of Worcester, 78. 

Fodrium, 231. 

Fontenay abbey (Calvados), 222. Ab- 
bot: Robert. 

Fontenay-le-Pesnel (Calvados), 69. 

Fontenay-Saint-P6re (Seine-et-Oise), 33. 



INDEX 



3SS 



Fonteviault (Maine-et-Loire), abbey, 

io6, 126, IS4, 24s, 317. 
Ford abbey (co. Devon), 339. 
Forests, 32, 38, 39, 43, 47, 48, 102, 103, 

117, 118, 140, 152, 160, 181, 182, i8s, 

207, 213, 214, 222, 279. 
Formeville, H. de, 36, no. 
Foucannont (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 83, 166, 

244. 
Foucarville (Manche), loi. 
Foulbec (Calvados), 63. 
France; its government compared with 

Normandy, 44, 45; Norman influence 

on, 3, 178, 193; Norman relations 

with, s, iS> 20, 130. 243. Kings: 

Henry I, Louis VI, VII, X, Philip I, 

II, Robert. 
Franchises, 24-30. 
Franks, Lastitutions of the, 25, 46, 48, 

52, 54, 196, 197, 227, 233. 
Frederick 11, emperor, 234. 
Freeman, E. A., 30, 31, 57, 58, 62, 75, 

78-80, 265, 273, 278. 
Fresnay-sur-Sarthe (Sarthe), 69. 
Fr^ville, E. de, 48. 

R. de, 9r, 96, 178, 184. 

Froger, bishop of S£ez, 181, 326. 
Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, 33, 267. 

archdeacon of Rouen, 68, 291-293. 

Fulk, 19. 

archdeacon, 7. 

of Jerusalem, count of Anjou, 123, 

136, 141, 230-232, 311. 

the Red, count of Anjou, 123. 

d'AsniSres, 63. 

d'Aunou, 149, 334. 

dean of fivreux, 7. 

son of Fulk, 97, 98. 

dean of Lisieux, 173, 322. 

merchant, 291. 

Painel, 338. 

abbot of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive, 68. 

Fumess abbey (co. Lancaster), 316. 
Fyrd, 23. 

Gac6 (Calvados), 63. 
GaigniSres, R. de, 247. 
GaiUon (Eure), 186. 



Galeran I, count of Meulan, 256, 275. 

II, 92, 94, 961 121, 127, 129, 145, 

148, 152, 153, 162, 166, 167, 173, 
187, 205, 208, 211, 219, 228, 229, 
29s, 300, 313, 315, 321. 

Galley, royal, 121, 122. 

Ganzeville (Seine-Inf.), 255. 

Garin de Grandval, 219. 

Gaucher Escorchechine, 328. 

Gautier, see Walter. 

Gavray (Manche), 43, 172, 218. 

Gazel, 262. 

Genest (Manche), 185. 

G^nestal, R., 22, 48. 

Geoffrey d'Abbetot, 299. 

Plantagenet , count of Anjou and 

duke of Normandy, 316; char- 
ters of, IS, 8s, 93, 129, 131-14S, 
I47-IS3, 197, 199-201, 204-212, 
220, 221; and the jury, 199-238; 
Normandy under, 53, 123-155, 
162, 192, 193. 

count of Beaumont, 256. 

duke of Brittany, 183, 331. 

de Brucourt, 325. 

de Bru6re, 147, 148. 

chamberlain, 336. 

chaplain and chancellor of Henry 

I, 294, 299, 303. 

de Clairvaux, 147. 

de Clefs (Cleers) (Maine-et-Loire), 

14s, 146, 153, 220. 

de Clinton, chamberlain, 89, 113, 

294, 300. 

de Courtonne, Master, clerk, 328. 

de CourviUe, 295. 

de Montbray, bishop of Cou- 

tances, 34, 36. 54, 57, 68. 

Duredent, 335. 

de Fontenay, 95. 

brother of Henry II, 319. 

son of Mabel, 323. 

Malaterra, 266. 

de Mandeville, 107, 295. 

le Moine, 334. 

de Neufbourg, 324. 

son of Payne, 107, 120, 303, 306, 

307. 



3S6 



INDEX 



Geoffrey, priest, 104. 

de Repton (Rapendun), 335. 

archbishop of Rouen, 92, 109, 294, 

297. 

dean of Rouen, 13, 138, 325. 

• de Sablfi (Subles), justice, 95, 99. 

de Sai, 22. 

abbot of Savigny, 296. 

son of Thierry, 322. 

de Tours, 220. 

priest of Vesli, 32. 

Gerald 'ad barbam,' 92. 

de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), 

131. 1S3- 

butler, SO- 

abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 68. 

seneschal, 50, si, 56, S8. 

Gerard de Goumay, 68. 

archdeacon of Rouen, 68. 

bishop of S6ez, 153 

G€r6, 268. 

Gerento, abbot of Saint-B€nigne, 75, 

79, 28s, 286. 
Gervase of Canterbury, 130, 132. 

de Fresnay, 164. 

Gerville, C. de, 246, 248, 336. 
Gilbert, 7, 20. 

archdeacon, 139. 

of Avranches, 338. 

Belet, 289. 

son of Bernard, 68, 109. 

count of Brionne, 263, 266, 268, 

27S- 

de Brucourt, 32s. 

abbot of Conches, 326. 

cook, 291. 

Crispin, 68. 

d'fivreux, treasurer, 108, log. 

bishop of fivreux, 68, 289, 292. 

— — de Fourches, 322. 
— — son of Gunduin, 298. 

de Hotot, 324. 

de La Hogue, 185. 

de Laigle, 92, 287. 

bishop of Lisieux, si, 292. 

Foliot, bishop of London, 330. 

the Universal, bishop of London, 

303- 



Gilbert de la Mare, 92. 

'nummarius ' (?), 140. 

Pipart, 180. 

son of Rainier, 289. 

chanter of Rouen, 109. 

abbot of Saint-£tienne, 68, 69, 75, 

286. 

' scolasticus,' 68. 

seneschal, 275. 

de Vascoeuil, 325. 

Warren, 291. 

d'Yainville, 327. 

Giraldus, see Gerald. 

Girberga, wife of Ralph fitz Anser6, 292. 

Giruinivilla, 253, 254, 261, 262. 

Giry, A., 144. 

Gisors (Eure), 64, 311, 313, 31s. 

Gisulf, scribe, 113. 

Glanvill, 97, 158, 186, 189, 191, 198, 217, 

242. 
Glastonbury (co. Somerset), 161. 
Gloucester, 236. 
Gloz (Eure), 313. 

Godard de Vaux, 167, 168, 219, 323-326. 
Godebald de Saint- Victor, 92. 
Gohier, 288, 289. 

de Morville, 297. 

Goldsmith, duke's, 1S2. 
Goleium, 302. 

Gonbert de Gervinivilla, 262. 
Gonfred de Gervinivilla, 261. 
Gonnor, wife of Richard I, 59. 
Gosselin, see Joslin. 
Goumay (Seme-Inf.), 78, 153. 
Gradulf, abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 261, 

262, 267. 
Grandcamp (Calvados), 63. 
Gravaria, gravarms, 40, 47, 63, 131, 177, 

182, 288. 
Graverend d'fivrecy, 167. 
Gravina (province of Bari), 234. 
Gray, H. L., 298. 
Graye (Calvados), 63. 
Grenoble (Is6re), MSS. at, 72, 82, 100- 

103, 246. 
Grestain (Eure), abbey, 24s. 
Grimald du Plessis, 16, 17, 271. 
Gross, C, 188. 



INDEX 



357 



Grumo (province of Bari), 233. 
Gu6rin, C, 337. 

Guernsey, 7, 33, 43, 69, 185, 273. 
Guildford (co. Surrey), 235. 
Guilhieimoz, P., 19-23, 193, 281. 
Guntard, abbot of JumiSges, 292. 
Guy Caicois, 291. 

notary, 32, 255. 

count of Ponthieu, 18. 

de Sable, 134, 140, 142, 145, 147- 

149, 210. 



Haimo, butler, 180, 335. 

d'Evrecy, 17. 

de Falaise, 304. 

vicomte, 263. 

Hainfara, 28-30, 279. 

Hainovilla, 63. 

Hall, Hubert, 53, 108, 114, 115. 

Halphen, L., 44, 46, 47, 56, 123, 136, 137, 

230, 316. 
Hamelin de l'£cluse, 294. 

loricarius, 306, 307. 

de la Mayenne, 294. 

Hamfred, 127. 

Harcourt, L. W. Vernon, 49, 51, S8, 97, 

99, 162, 16s, 27s. 
Hardwicke (co. Oxford), 301. 
Harfleur (Seine-Inf.), 29, 253, 254. 
Hastings (co. Sussex), 79, 121. 
Haur€au, B., 131. 
Haute justice, 28, 89. 
Hauville (Eure), 7, 162. 
H^auville (Manche), 71, 100, 102, 134, 

13s, 140, 141. 162- 
Hector of Chartres, 160. 
Helleville (Manche), 102. 
Eehnarc, 281, 283. 
Helto, constable, 202. 
Hemmeon, M. de W., 49. 
Hennequeville (Calvados), 253, 254. 
Henry, 171. 

d'Aigneaux, 167. 

bishop of Bayeux, 160, 172, 213, 

335- 

del Broc, 299. 

son of Corbin, 167. 



Henry I, king of England and duke of 
Normandy, 29, 3r, 37, 63-65, 71, 
78, 79, 83, 127, 134, 137, 139- 
142, 146-148, 150-153, iSSf 170, 
17s, 176, 192, 194, 202-210, 214, 
226, 23s, 236, 244, 28s, 291; 
charters of, 11-14, 42, 64, 65, 68, 
69, 77, 81, 85-87, 89, 90, 93-96, 
98-107, III, 118, 135, 140, 142, 
144, 190, 197, 221, 223, 277, 280, 
293-320, 337, 338; Norman itin- 
erary of, 309-320; Normandy 
tmder, 85-122, 126, 166. 

n, king of England, duke of Nor- 
mandy and Aquitaine, count of 
Anjou, 8, 22, 23, 28, 31, 40, 48, 

74. 93. 94. "3. "4, "i. 130- 
132, 146, 147, 150, 151, 155, 323, 
327; charters of, 12, 13, 15, 59, 
81, 94, 96, 107, 109, 116-118, 120, 

130-135. 140. 144. 148, 154, 158, 
161-169, 173, 182, 186-191, 197- 
202, 205, 207, 208, 213-217, 221, 
23S-237, 249. 252. 270, 304, 337; 
early legislation of, 329-333; jury 
under, 196-238; Normandy un- 
der, 156-195, 334. 335. 337, 338. 

HI, king of England, 189. 

V, 243. 

VI, 243. 

count of Eu, 293. 

abbot of Fecamp, 129, 134, 219, 

229, 326. 

de Ferri6res, 303. 

I, king of France, 45, 49, 268, 269, 

272, 275. 

of Huntingdon, 331. 

de Longchamp, 229. 

the marshal, 134, 152. 

de Moult, 328. 

of Pisa, cardinal priest of SS. Nereo 

ed Achilleo, legate, 173. 

de la Pommeraye, 88, 89. 

privSt, 108. 

de Kichebourg, 108. 

the Lion, duke of Saxony, 183. 

de Tilly, 335. 

earl of Warwick, 285, 324. 



358 



INDEX 



Henry, bishop of Winchester, 124, 303. 

the Young King, 183. 

Henton (co. Oxford), 332. 

Herbert, 96. 

bishop of Avranches, 127. 

count of Maine, 256. 

' Maloei,' 291. 

Poisson, 197. 

Herfast, chancellor of William I, 51-53. 

H6rils (Calvados), 224. 

Herluin, founder of Bee, 7, 10, 38, 266, 
272. 

priest of Dives, 321. 

Hermann ' AngUcus,' 328. 

H6rouviIle (Calvados), 298. 

Hertfordshire, 301. 

Hervey, archdeacon of Lisieux, 321. 

son of Richard, 291. 

Hiesmois, 42, go, 186. 

Hildebert, bishop of Le Mans and arch- 
bishop of Tours, 131, 294. 

abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, 59. 

Hilduin, vicomte of Meulan, 256. 

Hinschius, P., 227. 

Hippeau, C, 96, 212, 247, 287. 

Hoel, 291. 

Hoffmann, M., 227. 

Honor, 17-19. 

Honorius H, Pope, 300. 

Hospital, Knights of the, 133. 

Hospites (hdtes), 254, 256, 259, 262, 327. 

Hostiarius, 51, 77, 163. 

Household, Capetian, 49; imperial, 50; 
of the Norman dukes, 49-58, 77, 114- 
121, 192, 275. 

Hubert de Port, 22. 

de Ryes, 22. 

Hugh, 291. 

d'Allemagne, 97. 

archdeacon, 7. 

de Bardeville, 261. 

Bardulf, 186. 

bishop of Bayeux, 17, 256, 259, 260, 

267, 272. 

de Bee, 121. 

Bigod, seneschal, 8, 13, 120, 300, 

303- 
de Bricqueville, 21. 



Hugh, abbot of Cerisy, 68. 

chancellor of Richard 11, 52. 

earl of Chester, 236, 338. 

de Clefs (Cleers), 146-148. 

de Conteville, 328. 

de Cressy, constable of Rouen, 327, 

334. 

bishop of fivreux, 256. 

of Flavigny, monk of Dijon and 

chronicler, 67, 74-76, 79, 266, 
267, 286. 

Gohun, 289. 

de Goumay, 92, 166, 177, 185, 219, 

311, 325, 326. 
de Guilleio, 294. 

d'Ichelunt, 289. 

d'lvry, butler, 50, 51. 

bishop of Lisieux, 321. 

de Longchamp, 185. 

I de Montfort, constable, 51. 

II de Montfort, 95, 96, 296, 315. 

Mursard, 69, 289, 290. 

Painel, 69. 

Payen, 63. 

de Revers, 63. 

of Amiens, archbishop of Rouen, 

109, 120, 121, 125, 129, 130, 138, 

146-148, 153, 172, 220, 226, 229, 

299, 302, 317. 

de Sorquainville, 262. 

dean of Saint-Martin, 147. 

Teillard, 321. 

archbishop of Tours, 133. 

vicomte, 91. 

son of William, 328. 

Humbert, monk, 286. 
Humphrey de Adevilla, 102. 

d'Aubigny, 102, 294. 

de BeuzeviUe, 139. 

de Bohun, seneschal, 22, 112, 121, 

162, 302, 303. 

fitz Odo, 162. 

' vetulus,' 263, 275. 

Hundul, son of Gosman, 261, 262. 
Hungerford (co. Berks), 295. 
Hunloph of MesmouUns, 287, 288. 
Hunnington (co. Lincoln), 236. 
Hunspath, 287, 288. 



INDEX 



359 



Iger de Lohf, 337. 

Ignauville (Seine-Inf.), 287, 288. 

nbert, marshal, 51. 

Imams, legate, 154. 

Imbart de la Tour, 36. 

Immunity, 25-27, 89, 140, 250-252. 

Ingouville (Calvados), 328. 

Ingouville (Seine-Inf.), 252. 

Innocent II, Pope, 91, 106, 203, 317, 318. 

Inquest, sworn, 47, 56, 58, 83, 105, 149, 
ISO, iSS. 169. iQij 329-333; inquest 
of 109 1, see Consueitidines el iusticie; 
Sayeux inquest of 1133, 15, 16, 20, 23, 
85, 109, 202, 212, 222; Bayeux in- 
quests imder Geoffrey and Henry II, 
204-215; Inquest of Sheriffs, 160, 330; 
other inquests under Henry II, 8, 9, 
24, 44, 159-161, 188, 191, 215-222, 
243, 285, 337-339; under Philip Au- 
gustus, 173. See Jury. 

Investiture, 73. 

Ireland, 49. 

Isembert, bemer, 82. 

chaplain, and abbot of La Trinity, 

SI, 262, 268, 270, 275. 

Isigny (Calvados), 213. 

Italy, Normans in, 23, 61; sworn inquest 
in, 227, 232-234; Italian (?) ship- 
master of Henry I, 122. See Sicily. 

lurea regalis, 160, 243. 

lustaldus, derk, 261. 

Ives, or Ivo, bishop of Chartres, 79. 

TaiUebois, 70, 285. 

Ivry (Eure), 245. 

Jamison, Evelyn, 23, 232. 

Jenkinson, H., 195, 242. 

Jersey, 271. 

Jerusalem, 266, 268, 269, 273. 

John, count of Alenjon, 336. See John, 

count of Ponthieu. 
bishop of Avranches and arch- 
bishop of Rouen, 18, 272, 337. 

of Beaiunont, 92. 

de Cartot, 335. 

cellarer, 289. 

of Coutances, archdeacon of Rouen, 

33S. 



John Cumin, 167. 

king of England, 187, 189, 190, 193- 

19s, 198, 242, 243. 
d'£raines, archdeacon of the Hies- 

mois, 184, 335, 336. 
abbot of Fficamp, 29, 57, 258, 262, 

263. 

de Gavray, 323. 

Grossus, 291. 

knight, 291. 

archdeacon of Lisieux, 173. 

bishop of Lisieux and justiciar of 

Henry I, 87-90, 92, 94-100, 107, 

no, 129, 130, 146, 163, 294, 297, 

299, 302, 30s, 3°7, 321. 

de Lunda, 92. 

of Marmoutier, 128, 132, 155, 193. 

marshal, 307. 

son of Odo of Bayeux, 294, 296. 

peril, 172. 

count of Ponthieu, 91, 328, 334. 

Rubi, 295. 

of Salisbury, 330-332. 

bishop of Sfiez, 13, 96, 299, 300, 

306, 314, 316. 

usher, 299. 

treasurer of York, 331. 

Jordan de I'fipesse, 172. 

de la Lande, 180, 335, 336. 

de Sai, 297, 298. 

de Sully, 321. 

Taisson, 167, 172, 220, 323. 

Joslin of Bailleul, 307. 

succentor of Bayeux, 225. 

Rosel or Rusel, 326, 335. 

of Tours, 138, 145, 146. 

vicomte, 263. 

Joui (Aisne), 45. 

Jouvelin-Thibault, J., 68. 

Judith, wife of Richard II, 59. 

Juhel, 92. 

Jumi6ges (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 7, 8, 17, 25, 
27. 28, 37, 42, 49, 50, 53, 59, 69, 71, 87, 
91, 92, 109, 173, 229, 244, 247, 251, 
253, 257, 265, 272, 273, 290-292. 
Abbots: Guntaid, Urse, WiUiam. 

Junguen€, archbishop of Dol, 261, 262, 
27s. 



36o 



INDEX 



Jurisdiction, baronial, 22, 24-30, 89, 97, 
103. ISO. 166, 172, 184, 187, 228-230, 
278, 279; ducal, 27-30, 89, 97, 170- 
174, 186-189, 278, 279; ecclesiastical, 
30-37, 104, 170-174, 18s, 321-323, 
327, 337, 341- See CourU, Curia, 
Inquest. 

Jury, 149, ISO, 169, 188, 189, 195-238, 
329-332. 

Justices, S7. 83, 87-105, 148-150, 163- 
169, 173, 179-188, 194, 199, 205-219, 
221, 228, 323-328, 334-336- 

Justiciar, chief, 57, 58, 87-99, "4, 127, 
146, iSS, 163-166, 189, 323-326. 

Kent, 235. 

Knight, equipment of, 20; knight's fee, 

8-19, 24, 186, 192; knight service, 

7-24. 
Korting, G., 268, 269. 
Kroell, M., 26. 

La Borderie, A. de, 261. 

La Carboni&ie (Seine-Inf.), 255. 

La Cava &)rovince of Salerno), 234. 

La Croisille (Eure), 228. 

La Croix (Manche), 7. 

La Fert6-en-Brai (Seine-Inf.), 153, 312. 

La Fert6-Fresnel (Ome), 313. 

Lagouelle, H., 7. 

La Haie-Pesnel (Manche), 342. 

La Hougue (Manche), 124. 

Laigle (Ome), 312, 313. 

La Lande (Manche), 21. 

Laleu (Ome), 299, 301. 

La Luzerne (Manche), abbey, 338, 340, 

342- 
Lancashire, 235. 
La Neuve-Lire (Eure), 297. 
Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, 30, 

32, S7- 
Laon (Aisne), 87, 175. 
Lappenberg, J. M., 26. 
Larderer, 116, 182. 
Larson, L. M., 55. 
La Rue, G. de, 246. 
Latouche, R., 48, 80. 
Lavidande (Manche), 21. 



Law, Norman, 4, 182, 189, 194, 243, 277. 

See Assize, Consueludines et msiicie. 

Courts, Jury, Legislation, Tris Ancien 

Coutumier. 
Lawrence, archdeacon, 324. 
Le Bosguet (Eure), 70. 
Le Brasseur, P., 281. 
Lecacheux, P., 243, 248. 
L€chaud£ d'Anisy, 197, 202, 221, 247, 

286. 
Le Faulq (Calvados), 224. 
Legates, papal, 154; see Albericus, 

Conon, Henry of Pisa, Imams. 
Legislation of Norman dukes, 4, 6, 85, 86, 

114, 120, 150, 158, 159, 169-171, 198- 

201, 211, 212, 218-220, 238, 276, 277, 

327, 329-333- 
Legras, H., 39, 48, 161, 242. 
Le Hardy, G., 62, 297. 
Le Hfiricher, E., 337, 339, 342. 
Le Homme (Calvados), 63. 
Le Homme (Manche, now L'lle-Marie), 

46, 274. 
Le Houlme (Ome), 34. 
Le Mans (Sarthe), 48, 146, 147, 205, 209, 

210, 316; chapter of, 81, 245. Bish- 
ops: Hildebert, William. 

La Couture, abbey, 304. 

Saint-Victor, priory, 245. 

Saint- Vincent, abbey, 69. 

Le Marais-Vemier (Eure), 229. 
Lenoir, Dom J., 218, 246, 247, 250, 255- 

258, 288, 297. 
Le P16, near Rouen (Seine-Inf.), 118, 144. 
Le Provost, A., 12, 15, 46, 140, 242, 247, 

248, 257, 265, 296. 
Leregant, 133. 
Les Andelys (Eure), 182. 
Le Sap (Ome), 172, 173, 219. 
Lessay (Manche), abbey of, 33, 132, 13s, 

138, 244, 315. 
Le Val de Port (Calvados), 224. 
Lexartum, 259. 
Liebermann, F., 3, 30, 37, 48, $$, IS, "4, 

17s, 176, 278-281, 339. 
Lieurey (Calvados), 302, 
Lieuvin, 108, 181, 186. 
Li^vres (Manche), 271. 



INDEX 



361 



320. 



"S. 



Lillebonne (Seine-Inf.), 81, 116; council 

of, 30-3S. 37, 46, 48, SS, 104. 170, 

276-279, 281, 310. 
Limoges (Haute-Vienne), 214. 
Limpiville (Seine-Inf.), 255. 
Lincoln, 81, 125, 126, 235-237, 

Bishops: Alexander, Robert. 
Lions-la-Foi£t (Eure), 119, 121, 

286, 320. 
Lire (Eure), abbey, 10, 72, 245, 246, 297, 

313, 33S- 

Lisiard, bishop of S€ez, 172. 

Lisieux (Calvados), 69, 124, 129, 134, 
136, 141, 143, 163, 168, 206, 291, 292, 
309> 313. 321-323; bishop of, 8, 14, 36, 
S7, 66, 76, no, IS3, 181, 187, 211, 274, 
321, 322, 342; chapter of, S9, i73; 
councils at, 32, 36, 38, 86, 309, 310; 
treasurer of, 130. Bishops: Amulf, 
Gilbert, Hugh, John, Ralph, William 
de Fad. 

leproseiy, 172. 

Saint-D£sir, abbey, 27, 133, 228, 

245- 
Littleton, Sir Thomas, 211. 
Liveries, court, 114-119. 
Loders (co. Dorset), 82, loi, 243. 
London, 48, 242, 317, 330, 331. Bishops: 

Gilbert Foliot, Gilbert the Universal. 

British Museunl, MSS. 79, 82, loi- 

104, 122, 174, 179, 243, 298, 309. 

Public Record Office, 90, 94, 197, 

203, 221, 242, 243, 248, 263, 303. 

St. Paul's, MSS. of, 89, 116, 161. 

Longchamps (Eure), 286. 
Longueville, 184,' 335. 
Longueville (Manche), 21. 
Longueville, Sainte-Foi de (Seine-Inf.), 

priory, 81,310. 
Longueville (Autils), Saint-Pierre de 

(Eure), priory of, Sg. 
Lonlai (Ome), abbey, 70, 77, 245. 
Loricarii, 119, 306, 307. 
Lorraine, 175, 176. 
Lot, F., 4, s, 36, 249, 2S7, 314- 
Louis the Pious, king and emperor, 25. 
Louis VI, king of France, 310, 311. 
VII, I2S, 130, 143. iS4> 205. 



Louis X, 190. 

abbot of Saint-Georges de Bocher- 

ville, 92. 
LouviSres (Calvados), 147, 211. 
Luchaire, A., 27, 48, 49, 311, 313, 314, 

316. 
Luchon (Calvados), 207. 
Lucia, countess of Chester, 236. 

wife of Jordan de Sai, 297. 

Lucius II, Pope, 15, 130, 202-205, 223. 

ni. Pope, 337. 

Liiders, W., 52. 

Luke, butler, 92, 336. 

son of Hervfi, 223, 224. 

Mabel, wife of Ralph de Mortemer, 291. 

Mabille, E., 136. 

Mabillon, Dom J., 257. 

Maeelina, abbess of Saint-Amand, 93. 

Magister mUiium, 51. 

Magna Carta, 185, 190. 

Maine, 80; institutions of, 27, 48, 82, 
146, 232, 330. Counts: Herbert, 
Robert Curthose. 

Maingisus, bishop of Avranches, 255, 256. 

Maitland, F. W., 3, 5-7, 22-24, 29, 37, 
SS. S6, 158, 165, 173, 185, 187, 194, 
196, 198, 220, 224, 227, 234, 238, 277- 
280, 329, 331. 

Malassis, near Gasny (Eure), 312. 

Mailing (co. Kent), abbey, 235. 

Manasses Bisset, seneschal, 162, 236. 

Manche, archives of the, 21, 59, 82, 93, 
100-104, 127, 128, 134, 138, 142, 147, 
148, 168, 172, 186, 187, 221, 222, 244- 
246, 270, 273, 280, 294, 296, 311, 315, 

319, 323, 324, 327, 3361 338. 

Mangon, Pierre, 100, 246. 

Manneville (Seine-Inf.), 255. 

Manonisvilla, 255. 

Mansi, Cardinal, 277. 

Mantes (Seine-et-Oise), 46. 

Manteyer, G. de, 143. 

Mantois, 316. 

Mark, 281. 

Markets and fairs, 39, 42, 49, 69, 70, 72, 
80, 93, loi, i8i, 182, 188, 191, 259, 
262, 286, 287, 289, 324, 337, 338. 



362 



INDEX 



Marlborough (co. Wilts), 126. 
Marmoutier (Indre-et-Loire), abbey, 18, 

32, 59, 69, 72, 134, 141, 24s, 247, 314, 

316. 
Marolles (Calvados), 172. 
Maromme (Seine-Inf.), 325. 
Marshal, 51, 89, 118, 119, 121, 152, 162, 

182, 192. 
MartSne, Dom E., 277, 281. 
Martin, scribe, 88. 
Marx, J., 265, 267, 270. 
Mathan (Calvados), 88; Marquis de, 

246. 
Matilda d'Avranches, lady of Le Sap, 

218, 219, 339. 

countess of Chester, 236. 

empress, 124, 130, 132, 136, 144, 

147, 151, 152, 222, 306, 316. 

queen, wife of Henry I of England, 

310. 

queen, wife of Stephen of Blois, 

124. 
queen, wife of William the Con- 
queror, 20, so, Sh S4> 68, 106, 
279. 
Matthew de Gerardivilla, 325. 

marshal, 328. 

du Moutier, 326. 

Mauduit chamberlainship, 113. 
Mauger de Beuzeval, 95. 

of Corbeil, 275. 

Maurice, 108. 

■ pugil,' 221. 

' de sigillo,' 162. 

Maurilius, archbishop of Rouen, 19. 
Mayer, E., 46, 232. 
Mayet (Sarthe), 129. 
Meister, A., 25. 
Merlet, R., 108. 
Merton priory (co. Surrey), 88. 
Mesnil-Don (Calvados), 63. 
Mesnil-Brey (Manche), 171, 218. 
Mesnil-Eudes (Calvados), 8, 130. 
Mesnil-Josselin (Eure), 312. 
Mesnil-Mauger (Calvados), 322. 
Metearius, 19. 

Meulan (Seine-et-Oise), 29, 93, 150, 247, 
256, Counts: Galeran, Robert. 



Meulan, Saint-Nicaise, priory, 295. 
Michael, bishop of Avranches, 22. 

abbot of Prfiaux, 166, 323, 324. 

Miles of Gloucester, 303, 305, 317. 

Mileto (province of Catanzaro), 233. 

Mills, ducal, 39, 43, 117. 

Ministri, ico, loi, 152. 

Mint, ducal, 106, 113, 256, 281. 

Mirebeau (Vieime), 133. 

Moeller, C, 75. 

Monasteries, control by duke, 36, 125; 

as holders of immunities and consuetu- 

dines, 25-30; military service of, 8-14; 

rights of bishops over, 337-343. 
MondeviUe (Calvados), 252. 
Moneyer, duke's, 152, 280, 281. 
Montbouin (Calvados), 63. 
Montebourg (Manche), abbey, 9, 80, 81, 

93, 100-103, I2S, 134, 13s, 139. 244- 

Abbot: Robert. 
Montfarville (Manche), loi. 
Montfaucon, B. de, 281, 340. 
Montfort (Eure), 72, 174, 224, 230, 315, 

327, 334. 336. 
Montgaroult (Ome), 151. 
Montivilliers (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 9, 10, 

29,43. 60, 24s, 251, 260, 266, 272, 273, 

27S- 
Montmartin (Calvados), 209. 
Montmorel (Manche), abbey, 339, 340. 

Prior: Ralph. 
Montpin£on (Calvados), 16. 
Montreuil-Bellay (Maine-et-Loire), 131, 

137. 147- 
Montreuil-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais), 45. 
Mont-Saint-Michel (Manche), abbey, 

7, 9, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 32-35, 59, 

69. 71. 74. 78, 128, 153, 161, 191, 227, 

228, 244, 247, 248, 261, 273, 277, 337- 

341, 343- Abbots: Hildebert, Robert 

of Torigni. 
Moiin, Dom G., 66. 
Morin Planchun, 327. 
Morris, W. A., 46. 
Morsalines (Manche), 102. 
Mortain (Manche), 124, 129, 168, 294, 

314; count of, 29, 48, 54, 57, 127, 187. 

Counts; Robert, Stephen, William, 



INDEX 



363 



Mortain, Dames Blanches, abbey, 127, 

34°- 

Notre-Dame, priory, 126, 340. 

Samt-£vroul, collegiate church, 

126, 342. 
Mortemer (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 134, 182, 

205, 222, 319. Abbot: Wilham. 
Moulins (Ome), 43. 
Moult (Calvados), 328. 
Moutons (Manche), convent, 127, 340. 
Muriel d'Amblie, 262.' 

N' (?), bishop of Meaux, 171. 

Neal, or Nigel, 41. 

d'Aubigny, 12, 90, 294, 295, 311. 

monk, 294. 

seneschal of Mortain, 168, 185. 

d'Oilly, 63. 

nephew of Roger, bishop of Salis- 
bury, and bishop of Ely, 108, 
114, 120, 229. 

vicomtes of Saint-Sauveur, 7, 46, S7, 

103, 256, 263, 274, 276. 

Wireker, 181. 

Neaufles-Saint-Martin (Eure), 32, 46, 70, 
310. 

Neubourg (Eure), 312. 

Neufchatel (Seine-Inf.), 184, 334. 

NeuiUy (Calvados), 213. 

Neville (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 

Newton-on-Trent (co. Lincoln), 236. 

Nicaea, 266. 

Nicholas d'Estouteville, 219, 325. 

abbot of Saint-Ouen, 68, 70. 

des Veys, 167, 323. 

Niese, H., 227, 232. 

Nigel, see Neal. 

Nogent-le-Rotrou (Eure-et-Loir), 245. 

Nonancourt (Eure), 140, 144, 149, 151, 
152. 

Norgate, Kate, 128, 130, 174, 316. 

Norman, archdeacon of Lisieux, 173, 
321, 322. 

Peignard, 291. 

Jformandy, feudalism in, 5-30; Prank- 
ish institutions in, s, 25, 48, 54, 196, 
197, 227; local government in, 45-48; 
municipal institutions of, 48, 49; in 



the Plantagenet empire, 156; rela- 
tions with England, see England; 
with France, see France; Scandinavian 
influence on, 5, 28, 65, 279, 281. 
See especially Church, Courts, Duke, 
Exchequer, Law. Dukes: Geoffrey, 
Henry I, II, John, Richard I, II, III, 
IV (Coeur de Lion), Robert I, II, 
Stephen, WilUam Longsword, William 
the Conqueror, William Rufus. 

Nostell (co. York), 314. 

Notre-Dame-du-D6sert (Eure), priory, 
317- 

Notre-Dame-du-Parc (Seine-Inf.), 70. 

Odard, seneschal of Meulan, 295. 

Odilo, abbot of Cluny, 275. 

Odo of Bayeux, 99. 

bishop of Bayeux, is~i8, 22, 34, 

66-68, 7S, 76, ISO, 201, 204, 208, 

212, 225, 226, 292. 

count of Brittany, 57. 

chancellor, 52 j 

constable, 50. 

of Falaise, 163. 

hostiarius, 163. 

moneyer, 281. 

sheriff of Pembroke, 305. 

abbot of Saint-£tienne, 34, 94-96, 

294. 

seneschal, 83. 

son of Thurstin du Cotentin, 68. 

de Vaac, 336. 

vicomte, 63. 

Odoin de Malpalu, Serjeant, 117. 
OffranviUe (Seine-Inf.), 291. 
Oise, archives of the, 67, 317. 
Oissel-sur-Seine (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 
Oliver d'Aubigny, 139. 
Omont, H., 201, 246, 247. 
Orbec (Calvados), 46. 
Ordeal, 31, 34, 35, 56, 58, 88, 267. 
Ordericus VitaUs, 18, 62, 64, 65, 78-80, 
86-88, 113, 128, 132, 241, 268, 270, 272. 
Orford (co. Suffolk), 235. 
Ome, archives of the, 12, 19, 24, 46, 
173. 179, 187, 228, 244-246, 315, 328, 
33S. 336. 



364 



INDEX 



Osbern, Osbert, archdeacon of Bayeux, 

34- 

abbot of Bemai, 292. 

de Cailly, 92, 145. 

clerk, 332. 

Giffard, 77. 

son of Gosman, 262. 

de la Heuse, constable of Cher- 
bourg, 152, 167, 180. 

de-Pont-de I'Arche, 108, 114. 

priest, 70. 

seneschal, 50, $1, 263, 274, 275. 

archdeacon of York, 331. 

Osmund d'Arri, 180. 

chancellor of William the Con- 
queror, S3, 54- 

Drengot, 268. 

Vasce, 171, 218, 238. 

Ouen, sons of, 262. 

Postel, 92. 

Ouistreham (Calvados), 69. 

Ourville (Seine-Inf.), 260. 

Outlaws, 188, 279, 324. 

Oxford, Bodleian Library, 298. 

Pagus, 46. 

Palestine tax, 159. 

Palgrave, Sir Francis, 234, 265. 

Pantler, pantry, ducal, at Rouen, 117, 
182. 

Parage, 22, 159. 

Paris, G., 269-271. 

Master, 335. 

Paris, 330; Archives Nationales, 19, 31, 
S8, 59, 89, 93, 94, 101-103, 134, 147, 
152, 170, 218, 243, 246, 272, 273, 29s, 

297i 312. 325- 

Biblioth^ue Mazarine, MSS. at, 

68, 318. 

Bibliothdque Nationale, MSS. at, 

S-7, 12. IS. 19, 27, 29, 30, 32, 3S, 
37. 42, 46, S2, S3, 58. 60, 63, 68- 
70, 72, 80-82, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 
96, 98, 100-103, IDS, 106, 108- 
iio, 117, 126, 127, 130-134, 139, 

141, 143, 144, 148, IS2, 161, 162, 

165, 172, 173, 179, 182, 188, 193, 

197, 201, 202, 218, 219, 223, 227, 



243-248, 250, 2S3, 255-258, 273, 

274, 281, 285, 288-292, 295-300, 
302, 304, 305, 307, 310, 312, 318, 
319, 321, 324-327, 334-336, 338. 

Paris, Bibliothdque Sainte-GeneviSve,4i'. 

98, 109, 247. 

Jesuits' Library, 246, 297. 

Saint-Magloire, abbey, 45. 

Saint-Martin-des-Champs, 245. 

Paschal II, Pope, 66. 
Patrick, earl of Salisbury, 219. 
Patti (province of Messina), 234. 
Pavilly (Seine-Inf.), 256. 
Payne Beauchamp, 299. 

de Clairvaux, 139, 145, 209, 210. 

de Granville, 322. 

fitz John, 303. 

de Mfidavy, 91. 

Peasants, revolt of, in 996, 182. 
Penli (Seine-Inf.), 259. 
Perche, 45. Count: Rotrou. 
PerriSres (Calvados), priory, 173. 
Perrot, E., 89, 161, 187. 
Peter, 108. 

of Bassonville, 291. 

of Blois, 182. 

Brown, iii. 

abbot of Cluny, 154. 

hermit, 273. 

squire, 291. 

Petit-Dutaillis, C, 48. 

Petitville (Seine-Inf.), 260, 261. 

Petra, G. de, 23. 

Pevrel de Beauchamp, 299. 

Pfister, C, 44, 257, 265. 

PhiUp I, king of France, 29, 44, 45, 49, 52, 

64, 72, 79- 
II (Augustus), 12, 178, r8o, 185, 

193. 195. 243, 336. 
d'Harcourt, bishop of Bayeux, 66, 

109, 129, 137, 146, 147, 149. IS3. 

167, 203-216, 222-225. 
d'Alenfon, archbishop of Rouen, 

244. 

brother of Vitalis, 167. 

Philippa Rosel, 174. 
Pickering (co. York), 235. 
Pierreval (Seine-Inf.), 70. 



INDEX 



36s 



Pigeon, E. A., 19, 337, 339, 340. 

Filatenses, 92. 

Pilgrims, 28, 35. 

Pimpeme (co. Dorset), 295. 

Pincerna, see Butler. 

Pipe Rolls, 40, 107, 114, IIS, 121, 158, 

177, 184, 188, 191, 237. 
Pippin of Tours, 138, 145, 220. 
Piienne, H., 44, 53- 

Pissy (Seine-Inf.), 253, 25^, 

Placita treuge, 37. 

Pleas, of the crown or sword, 28, 29, 89, 

104, 153, 186-188, 191, 278, 279; 

various, 182. 
Plessis-Grimoult (Calvados), 16, 17, 129, 

244. 
Plow, peace of the, 28, 6s, 187. 
Poissy (Seine-et-Oise), 45. 
Pollard, A. F., i8s. 
Pollock, Sir Frederick, see Maitland, 

F.W. 
Pontarlier (Doubs), 73. 
Pontaudemer (Eure), 127, 168, 244, 315. 
Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure), 81, 82. 
Ponthieu, 90, 91, 97, 98, 124. Counts: 

Enguerran, Guy, John, William. 
Pontoise (Seine-et-Oise), 24s. 
Pont-Saint-Pierre (Eure), 313. 
Poole, R. L., 40, 106, III, 114-116, 131, 

171, 174-177. 
Porchester (co. Hants), 113. 
Por€e, E., 249. 
Port, C, 20s. 
Portsmouth (co. Hants), 12s, 312, 315, 

317- 
Possession, protection of, 89, 104, 189. ' 
Poupardin, R., 136, 137, 247, 316. 
Powicke, F. M., 22, 28, 37, 46, 89, los, 

119, 123, 146, isi, IS7. 160, 161, 176- 

178, 187, 191, 193, 231, 232, 338, 339. 
Prfiaux (Eure), abbey, 7, la, 17, 29, 30, 

SO, 70-72, 134, 148, 166, 172, 226, 228, 
229, 244, 273, 279, 324, 32s. Abbots: 
Ansfred, Michael. 

Pi^aux (Seine-Inf.), 153. 

Freisia, 186. 

Prentout, H., 4, s, 26, 39, 232, 241, 2S0. 

Presentation, 171-174, 179, 218, 332, 333. 



Prfivost, M., 160. 

Prevdt, prSvSte, 41-44, 47, los, 106, 151, 

177, 182. 
Procurator, 51, 168. 
Prou, M., 44, 48, 49, 52, 72, 136. 
Pseudo-Isidore, 30. 

Quatre-Puits (Calvados), 63. 
Quettehou (Manche), 63. 
Quillebeuf (Eure), 229. 

R., son of Richard, 94. 

Rabasse, M., 6. 

Rabel, 268, 27s. 

son of Joslin, 92. 

of Tancarville, 94, 109, 300, 302. 

Radford, L. B., 330, 331. 

Radulfus, see Ralph. 

Raginaldus, Rainald, see Reginald. 

Rainier, abbot, 262. 

Ralph fitz Anserfi, 69, 90-92. 

son of Ansfred, 95. 

d'Arri, chancellor of Robert Curt- 
hose, 67, 74. 

de Beaumont, 92. 

de Bee, 70. 

du Bosc-Lehard, 92. 

butler, 297. 

Calcaterra, 92. 

archbishop of Canterbury, 294, 29s, 

3i3>3iS; fee oistf Ralph, abbot of 
S^ez. 

de Conches, 68. 

de Courlandon, 63. 

bishop of Coutances, 287. 

de Diceto, 176, 193. 

de Duclair, 291. 

priest of £paignes, 324. 

de Fleury, canon of Lisieux, 322. 

de Fougfires, 311. 

son of Fulbert, 97. 

Glaber, 266. 

de Grainville, 289. 

de la Haie, 33s. 

of Hastings, iii. 

son of Herluin, 20. 

de Hotot, 96. 



366 



INDEX 



Ralph d'lvry, i8. 

de Juvigny, 96. 

de Lisieux, clerk, 328. 

Maisnier, 328. 

du Marchfi, 108. 

de Marchia, cook, 116. 

marshal, 291. 

Martel, 328. 

moneyer, 280. 

prior of Montmorel, 339. 

de Mortemer, 291, 292. 

de la Mouche, 171, 218. 

Mowinus, 268. 

Pinter (?), 295. 

Piquet (?), 29s. 

son of Raimbold, 92. 

son of Robert, 92. 

le Robeur (Forbeur ?), 118. 

nephew of Roger, 96. 

de Rupierre, 328. 

abbot of S6ez, 288, 289; see also 

Ralph, archbishop of Canter- 
bury. 

son of Serlo, 322. 

Taisson, 24, 96, 287, 334. 

of Tancarville, chamberlain, 41, 50, 

SI, 27S- 

de Thaon, sons of, 323. 

de Toeni, 292, 297. 

de Tomeio, 173. 

son of Urselin, 326. 

de Valmont, 129. 

de Varaville, 321. 

de VameviUe (Wanneville), chan- 

cellor of Henty II and bishop of 
Lisieux, 180, 181, 224. 

' vastans granum,' 291. 

de Vitot, 297. 

de Wallamint, 335. 

Ramsay, Sir James, 125, 128, 177, 309. 
Ramsey abbey (co. Huntingdon), 161, 

310, 317, 320. 
RanuU, 322. 
de Bourguenolles, 337. 

cellarer, 321. 

chancellor of Henry I, 294, 29s, 

310. 
earl of Chester, 22, 236. 



Ranulf de Ducy, 294. 

Flambard, bishop of Durham, 66, 

76, 81, 87, 287. 

de Grandval, 180. 

brother of Iger, 63. 

moneyer, 280. 

des Pieux (de Fodiis), 71. 

Rufell, 323. 

scribe. III. 

de Tessel and sons, 96. 

vicomte, 63. 

Ranville (Calvados), 63, 298. 
Raoul, see Ralph. 
Reading (co. Berks), 315, 316. 
Recognition, 149, 188, 196-238. 
Regarders of forests, 102, 103, 117, 

118. 
Reginald of Arganchy, 95. 

vicomte of Arques, 258, 260, 261. 

son of Asa, 95. 

chaplain, 52. 

earl of Cornwall, 132, 306, 307. 

de Cortenay, 329. 

son of the count, 307. 

de Gerponville, 167, 219. 

Landun, 63. 

d'Orval, 287, 315. 

de Saint-Philbert, 326. 

de Saint- Valery, 130, 133, 140, 145- 

148, iS3> 162, 166, 167, 206, 211- 
21S, 23O1 326. 

' Vulpis,' 92. 

Regino of Priim, 227. 

Relief, 19, 21, 22. 

Rfimilly (Manche), 298. 

Renouard, Ch&teau de (Calvados), 313. 

Rfiville (Manche), 94. 

Rheims (Mame), 132; council, 313. 

Riant, P., 270. 

Richard d'Angerville, 102, 103. 

d'Argences, 194, 328, 335, 336. 

Avenel, 336. 

I (de Beaufage), bishop of Avran- 

ches, 120, 126, 127, 129. 

Ill, bishop of Avranches, 338. 

mcomte of Avranches, 58. 

de Babainvilla, 323. 

Basset, 303, 



INDEX 



367 



Richard II (fitz Samson), bishop of Ba- 

yeux, IS, 90, 96, 137, 201, 226, 

294, 296, 297, 299. 
in (of Kent, son of Robert, earl of 

Gloucester), bishop of Bayeux, 

34, 120, 203, 225. 

de Beaufou, 7. 

Beverel, 219. 

de Bohun, chancellor of Geoffrey 

Plantagenet and Henry II, 131, 

136-138, 162, 220; see Richard 

n, bishop of Coutances. 

de Boiavilla, 20. 

Bustel, 291. 

chaplain, 294. 

earl of Chester, 294. 

of Cornwall, 224. 

de Courcy, 63. 

I, bishop of Coutances, 94, 96, loi, 

102, 298. 
n, bishop of Coutances, 326, 327; 

see Richard de Bohun. 

de CuUei, 11. 

Deri, 336. 

de Dives, 321. 

I (Coeur deLion), king of England, 

177, 179. 183, 189, 190. 193, i94> 

334, 336, 338. 

d'fivreux, 109. 

count of fivreux, 29. 

Faiel, 219. 

Giffard, 180, 184, 334. 

de la Haie, 139, 145-148, 162, 207, 

209, 210. 

Haitie, 328. 

Harela, 289. 

son of Henry, 335, 336. 

de Herbouville, 229. 

son of Herluin, 63. 

du Hommet, constable, 162, 166, 

324, 336. 
— ■- — son of Humphrey, 229. 

de Lucy, 127, 299, 310, 331. 

de Montigny, 335. 

Musel, 328. 

fitz Neal, 176; see Dialogue on the 

Exchequer. 



Richard I (the Fearless), duke of Nor- 
mandy, 2S, 42. 49, S5, 250-254. 

II (the Good), 5, 7, 9, 25-27, 32, 35, 

40-45, 48-53, 55, 56, S9, "6, 
177,261,286; chartersof, 52, 59, 
60, 92, 250-258, 263, 264, 266, 
272, 274, 280. 

Ill, 256, 265, 267, 268. 

IV, see Richard I of England. 

Ospinel, 335. 

proconsid, 22. 

de Revers, 87, 103. 

son of Richer of Laigle, 291. 

son of Robert earl of Gloucester, 

107, 167, 323. 

archdeacon of Rouen, 292, 293. 

de Saint- Vannes, abbot of Verdun, 

266, 267. 

abbot of Savigni, 323. 

brother of Serlo, 88. 

' sigiUi custos,' 311. 

Silvain, 180, 336. 

Talbot, 326. 

de Vauville, 139, 220. 

de Vaux, vidame of Bayeux, 167. 

vicomte, 263. 

son of William, 68. 

of Ilchester, bishop of Winchester, 

174-176, 180, 192, 195, 328, 334. 
Richer de Laigle, 172. 
Richer', 186. 

Richmond, countess of, 181. 
Rievaulx abbey (co. York), 235. 
Riville (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 
Robert, son of Alward, 68. 

son of Anquetil, 292. 

des Authieux, archdeacon of Lisi- 

eux, 322. 

Belfit, 328. 

of Belleme, 19, 24, 46, 87, 88, 105, 

293, 311- 

fitz Bernard, 96, 167, 323. 

Bertram, 229. 

Blund, 34. 

de Bonebos, 63. 

Boquerel, constable of Mortain, 

168. 
Bordel, 139. 



368 



INDEX 



Robert de Bothes, 20. 

de Brucourt, 179. 

butler, 275. 

Carbonel, 96. 

chamberlain, so- 

de Chanteloup, 21. 

chaplain, 51. 

de Chemelles, 323. 

Chevalier, 219. 

Clarel, 328. 

de Courcy, seneschal, 88-90, 94, 

95. 99. 107, 120, 139, 14S-149, 
162, 206, 207, 210, 220, 222, 307. 

bishop of Coutances, 6, 262. 

de Curie, 335. 

de Denestanville, 289. 

son of Dodo, 291. 

Doisnel, 82, 287. 

son of Dut, 291. 

fitz Emeis, 210. 

count of Eu, 66, 87. 

d'fivreux, 88, 89, 108-110, 126. 

archdeacon of fivreux, 109. 

archdeacon of Exeter, 120. 

Filleul, 92. 

abbot of Fontenay, 323, 336. 

II, king of France, 29, 44, 45, 251, 

2S3. 256, 257. 

Frella, 95. 

de Freschenes, 326. 

son of Fulcher, 299. 

de Genz, 63. 

son of G€r6, 219. 

earl of Gloucester, 17, 96, loi, 102, 

106, 120, 121, 129, 132, 197, 201, 
202, 294, 299, 301, 303, 308. 

de Grainville, 95, 96. 

Grentemesnil, 287. 

de Guemai, 299. 

de Guz, 63. 

de la Haie, seneschal and justiciar, 

88-90, 94-96, 99, loi, 102, 108, 
121, 146, 294, 300, 302. 

fitz Haimeri, 166, 219, 324. 

d'Harcourt, 335, 336. 

Harenc, 326. 

de Havilla, 162, 262. 

de Hgtot, 95. 



Robert, brother of Hugh, 91. 

Ivi Maisnerii, 291. 

de Juvigny, 324, 325. 

earl of Leicester, in, 120, 121, 127, 

29s. 297, 300. 

de Leuga, 328. 

bishop of Lincoln, 79, 237. 

chaplain of Lisieux, 88. 

dean of Lisieux, 322. 

loricarius, 306, 307. 

Marin, 210. 

Marmion, 287, 333. 

de Martinvast, 220. 

son of Matilda, 325. 

Mauduit, chamberlain, 113. 

coimt of Meulan, 29, 68, 70, 76, 83, 

87, 90-92, 229, 279, 28s, 292, 
293. 297, 3". 321- 

■ money-changer, 152. 

monk, 286. 

de Montbrai, 63. 

abbot of Montebouig, 335. 

de Montfort, 68, 76, 138, 173, 221, 

287. 

of Mortain, son of William of Bee, 

288, 290. 

count of Mortain, 57, 285. 

fitz Neal, 220. 

de Neufbourg, seneschal and justi- 
ciar, 92, loi, 107, 134, 138, 142, 
145-149. 162, 165-167, 206, 207, 
214-217, 220, 230, 297, 321, 323, 
324- 

de NeuviUe, 149. 

Neveu, 327. 

I (the Magnificent), duke of Nor- 
mandy, 10, 29, 32, 33, 38, 43, so- 
55. 59. 71, 87, 103, 116, 250, 236; 
charters of, 4, 7, 26, 29, 33, 41, 
42, 251, 2s8r-263, 26s, 266, 272- 
275. 337; sources for his reign, 
263-276. 

II (Curthose), duke of Normandy, 

22, 37. 43. 46, 78-80, 8s, 86, 92, 
267, 278; charters of, 66-78, 80, 
82, 250, 285-292; date of ac- 
cession, 67; Normandy under, 
62-78. 



INDEX 



369 



Robert d'Oilly, S4, 3°3- 

Pantolf, 63. 

Peche, bishop of Litchfield, 115, 

294. 

de Pessi, 325. 

Pigache, 167. 

pincema, i86. 

Poisson, 324. 

porter, 9S. 

priest, 291. 

Pychart, 328. 

fitz Kalph, 162, 299. 

archbishopof Rouen, 27,33,63,190, 

251-253, 256, 262, 267, 273-275. 

chaplain at Rouen, 118. 

dean of Rouen, 325. 

fitz Roy, son of Henry I, 339. 

abbot of Saint-Andi^-en-Gouffem, 

328. 

abbot of Saint-£vroul, 218. 

de Sainte-Honorine, 323. 

scribe, S3. 

bishop of S^ez, 22; of. 96. 

canon of S&z, 307. 

seneschal, 50. 

'de sigillo,' 96, 106, 107, 119, 120, 

299> 303, 306, 307. 
of Stokes, 299. 

de Thaon, 323, 324. 

son of Thurstin, 289. 

of Torigni, abbot of Mont-Saint- 
Michel, 78, 79, 128, 132, 158, 
176, 203, 241, 270, 278, 339. 

de Totes, 296. 

de Turpo, 94. 

d'Ussy, 90. 

d'Uz, 63. 

de Vains, 179. 

de Valognes, 139, 220. 

de Vera, constable, 93, 103, 107, 

121, 308. 

vicomte, 305. 

de Warwick, 219. 

de Wesneval, 92. 

bishop of Worcester, 336. 

Roca, ' pons de ', 19. 
Roclenus, bishop of Chalon-sur-Sadne, 
286. 



Rocquancourt (Calvados), 210, 212. 
Rodulfus, 255, 261, 286; see Ralph. 
Rohricht, R., 141. 
Rossler, O., 125, 132. 
Roger, earl, 332. 
son of Ainus, 173. 

'generAlberti,' and his family, 120, 

121, 298, 299. 
son of Amisus, canon of Lisieux, 

322. 

d'Arri, clerk, 167, 180, 335, 336. 

d'Avesnes, 63. 

de Beaumont, 22, 28, 57, 68, 70, 

321. 

abbot of Bee, 166. 

de Bocquenc€, 12. 

Brito, 307. 

Brun, III. 

: of ' Bumes,' 121. 

cellarer, 328. 

chamberlain, 95, 128. 

de Clairvaux, 153. 

de Clera, 19. 

bishop of Coutances, 294. 

dispenser, 63. 

de Dotvilla, dean, 322. 

d'fipinay, 321. 

de Fecamp, chaplain, 107, 110, iii. 

abbot of Fgcamp, 90. 

Filleul, 328. 

brother of Gilbert, abbot of Caen, 

68. 

Goulafre, 9, 219. 

de Gratte Panche, 91. 

earl of Hereford, 4. 

hostiarius, 51. 

de Hotot, dean, 322. 

d'lviy, butler, 50, 77. 

larderer of Henry I, iij. 

de Lassi, 77. 

de Lesprevier, 229. 

Mahiel, 326. 

de Mandeville, 98, 100. 

Marmion, 95, 96, 294. 

MauCouronne, dispenser, 77. 

de Monnay, 219. 

de Montgomery, 22, S4, 94, 273- 

de Montieuil, 321. 



37P 



INDEX 



Roger de Montviron, 299. 

de Pavilly, 92. 

Peilevilain, 97. 

son of Peter of Fontenay, 9s. 

prior, 291. 

de Rufo Campo, 104. 

de Saint-Laurent, 291. 

abbot of Saint-Ouen, 166. 

de Saint-Wandrille, 321. 

abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 166. 

bishop of Salisbury, 125, 136, 235, 

303- 
de Scilletot, 289. 

' de scuteUa,' 63. 

secrelarius, 68. 

II, king of Sicily, 23, iii, 112, 144, 

233. 234- 

Suhart, 103, 104. 

Terricus, 188. 

treasurer, 106, 120. 

vicomte, 96. 

vicomte of Saint-Sauveur, 91, 127. 

Roland, archbishop of Dol, 292. 

d'Oissel, 118. 

Rollo, 7. 

duke of Normandy, 10. 

Rolls, Norman, 138, 159, 193, 194, 242, 

243;, Exchequer, passim. 
Rome, and the Norman church, 30, 36, 

125, 154; see Legates, and the indi- 
vidual Popes. 

Rosay (Seine-Inf.), 81, 82. 

Roscelin, son of Clarembaud, 326. 

Rosel (Calvados), 228. 

Rotrou, bishop of fivreux, archbishop of 

Rouen, ajid justiciar of Henry II, 166, 

167, 172, 21S, 216, 218, 219, 230, 237, 

322, 325-327. 

count of Perche, 121, 294. 

Rotselinus, chamberlain, 50. 

Rouen (Seine-Inf.), 16, 39, 5$, 69, 75, 80, 

8i, 87, 90-92, 101-103, 107, 108, I2S, 

126, 128-130, 133, 134, 136, 140-144, 
148, 150, IS9, 162, 163, 165-168, 171, 
176, 184, 186, 205, 208, 216, 219, 237, 
2S3f 2S4, 256, 266, 280, 281, 293, 295- 
297. 300, 3°4-3°6, 309-320, 325, 326, 
334-336; archbishop, 6-8, 32, 33, 57, 



87, III, 173, 179, 181, 250-252, 263, 
342; archdeacons, 68, 87; chapter, 41, ^ 
70, 82, 107, 109, no, 134, 147-149. 
180, 221, 273, 305; cordwainers of, 
126, 134, 144, 318; councils at, 6, 28, 
33. 37, 6S, 66, 170, 294, 316; MSS. at, 
21, 30. 37, SS, 70, 81, 90, 109, no, 118, 
133, 134, 144, 166, 168, 172, 179, 180, 
188, 190, 221, 228, 229, 243-246, 250, 
257, 272, 273, 281, 288, 289, 294, 318, 
33S, 342 {see also Seine-Inffirieure); 
mint, 280; modiatio, 43, 45; modius, 
115,120; Palmers, 134; park of duke, 
68, 105; town of, 48, 86, 134, 135, 144, 
148, 150-153, 187, 221; treasurer at, 
180. Archbishops: Geoffrey, Hugh, 
John, Maurilius, Philip, Robert, Ro- 
trou, William. Archdeacons: Bene- 
dict, Fulbert, Gerard, John, Richard, 
Urse. 
Rouen, La Trinit6-du-Mont, abbey, 9, 26, 
70, 87, 244, 248, 251, 273. Ab- 
bot: Walter. 

Mont-aux-Malades, priory, 

142, 151, 326. 

Notre-Dame-du-Pr€, priory, 

104, 105, 133, 138, 303. 

Saint-Amand, abbey, 7, 10, 20, 26, 

43. 45. Si, 93. 134, 140, 151, 229, 
244, 251, 273, 295, 314. Ab- 
besses: Emma, Maeelina. 

Saint-Cande-le-Vieux, chapelry, 

no. 

Saint-Gervais, church, 251, 263, 

326. 

Saint-Jacques, hospital, 325. 

Saint-Ouen, abbey, 7, 9, 19, 26, 27, 

SO, 52, 58, 59. 70, 81,87, 131. 134. 
229, 244, 250, 274, 335. Abbots: 
Nicholas, Roger. 
Roumare (Seine-Inf.), 93, 105, 160. 

Earl (of Lincoln) : WiUiam. 
Roumois, 181. 

Round, J. H., 3, 8, 18, 19, 22, 40, 49, 51, 
57, 81, 82, 88, 95, loo, 106, 107, m, 
113, 114, n6, 117, 120, 131-133, 160, 
177, 188, 200, 221, 242, 248, 263, 264, 
286, 294, 306, 309, 3n, 314-317, 329. 



134. 



68, 



INDEX 



371 



Rouvres (Calvados), 63. 
Ruallon de Sai, 138, 323. 

Sackur, E., 10. 

St. Albans abbey (co. Herts), 314. 

Saint-Andi€-en-Gouffem (Calvados), ab- 
bey, 130, 134, 142, 151, 229, 244, 306, 
319. Abbot: Robert. 

St. Aubert, 340. 

Saint-Aubert-sur-Ome (Ome), 280. 

Saint-Aubin (Seine-Inf.), 258. 

Sainte-Barbe (Calvados), priory, 94, 108- 
110, 183, 316, 322. Prior: William. 

Saint-Benolt-sur-Loire, abbey, 29, 24s, 
274. 

Saint-Clair-sur-Epte(Seiiie-et-Oise),3i2. 

Saint-CjT-de-Saleme (Eure), 70. 

Saint-Denis (Seine), abbey, 9, 10, 25, 58, 

24S- 
Saint-fitienne-l'Allier (Eure), 68. 
Saint-fivroul (Ome), abbey, 9-14, 24, 55, 

70, 71, 81, 134, 141, 171-173, 17s. 218, 

219, 244, 311, 316, 336. Abbots: 

Robert, Theodoric. 
Saint-Fulgent-des-Ormes (Ome), 302. 
Saint-Hippolyte, 286. 
Saint-James (Manche), 43, 274. 
Saint-Jean-de-la-Foret (Ome), 301. 
St. Lambert, fair of, 337. 
Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer (Calvados), 271. 
Saint-Lfionard (Manche), 179. 
Saint-L6 (Manche), 133, 143, 220; see 

Manche, archives of. 
Saint-Marcouf (Manche), 100, loi. 
Saint-Martin-de-Bon-Foss6 (Manche), 

326, 327. 
Saint-Mesmin de Micy (Loiret), abbey, 

29. 59- 
St. Michael's Mount (co. Cornwall), 

priory, 273. 
St. Nicaise, Translatio, 266. 
Saint-Opportune (Manche), 138. 
St. Ouen, 92. 

Saint-Ouen-de-Flancourt (Eure), 296. 
Saint-Ouen-du-Bois-Toustain(Eure),296. 
Saint-Pair (Manche), 21, 59. 
Saint-Philbert-sur-Risle (Eure), 8, 18, 19, 

68, 296. 



Saint-Pierre-de-Saleme (Eure), 29, 30. 

Saint-Pierre-de-Semilly (Manche), 246, 
250, 297. 

Saint-Pierre-sur-Dive (Calvados), 287, 
316; abbey, 29, 93, 164, 245, 280, 310. 
Abbot: Fulk. 

Saint-Quentin (Aisne), 60. 

Saint-Quentin-le-Petit (Ome), 301. 

Saint-Riquier (Somme), abbey, 60. 

Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte (Manche), ab- 
bey, 103, 244; vicomtes, 35. See Neal, 
Roger. 

Saint-Sever (Manche), abbey, 245, 342. 

Saint-Sever (Seine-Inf.), 68, 81, 82, 293. 

Saint-Vaast d'fiquiqueville (Seine-Inf.), 

305- 

Saint-Valery-en-Caux (Seine-Inf.), 252. 

Sainte-Vaubourg (Seine-Inf.), 118, 310, 
314. 313- 

Saint- Victor-en-Caux (Seine-Inf.), ab- 
bey, 24s. 

Saint-Victor-l'Abbaye (Seine-Inf.), 291. 

St. Vulganius, Translatio, 266, 267. 

Saint-Wandrille (Seine-Inf.), abbey, 7, 9, 
a, 42, 60, 131, 134, 151, 166, 167, 184, 
244, 250, 266, 267, 272, 274, 314, 318, 
33S. Abbots: Ansfred, Gerald, Gra- 
dulf, Roger, Walter. 

St. Wulfram, Miracula, 266. 

Saint- Ymer-en-Auge (Calvados), priory, 
7, 133, 221. 

Saladin tithe, 159, 192. 

Salisbury (co. Wilts), 318. Bishop: Roger. 

Sallen (Calvados), 63. 

Sambon, A., 281. 

Samson de Montfarville, loi. 

chaplain, later bishop of Worcester, 

52. 

San Bartolomeo di Carpineto (province 
of Teramo), abbey, 234. 

Santigny (?), Santiniacus villa, 258, 260, 
261. 

Saracens, 233. 

Sarthe, the, 299, 301. 

Sassetot (Seine-Inf.), 255. 

Saumur (Maine-et-Loire), 131, 134, 138. 

Saint-Florent, abbey, 70, 77, 80, 83, 

IS4, 245. 



372 



INDEX 



Sauvage, R. N., 7, 36, 77, 109, 161, 242, 

248, 249, 2S7. 
Savigny (Manche), abbey, 127, 130, 134, 

13s, 142, 147, 148, i6s, 187, 221, 222, 

244, 246, 247, 294, 296, 311-313, 315. 

323. 324, 337, 338, 342, 343- Abbots: 

Geoffrey, Richard, Vitalis. 
Scabini, 24. 

Scarborough (co. York), 330-332. 
Schmidt, R., 227, 232. 
Schubert, P., 50. 
Seal, ducal, S3, 72, 73, io4, 124, i43, 256, 

257, 287, 288, 309. 
Secqueville-en-Bessin (Calvados), 96. 
Sfie (Manche), Val de, 339. 
Seeliger, G., 26. 

S6ez (Ome), 124, 307, 314, 316, 319, 320, 
33S, 336; archdeacon of, 88; archives 
of, 244; bishop of, 6, 8, 13, 35, 76, 77, 
130, 173, 299-303, 342; chapter of, 
42, 43, 60, los, 106, 299-303, 307, 317, 
318, 320. Bishops: Froger, Gerard, 
Jolin, Lisiard, Radbod, Robert. 

Saint-Martin, abbey, 19, 70, 71, 

13s, 141, 187, 228, 244, 30s, 335, 
336. Abbot: Ralph. 

Seher de Quincy, constable of Nonan- 
court, 327, 334, 335. 

Seine-Infdiieure, archives of the, 7, 17, 
20, 27, 4S, so, SI, S8, S9, 68, 70, 81, 91- 
93, 94, lOS, 109, 118, 126, 130, 133, 
i34> 138, I4S, 152, 160, 166, 167, 173, 
221, 226, 228, 229, 244-246, 250, 257, 

258, 260, 272-274, 290-292, 29s, 304, 
30S, 312, 327, 335. 

Seneschal, 50, 51, S8; 77, 89, gi, 99, "2- 
114, 120, 121, 146-148, iss, 162, i6s, 
183, 184, 232, 275. 

Senn, F., 36. 

Serjeanties, 115-119, 152, 153, 182, 194. 

Serlo, canon of Bayeux, 66, 86. 

Buffei, 328. 

chaplain, 91. 

the Deaf, 88. 

de Hauteville, 266. 

bishop of S£ez, 68, 70, 292. 

Serrure, R., 280. 

Service, forty days', 20, 



Seniientes, 152, 206. 

Servitium debitum, 9, 18. 

Sheriff, 46. 

Sicily, Norman institutions in, 3, 23, 61, 

III, 112, 19s, 232-234. 
Sigurd Jerusalem-farer, 270. 
Sigy (Seine-Inf.), priory, 50. 
Silly (Ome), abbey, 132. 
Simon Anglicus, 229. 
dispenser, 112. 

d'Escures, 167. 

de La Croisille, 228. 

money-changer, 182. 

de Moulins, 294. 

de Moult, 328. 

seneschal, 68, 77. 

I, earl of Northampton, 310. 

de Tomebu, 334. 

Simony, 66. 

Soehnfie, F., 44. 

Solomon de Charecelvilla, 291. 

SorquainviUe (Seine-Inf.), 262. 

Southampton (co. Hants), 121, 122. 

Squillace (province of Catanzaro), 233. 

Stapleton, T., no, 115, 147, 151, 158, 
177, 197, 209, 274, 337-339. 

Stein, H., 241, 245. 

Steenstrup, J., 279. 

Stengel, E., 26. 

Stenton, F. M., 263, 265, 333. 

Stephen fitz Airard, 121. 

count of Aumale, 67, 312. 

de Beauchamp, 162. 

of Blois, count of Boulogne and 

Mortain, king of England, and 
duke of Normandy, 91, 92, no, 
n4, 120, 124-127, 129, 130, 146, 
IS3, 154, 213, 243, 294, 297, 316, 
331, 332; charters of, 94, 106- 
109, 13s, 144, 316; Normandy 
under, 124-129. 

chaplain at Bayeux, 52; at Mont- 
Saint-Michel, SI. 

vicomte of Mortain, 127. 

son of Ralph, 92. 

of Rouen (£tienne de Rouen), 148. 

'stirman,' 121. 

Stevenson, W. H,, 53. 



INDEX 



373 



Steyning (co. Sussex), 83, 252, 264. 
Stixwould priory (co. Lincoln), 236. 
Stow abbey (co. Lincoln), 81. 
Stubbs, W., 46, so, 57, 58, 100, 164, 188, 
190, 196, 211, 220, 268, 268, 329, 330. 
Subinfeudation, 6, 16. 
Suffolk, III. 
Surcy (Eure), 80, 82. 

Taillebois, 9. 

Tait, J., 185. 

Tallies, 103, 117, 175, 177, 229. 

Tanche, the, 299, 301. 

Tardif, E.-J., 4, 31, 37, 38, 54, 86, 158, 

IS9. 161, 17O1 182, 189, 193, 276-278, 

281, 340. 
Tassilly (Calvados), 63. 
Tavel, 275. 
Tavemier, W., 293. 
Tessy-sur-Vire (Manche), 271. 
Thaon (Calvados), 233. 
Thayer, J. B., 196. 
Thelonearius, 47, 291. 
Theobald of Blois, 124, 312, 318. 

archbishoi) of Canterbury, 330. 

chaplain, 51. 

son of Norman, 279. 

Theodoric, abbot of Saint-£vioul, 11. 

hostiarms, 51. 

Th6ville (Manche), 335. 

Thi^ville (Calvados), 63. 

Thimme, H., 48. 

Thomas Becket, chancellor of Henry II 

and archbishop of Canterbury, 121, 

iS3> 170, 214- 

Brown, Master, in, 112, 195. 

chaplain, later archbishop of York, 

52- 

d'fivreux. Master, 109. 

de Loches, chaplain of Geoffrey 

Flantagenet, 136-141. 

de Pont-r£v6que, 102. 

de Saint- Jean, 294. 

son of Stephen, 121. 

Thomey abbey (co. Cambridge), 81. 
Thoiold, bishop of Bayeux, 66, 201, 287, 

293. 
chamberlain, 50- 



Thorold, constable, go, 263, 275. 

hostiarms, $1, 77. 

Thurstin, chamberlain, grandfather (?) 
of Wace, 269, 271, 275. 

de Ducy, 336. 

son of H^loise, 291. 

vicomte, 256, 263. 

archbishop of York, 296, 303, 314, 

315- 
Tinchebrai (Ome), 86, 309. 
Tiron (Eure-et-Loir), abbey, 106, 245, 

312, 314- 
Tison, forest, 153. 
Tolls, 39-43, 285. 
Torquetil, son of Adlec, 261. 
Touffreville (Eure), 127, 306. 
Touffrfiville (Calvados), 98. 
Touquettes, Les (Ome), 11. 
Tourlaville (Manche), 149, 220. 
Tours (Indre-et-Loire), council of, 330; 

MSS. at, 46, 245. Archbishops: Hil- 

debert, Hugh. 

Saint-Julien, 7, 33, 80, 245. 

Tourville (Seine-Inf.), 258, 260, 261. 
Toustain de BiUy, 247. 
Toustin, Tosteins, see Thurstin. 
Toutainville (Eure), 273. 
Treasurers, treasury, Norman, 89, 107- 

iio, 113, 118, 176, 180, 181. 
Tr^mauville (Seine-Inf.), 255. 
Tres Ancien Coutumier, 4, 28, 38, 158- 

160, 173, 182-189, 193, 198, 217, 277, 

278, 280, 319. 
TreviSres (Calvados), 128. 
Troam (Calvados), abbey of Saint- 
Martin, 10, 19, 39, 81, 87, 90, 91, 94, 

97. 98, 167, 173. 242, 244, 304, 321. 

Abbot: Andrew. 
Truce of God, 31, 35, 37, 38, 46, 65, 85, 

104, 120, 140, IS4, 279, 319. 
Tunbridge (co. Kent), 49. 
Turfred, sons of, 262. 

de Cesny, 328. 

Turgis, 322. 

bishop of Avianches, 74, 96, 293, 

294. 311- 

de Tracy, 22. 

Turold, see Thorold. 



374 



INDEX 



Turstin, see Thurstin. 
Turulf, 322. 

UIger, bishop of Angers, 130. 

Vllac, 30, 279. 

Unbeina, 7. 

Urse d'Abbetot, 298. 

abbot of Jumidges, 91, 92. 

archdeacon of Rouen, 291, 293. 

Urselin de Wanteria, 92. 

Vtrum, assize, 173, 189, 198, 219, 238. 

Vacandard, E., 33, 2^3. 

Vadum Fuhnerii, see Vieux-Fumfi. 

Vains (Manche), 43, 44, 68, 98, 179, 285, 
342- 

Val des Dunes (Calvados), 16. 

Valin, L., 4, 27, 36, 49, 55, 56, 83, 88, 89, 
97, 102, IS7, i6s, 174, 178, 184, 186, 
187, 190, 196, 201, 217, 223, 228, 230, 

251, 327- 
Valognes (Manche), 100, 116, 149, 153, 

165, 220. 
Varengeville (Seine-Inf.), 326. 
Vaneville (Manche), 100, 101, 311. 
Vascoeuil (Eure), 279. 
Vassalage, 6. 
Vatican, MSS. at, 35, 233, 278, 281, 339, 

340. 
Vaudreuil (Eure), 119, 181, 253, 234, 

2S4, 29s, 298, 299, 318. 
Vauquelin de Courseulles, 210. 
Vavassor, 9, 11, 19, 103, 324. 
Velterer, 82, 116. 
Vendfime (Loir-et-Cher), abbey of La 

Trinite, 70, 140, 231, 245. 
Vercio, 314. 
Verdun (Meuse), 267. Abbot: Richard 

of Saint- Vannes. 
Vemai (Calvados), 181. 
Verneuil (Eure), 104, 119, 140, 144, 145, 

149, 151, 152- 
Vernier, J.-J., 246, 249, 257, 258. 
Vernon (Eure), 63, 66, 314, 318. 
Verson (Calvados), 59, 216. 
Vesli (Eure), 32. 
Vetus Redum, 259. 



Vexin, 46, 80, 268, 272, 315. Count: 

Breux. 
V6zelay (Yonne), 205. 
Viaria, vicaria, mcarius, 25, 46, 47. 
Vicomte, vicomti, 36, 37, 41-47, 5°, S4, 

S6> S7, 59. 60, 77, los, 106, 108, 116, 

126, 150-152, 163, 175, 177, 181-186, 

191. 27s, 338. 
Victor, abbot of Bocherville, 219. 
VierviUe (Calvados), 209. 
Vieux-Fum6 (Calvados), 27. 
Vieux-Rouen (Seine-Inf.), 313. 
Vignats, see Saint-Andrfi-en-Gouffern. 
Villers, ancient suburb of Caen, 179. 
Villers-Bocage (Calvados), 129. 
Villers-Canivet (Calvados), abbey, 308, 

320. 
Villers-Chambellan (Seine-Inf.), 255. 
Vinogradoff, Sir Paul, 3, 23, 29, 40, 196, 

279. 
VioUet, P., 158, 188, 193, 277, 278. 
Vire (Calvados), 119, 129, 304. 
Virville (Seine-Inf.), 272. 
Vitalis de Saint-Germain, 323. 

abbot of Savigny, 294. 

Vittefleur (Seine-Inf.), 253. 
Vivian, abbot of Aunay, 298. 
Vorges (Aisne), 45. 
Vouilly (Calvados), 207. 
Voyer, 46, 47. 

Wace, 16, 18, 23, 41, 42, 86, 117, 177, 

182, 241, 268-272, 275, 279. 
Waitz, G., 7, 48. 
Walchelin, chamberlain, 89. 
Waldtic, chancellor of Henry I, 87. 
Wallop (co. Hants), 122. 
Walter, 292. 

de Beauchamp, 122, 298. 

Broc, 292. 

de Canteleu, 92. 

son of Constantine, 307. 

de Coutances, Master, 180. 

. de Cully, 294. 

Giffard, 120, 134, 167. 

son of Girulf, 261. 

of Gloucester, 305, 317. 

son of Goubert d'Auffai, 70. 



INDEX 



375 



Walter de Hainou, 104. 

abbot of La Trinit6-du-Mont, 70. 

Map, IIS, IS7, 183. 

money-changer, 152. 

de Quercu, 292. 

de Saint- Valery, 187. 

abbot of Saint-Wandrille, 228. 

de Wesneval, 291. 

d'Yainville, 92. 

Waltham (co. Essex), 302, 303, 311. 

Walton (co. Sussex), 303. 

War, private, restrictions on, 38, 65, 

278. 
Warin Cepel, 95. 

de Dives, 95, 96. 

fitz Gerald, chamberlain, 162. 

idonearius, 291. 

Warner, Sir George F., 72, 160, 309, 310. 

Warwick, 121. 

Wesman, 39. 

Westboume (co. Sussex), 312. 

Westminster, 279, 303, 312, 332. 

'White Ship,' 13, 112, 121, 223, 314. 

Wido, see Guy. 

Wigan, marshal, 88, 89, 307. 

Wiger de Saint-Mere-£glise, 223. 

Wigo de Marra, 80. 

Wilda, G., 28. 

Wilfrid, bishop of Worcester, 305. 

William, 255. 

d'Angerville, 324. 

AngUcus, 228. 

fitz Ansger, 98. 

fitz Amulf, 303. 

of Arques, 76, 258, 275, 289. 

d'Aubigny, 16, 17, 87, 89, 96, loi, 

102, 294, 310, 313. 

Avenel, 139, 187. 

Baivel, 63. 

de Bee, 287, 288. 

abbot of Bee, 293, 315. 

Becheth, 21. 

de Belleme, 268, 302. 

Bersic, 210. 

Bertran, 63, 68, 76. 

Bigod, 13. 

de Botevilla, 147. 

de Breteuil, 68, 76, 292. 



William de Bricqueville, 220. 
de Briouze, 187. 

de Brix, 102, 103. 

Brown, clerk, in, 112. 

Burgamissa, 322. 

Cade, 181. 

Calix, 180, 335, 336. 

archbishop of Canterbury, 303. 

de Capella, 92, 321. 

Cave, 327. 

chamberlain, $0, 63, 66, 287, 291; 

see William of Tancarville. 

chancellor of Henry II, 162. 

chaplain, 113. 

Clarel, 92. 

of Conches, 131. 

cook, 95. 

abbot of Cormeilles, 68. 

de Courcelles, 91. 

de Courcy, 174. 

Crassus, 167. 

Crispin, 46, 68. 

de Daraio, 19. 

de Ducey, 338, 339. 

(of Saint-Calais), bishop of Dur- 

ham, 68, 69, 76. 
of Ely, III. 

king of England, see William, duke 

of Normandy. 

son of Enguerran Oison, 307. 

count of'fivreux, 63, 68, 76, 94, 

291. 

bishop of Exeter, 294. 

I, abbot of Fecamp, 254, 256, 258, 

266, 272. 
II, abbot of F6camp, 288-290. 

de Ferrieres, 192, 287. 

de la Fert6-Mac6, 33, 71. 

Fort, 167. 

de Fraxineto, 108. 

son of Gerard, 289. 

Gfir6, II. 

Gemon, 63, 167. 

Giffard, chancellor of William 

Rufus, 82, 83. 

de Glanville, 334. 

of Glastonbury, 88-go, 99, loi, 121. 

Goth, 299-301. 



376 



INDEX 



William Grenet, 289. 

son of Henry 1, 312-314. 

du Hommet, 161, 167, 180, 336. 

of Houghton, chamberlain, 121. 

de Houguemare, 162. 

de Huechon, 186, 338. 

son of Hugh, 219. 

fitz John, 120, 160, 161, 167, 168, 

199, 213, 214, 323, 324. 
— — Judas, 63. 
of Jumifiges, chronicler, 4, 241, 252, 

265-270. 

abbot of JumiSges, 92, 262. 

fitz Leiard, 328. 

bishop of Le Mans, 147, 148. 

earl of Lincoln, see William of 

Roumare. 

Lovel, 140, 149. 

Malet, constable of Pontaudemer, 

237, 312, 334- 
of Malmesbury, 114, 115, 128, 268, 

272. 

de Malpalu, 326. 

Maltravers, 299. 

de la Mare, 180, 184, 327, 334-336- 

marshal, 162. 

de Martigny, 33s, 336. 

Mauduit, chamberlain, 113, 289, 

302. 

de Moiun, 210. 

monk, 220. 

count of Mortain, 294. 

abbot of Mortemer, 335. 

de Morville, 168. 

de Moult, 328. 

of Newburgh, 128. 

Longsword, duke of Normandy, 

280. 
the Conqueror, duke of Normandy 

and king of England, 156, 262, 

269, 275, 285, 287; charters of, 

6, 7i 12. 19. 27. 29. 40, 43-4S. 
48-56, 68, 72, 80, 81, 94, IIS, 
126, 144, 251, 252, 263, 264, 274, 
279, 280, 321; his Constietudines 
et iusticie, 277-284; Normandy 
under, 3-61, 83, 84, 86, 103, 121, 
ISO, i7S> 178, 192, 265, 276. 



William Rufus,king of England and ruler 
of Normandy, 40, 64, 75, 278, 288, 
289; charters of, 66, 69, 77-83, 
93, 134, 222; Normandy under, 
78-84. 

fitz Odo, constable, 88, 89, 1 11 , 1 20, 

299, 302. 

son of Ogier, canon of Rouen, 70, 

83. 

d'Orval, 138. 

fitz Osbem, seneschal, 50, 51, 54, 

S8. 
d'OuviUe, constable of Falaise, 

335. 336. 

de Pad, 66. 

Painel, 9, 21, 22, 24. 

Painel, archdeacon of Avianches, 

336. 

Patric, 96, 160, 165, 294. 

Peverel, 95, 127, 306. 

Peverel de Aira, 294. 

Peverel of Dover, 299. 

Pichard, 186. 

du Pin, 92. 

de Pirou, seneschal, 113, 233. 

of Poitiers, 4, 32, 61, 241. 

de Pont-de-1'Arche, 113, 115, 119, 

299, 303- 
count of Ponthieu, 91, 97, 98, 124, 

130, 142, 145, 328. 

priest, 224. 

Quarrel, 335. 

Rabod, 95. 

fitz Ralph, seneschal, 159, 179, 180, 

183, 184, 192, 328, 334-336- 

son of Richard, 322. 

son of Robert, 230, 295. 

archbishop of Rouen, 32, 34, 68, 76, 

93, 287, 291-293. 
of Roumare, earl of Lincoln, 91-93, 

107, 127, 128, 14s, 162, 236, 335. 

de Rupierre, 63. 

de Sai, 13, 138. 

abbot of Saint-£tienne, 57, 179. 

de Saint-Germain, 102, 220. 

de Saint- Jean, 340. 

de Saucey, 335. 

de la Seule, 326, 327. 



INDEX 



377 



William I, king of Sicily, 233. 
II, king of Sicily, 234. 

fitz Stephen, 331. 

de Tancarville, chamberlain, 77, 

92. 94, 95. "2. 183, 219, 2g4, 
29s, 317; see also William the 
chamberlain. 

Tanetin, justice, 97, 100. 

fitz Thfition, 216, 217, 238. 

de ThiberviUe, 322. 

son of Thierry, 289. 

Tolemer, 335, 336- 

de Tomebu, 68, 80. 

— - the Treasurer, founder of Sainte- 
Barbe, 109, no, 322. 

Trossebot, 162. 

de Varaville, 167. 

de Vatteville, 68. 

de la Ventona, 108. 

deVemon,i38,i39,i4S,i48,i49,22o. 

de Vieuxpont, 63. 

de Villers, 323. 

earl Warren, 92, 120, 121, 287, 300, 

319. 



William Werelwast, chaplain, 83. 
— — son of William fitz Osbem, 72. 

of Ypres, 127. 

Winchester, 79, 87, 106, in, 113, 279. 

Bishops: Henry, Richard. 

Hyde abbey, 316. 

Windsor (co. Berks), 81, 310. 

Winus d'Allemagne, monk, 294. 

Wissant (Pas-de-Calais), 126. 

Wite, 280. 

Witnesses, synodal, 35, 227. 

Worcestershire, 23, 298. 

Wreck, rights over, 39, loi, 161. 

Writ, S4, 77, 82, 83, 104, I2S, 13s, 136, 

140, 163, 164, 186, 189, 191, 234; of 

right, 97, 186, 223, 333. 

York, 236, 310, 331. Archbishops: 

Thomas, Thurstin. 
Yorkshire, 235. 
Ypreville (Seine-Inf.), 260, 262. 

Zechbauer, F., 227. 



FEINTED AT THE HARVAKD UNIVEKSITY FSESS, CAUBKIDGE, MASS., U. S. A. 




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