Conquest and Feudalism in English History

English Constitutional and Legal History: The Conquest and Feudalism Lecture 4 Click here for a printed outline.

What comes before William the Conqueror (10661087), Henry I (1100 1135), and Henry II (1154 1189)? Multiple, relatively weak, kings become a single strong king. The king is tied into the local society by a series of remarkable institutions: the shire, the hundred, the borough, the tithing, and the hide, units for taxation, disputes-resolution, and keeping the peace. The kin group, a strong institution in the time of Aethelberht and Alfred, has become less strong. Territorial lordship has become stronger than kin groups.

Initial chronology (Mats. p. II1 to Mats. p. III1) Edward the Confessor son of Ethelred the Unready became king of England in 1042 and died childless on 5 Jan. 1066. After a brief reign of Harold Godwinson, William the Bastard, duke of Normandy invaded England. It was the last successful invasion of England, a marvelously Churchillian theme. On 14 October 1066, William won a great victory in battle at Hastings things changed, how much we will have to explore. 1066 1215 roughly 150 years divided between the Anglo- Norman and Angevin periods in 1154

10661215: Sources Language, art, archaeology must be left to an occasional reference Narrative historical sources continue to be vital for the Norman half of our period, but for the Angevin half, legal documents and writings about law and governance come to assume a starring role. We will have reference to narratives only occasionally from here on in and to language and art only rarely. The history of these topics, of course, continued, and we must struggle harder to get a sense of the whole picture. The loss is balanced by delight at finally having records of what was really going on at ground level, and contemporary writers who treat specifically with our topics.

10661215: Themes A conquered country a couple of thousand over a country of 2 to 4 million. Weak kings vs. strong kings freedom (for some) vs. order. Empire (see map in Mats. p. III 15) finance, troops & absentee administration. Succession to the throne. The following narrative will emphasize this last.

The Angevin Empire temp. Henry II (Mats., p. III15)

10661215: The succession problem William I, 1066 1087 Domesday Book (1086) sons: Robert Curthose, William II (Rufus), Henry I. William II (Rufus), 1087 1100 killed while hunting. Henry I, 1100 1135 his only legitimate son William killed in the tragedy of the White Ship. Stephen (gson of William I by his dau Adela) and Matilda (dau of Henry I, wife of Geoffrey of Anjou), 1135 54 (the Anarchy ).

10661215: The succession problem (contd) Henry II (son of Matilda and Geoffrey), 1154 89 duke of Aquitaine in the right of his wife Eleanor; sons: Henry who predeceased without issue, Richard I, Geoffrey d. 1186, whose son Arthur was probably killed at John s behest, and John. Richard I (the Lion-hearted), 1189 1199. John, 1199 1216 lost Normandy in 1204; Magna Carta 1215.

10661215: The feudalism debate Did William I bring feudalism to England? The methodological advantages to asking the question. Continuity and change E. A. Freemen vs. J. R. Round. The politics of the Freeman Round debate. Did Henry II consciously or unconsciously destroy it?

Feudalism: what is it? A type of economy, built around the manor, in the model, though not always in reality, the manor is coextensive with the vill, with open fields, lord, priest, free tenants, serfs and a lord s court to manage the whole thing. Marxists and Marc Bloch. A type of society characterized by multiple relationships of dependency, lord and man (vassal) with mutual obligations of support, particularly military, summed up in the ceremonies of homage and fealty. Allen Brown. A pyramidal structure of government, based on landholding in which the king rules his tenants-in-chief, they their vassals down to the peasant. A pyramidal system of land holding whereby all land is holden of the king for service usually knight s service and the tenants in chief parcel out the land to subtenants for service, knights and other things.

In England the principal free tenures are: knight s service the provision of one or more knights (or a fraction thereof) for a fixed period of the year serjeanty the performance of a specific military duty, like carrying the king s banner in battle or guarding a castle socage the provision of a fixed amount of agricultural produce frankalmoign the provision of prayers, a tenure of the church

In England the military tenant owes these incidents: suit of court the obligation to attend the lord s court when summoned aid the obligation to come to the lord s monetary assistance when he is captured, or when he knights his eldest son, or when he marries off his daughter wardship when the tenant dies and his heir is underage, the land will be taken into the lord s hands until the heir reaches majority marriage when the tenant has a daughter who is an heiress (and perhaps even when she is not), the lord may dictate whom she shall marry; the lord may also dictate whom the tenant s widow may marry relief if the heir is of age, he must pay the lord in order to enter into his inheritance primer seisin when the tenant dies, the lord may take his lands into his own hands pending the application of heir for seisin escheat if the tenant commits felony or dies without a known heir, the land returns to the lord

Feudalism in the M.A. and in England This scheme of tenures and incidents did exist in England, in contrast to the Continent, for all land. That is not the issue. The issue is when it existed. Did it exist from 1066? In different ways F. L. Ganshof and F. W. Maitland both take the legal-governmental view of feudalism, the former emphasizing the institution of homage (and its governmental and tenurial consequences), the latter the lord s court. The broader social and economic pattern exists all over Europe in the M.A. but in a number of other societies as well. The governmental pattern does not fully exist in England (nor any place else). The pattern of landholding certainly does exist in England; the question, once more, is when did it start.

An attempt to answer the when question: Research in the last century tended to show that the feudal court, sometimes called the court baron, was a critically important institution from 1066 1166 and much of what follows can be explained in terms of an interplay between this institution and the central royal courts. Now, I am not going to back off from that. But what the most recent research (John Hudson, Susan Reynolds) has tended, at least in my view, to show, is that the systematic character of feudal land-holding, with its careful division into services and incidents was not introduced with Conquest. It is, rather, a later development, some of which cannot be seen clearly until the reign of Henry II. As is so often the case in legal history, when the lawyers come to define a social institution more precisely, they make it more precise than it was before, and in the process change it.

Domesday of Herefordshire (cf. Mats., pp. III39 to III41) A Google map of Herefordshire may be found here. The title page for Herefordshire in the Open Domesday website is here.

Domesday of Herefordshire (contd) In the city of Hereford, in the time of King Edward, there were 103 men dwelling together inside and outside the wall, and they had the customs hereunder noted. In this city Earl Harold had 27 burgesses enjoying the same customs as the other burgesses. From this city the reeve rendered 12 to King Edward and 6 to Earl Harold, and he had in his farm all the aforesaid customs. Now the king has the city of Hereford in demesne . This city renders to the king 60 by tale in assayed money.. Here are set down those holding lands in Herefordshire and in Archenfield and in Wales. IN CUTESTORNES HUNDRED. In the jurisdiction of EWYAS HAROLD Castle, Earl William gave to WALTER de Lacy 4 carucates of waste land. ROGER de Lacy his son holds them, and William and Osbern [hold] of him. In demesne they have 2 ploughs; and 4 Welshmen rendering 2 sesters of honey, and they have 1 plough. There they have 3 slaves and 2 bordars. This land is worth 20s.

Domesday of Herefordshire (contd) IN TORNELAUS HUNDRED. The same Roger holds OCLE PYCHARD. 6 free men held it as 6 manors [?TRE] and could go where they would. There are 7 hides paying geld. In demesne are 2 ploughs; and 7 villeins and 10 bordars and a reeve and a smith with 9 ploughs among them all. There are 12 slaves. Of this land Walter de Lacy gave to St Peter of Hereford 2 carucates of land with the consent of King William, and 1 villein and 1 bordar with their lands. There are in demesne 2 ploughs; and 1 villein and 1 bordar with 1 plough, and there is 1 slave. It is worth 25s. What Roger holds [is worth] 75s. The whole TRE was worth 7l [pounds] 15s.

Domesday of Herefordshire (contd) In terms of what happened to land tenure as opposed to what happened to the economy, these entries, and ones like them, suggest some change. An element of complexity has been added. It is not at all clear that the six free men of Ocle Pychard TRE thought of themselves as holding their land of the earl who in turn held it of the king. Of course, the earl was a big cheese and the king a bigger one. They owed money to both, which they got from their land. Now, however, it is clear that the six free men are gone. They may be represented in the 7 villeins, or they may not. What we ve got now is a baron who clearly holds his land of the king, and he s got subtenants, two of whom, William and Osbern, don t look like they are very important fellows, but they both have Norman names, and one mildly important ecclesiastical institution, a parish in Hereford. How important this was to the folks on the ground, however, we may well question.

General conclusion (for the time being) about feudalism In terms of the general question we posed at the beginning: is cataclysmic institutional change possible? We must answer that the Conquest does not demonstrate it. Cataclysmic it was for those at the top of society, but it is striking, granted this, how much remained the same.

Some general thoughts on the 12th century: Confidence, commerce, art (Romanesque and Gothic), intellectual ferment (philosophy, theology, law, and medicine); Abelard and Heloise, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Troubadour poets and study of the Bible, Hildegard of Bingen (1098 1179), John of Sallisbury, Glanvill, the Dialogue of the Exchequer. Like all centuries, however, the twelfth also has its dark sides. The work of Thomas Bisson.