and his abbots and his earls, and what or how mickle ilk man had that landholder was in England in land and in cattle, and how mickle fee it was worth. So very narrowly he let speer it out that there was not a single hide nor a yard of land, nor so much as -it is a shame to tell, though he thought it no shame to doan ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was not set in his writ.” The chronicler who wrote these words was an English monk of Peterborough. Englishmen were shocked by the new regularity TERRA Willi DE BRAIOSE It's de Brauore ven de rege Suscott. Briomar • de rege. E. To fe defet p. 11. hid. modo punahida. fra. e. 111. car. In dno.é una. 7. utt 7 Vill. bort cu.. car. Ibi molin de xvm. solid. 7 piscaria de.L.denar. Valur. ul, Lit, modo. c. folut. TERRA WILLELMI LOVEY W tits louer ven de regeDeRtrone. Toa anua de rege. E & 5.7 7x. de pa. Silua að daufuté. Valur. xl. fot. modo. xxxx foty. Reduced facsimile of part of Domesday Book. of taxation. They could hardly be expected to understand the advantages of a government strong enough through regular taxation to put down the resistance of rebellious earls at home and to defy invasion from abroad. The result of the inquiries of the king's commissioners was embodied in Domesday Book, so called because it was no more possible to appeal from it than from the Last Judgment. 13. William's Great Councils.-Though William was himself 1c86 THE GREAT GEMOT 113 the true ruler of England, he kept up the practice of his predecessors in summoning the Witenagemot from time to time. In his days, however, the name of the Witenagemot was changed into that of the Great Council, and, to a slight extent, it changed its nature with its name. The members of the Witenagemot had attended because they were officially connected with the king, being ealdormen or bishops or thegns serving in some way under him. Members of the Great Council attended because they held land in chief from the king. The difference, however, was greater in appearance than in reality. No doubt men who held very small estates in chief might, if they pleased, come to the Great Council, and if they had done so the Great Council would have been much more numerously attended than the Witenagemot had been. The poorer tenants-in-chief, however, found that it was not only too troublesome and expensive to make the journey at a time when all long journeys had to be made on horseback, but that when they arrived their wishes were disregarded. They therefore stayed at home, so that the Great Council was regularly attended only by the bishops, the abbots of the larger abbeys, and certain great landowners who were known as barons. In this way the Great Council became a council of the wealthy landowners, as the Witenagemot had been, though the two assemblies were formed on different principles. 14. The Gemot at Salisbury. 1086.—In 1086, after Domesday Book had been finished, William summoned an unusually numerous assembly, known as the Great Gemot, to meet at Salisbury. At this not only the tenants-in-chief appeared, but also all those who held lands from them as sub-tenants. "There came to him," wrote the chronicler, "... all the landowning men there were over all England, whose soever men they were, and all bowed down before him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him, that they would be faithful to him against all other men." It was this oath which marked the difference between English and Continental feudalism, though they were now in other respects alike. On the Continent each tenant swore to be faithful to his lord, but only the lords who held directly from the crown swore to be faithful to the king. The consequence was that when a lord rebelled against the king, his tenants followed their lord and not the king. In England the tenants swore to forsake their lord and to serve the king against him if he forsook his duty to the king. Nor was this all. Many men break their oaths. William, however, was strong enough in England to punish those who broke their oaths to him, whilst the king of France was seldom strong enough to punish those who broke their oaths to him. 15. William's Death. 1087.--The oath taken at Salisbury was the completion of William's work in England. To contemporaries he appeared as a foreign conqueror, and often as a harsh and despotic ruler. Later generations could recognise that his supreme merit was that he made England one. He did not die in England. In 1087 he fought with his lord, the king of France, Philip I. In anger at a jest of Philip's he set fire to Mantes. As he rode amidst the burning houses his horse shied and threw him forward on the pommel of his saddle. He was now corpulent and the injury proved fatal. On September 9 he died. When the body was carried to Caen for burial in the abbey of St. Stephen, which William himself had reared, a knight stepped forward and claimed as his own the ground in which the grave had been dug. It had been taken, he said, by William from his father. "In the name of God," he cried, "I forbid that the body of the robber be covered with my mould, or that he be buried within the bounds of my inheritance." The bystanders acknowledged the truth of his accusation, and paid the price demanded. The Council of Rockingham, and the First Crusade 1095 1099 Death of William II. 1100 I. The Accession of the Red King. 1087.-In Normandy the Conqueror was succeeded by his eldest son, Robert. Robert was sluggish and incapable, and his father had expressed a wish that England, newly conquered and hard to control, should be ruled by his more energetic second son, William. To the third son, Henry, he gave a sum of money. There was as yet no settled rule of succession to the English crown, and William at once crossed the sea and was crowned king of the English at Westminster, by Lan 1087-1088 THE RED KING 115 franc. William Rufus, or the Red King, as men called him, feared not God nor regarded man. Yet the English rallied round him, because they knew that he was strong-willed, and because they needed a king who would keep the Norman barons from oppressing them. For that very reason the more turbulent of the Norman barons declared for Robert, who would be too lazy to keep them in order. In the spring of 1088 they broke into rebellion in his name. William called the English people to his help. He would not, he said, wring money from his subjects or exercise cruelty in defence of his hunting grounds. On this the English rallied round him. At the head of a great army he marched to attack the rebels, and finally laid siege to Rochester, which was held against him by his uncle Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom he had released from the imprisonment in which the Conqueror had kept him. William called upon yet greater numbers of the English to come to his help. Every one, he declared, who failed him now should be known for ever by the shameful name of Nithing, or worthless. The English came in crowds. When at last Odo surrendered, the English pleaded that no mercy should be shown him. "Halters, bring halters!" they cried; "hang up the traitor bishop and his accomplices on the gibbet." William, however, spared him, but banished him for ever from England 2. The Wickedness of the Red King.-William had crushed the Norman rebels with English aid. When the victory was won he turned against those who had helped him. It was not that he oppressed the English because they were English, but that he oppressed English and Normans alike, though the English, being the weaker, felt his cruelty most. He broke all his promises. He gathered round him mercenary soldiers from all lands to er force his will. He hanged murderers and robbers, but he himself was the worst of robbers. When he moved about the country with the ruffians who attended him, the inhabitants fled to the woods, leaving their houses to be pillaged. William allowed no law to be pleaded against his own will. His life, and the life of his courtiers, was passed in the foulest vice. He was as irreligious as he was vicious. It was in especial defiance of the Christian sentiment of the time that he encouraged the Jews, who had begun to come into England in his father's days, to come in greater numbers. They grew rich as money-lenders, and William protected them against their debtors, exacting a high price for his protection. Once, it is said, he invited the Jewish rabbis to argue in his presence with the bishops on the merits of their respective creeds, and promised to become His own a Jew if the rabbis had the better of the argument. mouth was filled with outrageous blasphemies. "God," he said, "shall never see me a good man. I have suffered too much at His hands." 3. Ranulf Flambard.-The chief minister of the Red King was Ranulf Flambard, whom he ultimately made Bishop of Durham. He was one of the clerks of the king's chapel. The word 'clerk' properly signified a member of the clergy. The only way in which men could work with their brains instead of with their hands was by becoming clerks, the majority of whom, however, only entered the lower orders, without any intention of becoming priests or even deacons. Few, except clerks, could read or write, and whatever work demanded intelligence naturally fell into their hands. They acted as physicians or lawyers, kept accounts, and wrote letters. The clerks of the king's chapel were the king's secretaries and men of business. These ready writers had taken a leading part in the compilation of Domesday Book, and they were always active in bringing in money. Under the Conqueror they were expected to observe at least something of the rules of justice. Under the Red King they were expected to disregard them entirely. Of all the clerks Ranulf Flambard was the most unscrupulous; therefore he rose into the greatest favour. The first William had appointed high officers, known as Justiciars, to act in his name from time to time when he was absent from England, or was from any cause unable to be present when important business was transacted. Flambard was appointed Justiciar by the second William, and in his hands the office became perThe Justiciar was now the king's chief minister, acting in his name whether he was present or absent. Flambard used his power to gather wealth for the king on every side. "He drave the king's gemots," we are told, "over all England;" that is to say, he forced the reluctant courts to exact the money which he claimed for the king. manent. 4. Feudal Dues. It was Flambard who systematised, if he did not invent, the doctrine that the king was to profit by his position as supreme landlord. In practice this meant that he exacted to the full the consequences of feudal tenure. If a man died who held land by knight service from the crown, leaving a son who was a minor, the boy became the ward of the king, who took the profits of his lands till he was twenty-one, and forced him to pay a relief or fine for taking them into his own hands when he attained his majority. If the land |