Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons

By Thomas K. Keefe

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520316485

Thomas K. Keefe

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Feudal Assessments

and the Political Community

under Henry II and His Sons

Published under the auspices of the

CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES

University of California, Los Angeles

Publications of the

UCLA Center for

Medieval and Renaissance Studies

1. Jeffrey Burton Russell, Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages (1965)

2. C. D. O’Malley, ed., Leonardo’s Legacy: An International Symposium (1968)

3. Richard H. Rouse, Serial Bibliographies for Medieval Studies (1969)

4. Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (1971)

5. Stanley Chodorow, Christian Political Theory and Church Politics in the Mid-Twelfth Century: The Ecclesiology of Gratian’s Decretum (1972)

6. Joseph J. Duggan, The Song of Roland: Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft (1973)

7. Ernest A. Moody, Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic: Collected Papers 1933-1969 (1975)

8. Marc Bloch, Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages: Selected Essays (1975)

9. Michael J. B. Allen, Marsilio Ficino: The Philebus Commentary, A Critical Edition and Translation (1975)

10. Richard C. Dales, Marius: On the Elements, A Critical Edition and Translation (1976)

11. Duane J. Osheim, An Italian Lordship: The Bishopric of Lucca in the Late Middle Ages (1977)

12. Robert Somerville, Pope Alexander III and the Council of Tours (1163): A Study of Ecclesiastical Politics and Institutions in the Twelfth Century (1977)

13. Lynn White, jr., Medieval Religion and Technology: Collected Essays (1978)

14. Michael J. B. Allen, Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer: Introduction, Texts, Translations (1981)

15. Barnabas Bernard Hughes, O.F.M., Jordanus de Nemore: De numeris datis, A Critical Edition and Translation (1981)

16. Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (1982) *

17. Carlo M. Cipolla, The Monetary Policy of Fourteenth-Century Florence (1982)

18. John H. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (1983)

19. Thomas K. Keefe, Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons (1983)

Feudal Assessments

and the Political Community

under Henry II and His Sons

Thomas K. Keefe

University

of California Press

Berkeley

Los Angeles

London

The emblem of the Center

for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

reproduces the imperial eagle

of the gold augustalis struck

after 1231 by Emperor Frederick II;

Elvira and Vladimir Clain-Stefanelli,

The Beauty and Lore of Coins, Currency and Medals

(Croton-on-Hudson, 1974), fig. 130 and p. 106.

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 1983 by

The Regents of the University of California

Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Keefe, Thomas K.

Feudal assessments and the political community under

Henry II and his sons.

(Publications of the UCLA Center for Medieval and

Renaissance Studies; 19)

Revision of thesis (Ph.D)—University of California

at Santa Barbara, 1978.

Bibliography: p.

Includes Index.

1. Scutage. 2. Taxation—England—History. 3. Feudalism—England.

4. Great Britain—History—Henry II, 1154-1189. 5. Knightsand

knighthood—England—History. 1. Title. II. Series.

JC116.S4K4 1983 321.3'0942 82-15986

ISBN 0-520-04582-3

FOR

Warren and Megan

Contents

Contents

I Feudal Surveys: The Infeudationes militum and the Cartae baronum

II The Knight’s Fee and Scutage

III Henry IFs Scutage Policy and the Servicium Debitum

IV Feudal Patronage

V Feudal Taxation under Henry II

Appendix I The Norman Infeudationes militum: 1172

Appendix II The Cartae baronum and the Assessment of Knight Service: 1166-1210

Appendix III Knights’ Fees in Cheshire and Wales

Appendix IV Scutages and Feudal Aids 1159-1214 (Frequencies)

Notes

Bibliography

Index

I

Feudal Surveys:

The

Infeudationes militum

and the

Cartae baronum

IN THE FORMATIVE years of 1035-1154, the greater part of the land in Normandy and England came to be held by feudal military tenure. From the time of William the Conqueror, the barons who held estates in the Anglo-Norman realm as tenants-in-chief by knight service bore the annual responsibility of furnishing at their own cost set quotas of knights to serve in the royal host, or army, and to defend the king’s castles. These barons gradually granted out portions of their estates to warriors who would perform the necessary knight service and who, in turn, created similar subtenancies. By the mid-twelfth century, the knight’s fee—a fief from which the service of a single knight was due—had become the basic unit of Anglo-Norman feudal organization through the territorialization of military service and the process of subinfeudation. And yet, it is only in the period 1155 to 1216 that a clear picture of knight service and its allied institutions begins to take shape.

Much of this increase in our knowledge is due to the inquisitiveness of Henry II, who commanded his tenants-in-chief both in England and Normandy to set down in writing the names, knights’ fees, and service of their rear-vassals. The information accumulated through Henry II’s feudal surveys is preserved in two well-known feodaries: the English Cartae baronum and the Norman Infeudationes militum.’ It is to these surveys that all studies of Anglo-Norman feudalism eventually must turn.

1

The Cartae baronum also has a prominent place in the history of taxation and royal-baronial relations. As early as the eleventh century, English tenants-in-chief periodically commuted part of their military obligation through the payment of scutage, or shield money. By the reign of Henry II, scutage was assessed against the barons’ servicia debita (due service): that is, the number of knights owed to the host. Thus, if the scutage rate were set at 20s. on the knight’s fee, a baron whose serviciutn was fifteen knights would pay £15 to acquit himself and his knights from the obligation to take part in a royal expedition. The required sum was collected by the baron from his rear-vassals, who collected it from their vassals, and so forth. Eventually the money was handed over to the king’s exchequer, where the amount assessed and the amount paid in was recorded in the pipe roll. Under this system a profit would accrue to barons who collected scutage from knights who had been enfeoffed in excess of their servicia. Here, according to John Horace Round, writing in the 1890s, lay the motivation behind the great survey that produced the Cartae.

Henry II undertook this survey, Round argued, because he intended to increase the crown’s profit from scutage by making the barons liable for knights’ fees in excess of their servicia debita. Round proved his thesis by showing a correlation between the assessments levied in 1168 and 1172 and the number of knights’ fees returned in the barons’ cartae. From this evidence, he went on to speculate that the new assessments were wholly advantageous to the crown, that they were permanent, and that they formed part of a financial revolution.²

Round’s conclusions concerning the success of Henry II’s scutage policy have been rejected by English medievalists, who generally concur in the belief that baronial opposition forced Henry to compromise his policy to such an extent that it had little if any permanent success. This has been the view of such scholars as James Baldwin,³ Sydney Mitchell,⁴ Helena Chew,³ Austin Poole,⁶ Sidney Painter,⁷ Frank Barlow,⁸ and C. Warren Hollister,⁹ and it has been restated more recently by G. L. Harriss in his study of public finance in medieval England¹⁰ and W. L. Warren in his well received biography of Henry II.¹¹ In fact, W. L. Warren goes so far as to include Henry II’s feudal surveys and the 1168 and 1172 levies in a list of administrative provocations that helped to bring about a major baronial rebellion in 1173.¹² These convictions readily merge with the generally held notion of the burdensome nature of Angevin governance and the monarchy’s reckless abuse of its powers of taxation.¹³ No one has sought to draw a clear parallel between the actions and motivations of Henry II’s barons in this regard with their heirs’ more eventful protests against the policies of his son John; but such an inference can be made. In the minds of many scholars, no doubt, the revolt of 1173 foreshadows the revolts of 1212 and 1215, which, as it happened, were preceded by another universal survey and a levy on the total enfeoffment.¹⁴ The alleged widespread opposition to scutage under Henry II continues to be seen as the first instance of a collective effort by an aroused baronage to successfully combat the aggrandizing policies of the Angevin monarchs.

But how valid is this impression? In this book, Henry II’s feudal surveys and the assessment of knight service will be examined in some detail, using statistical analyses whenever possible, to determine whether the heavier quotas were abandoned as the result of baronial pressure, and whether they were a major cause for discontent and rebellion. Certainly Round’s thesis that the new assessments formed part of a financial revolution warrants serious modification. Scutage was an occasional tax at best under Henry II and Richard I. Only twelve royal scutages were levied in the nearly forty-five years in which these monarchs reigned, in comparison with eleven almost consecutive levies made by John during his seventeen years on the throne. And yet, under all three monarchs, a sizable number of the more heavily enfeoffed barons remained unassessed when a scutage was levied because they had performed corporal service or had served the king in some other capacity. Of those who were assessed, many later received a complete or partial pardon of the sums charged against them. Whatever the method of assessment, then, scutage itself was never a major source of royal income. The same argument, on the other hand, works against the theory put forward by Round’s critics. Because scutage was occasional, often pardoned, or not assessed at all, it is hazardous to generalize, solely on the basis of the adoption of a more rigorous method of assessment by Henry II, that the baronage was inclined toward rebellious opposition to royal policy. It will become clear that, in the case of scutage and other forms of taxation, the wealthiest and most influential tenants-in-chief and those close to the king rarely suffered any of the burdensome exactions that have traditionally been associated with the policies of the early Angevin monarchs.

I

Briefly described, the Infeudationes militum is a listing of the number of knights owed by the Norman tenants-in-chief to the duke’s service, as well as the number of knights retained in their own service.¹⁵ It covers, with a few notable exceptions, all those who held of the duke by knight service.¹⁶ A typical entry reads:

Robert de Montfort, six knights from the honor of Coquainvil- liers [to the duke’s service]; and thirty-three and oncrthird, onefourth knights to his own service.¹⁷

or

In the bailliage of Tinchebray, the Fee of Gilbert d’Avranches, two knights.¹⁸

To avoid confusion, it should be mentioned that when a total for the knights due the duke and a total for those in the baron’s private service are both given in the feodary, as they are in Robert de Montfort’s case, the first total is included in the second, and the two should not be added together in calculating a baron’s total enfeoffment. On the other hand, if the feodary lists only a single total without designating to whom the service was due, it can usually be inferred that this total reflects both the servicium debitum and the enfeoffment. Sometimes, however, only the number of knights in private service has been set down because the amount of the servicium debitum was unknown when the survey was taken.¹⁹

A trustworthy description of how the survey was made, which comes from the Cartulary of Mont-Saint-Michel, contains so many points of interest that it is worth reprinting in full:

In the one-thousandth, one-hundred and seventy-second year after the incarnation of Our Lord, all the barons of Normandy assembled at Caen on the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the command of King Henry II; and there each baron acknowledged, in the presence of the justiciars, how many knights he owed to the king’s service and how many knights he had in his own service. And each baron also returned two writs: one with a seal and the other without a seal. In the sealed writs only the number of knights owed to the king was entered, while the names of the barons’ knights and the partes et divisiones of their fees were written in the unsealed writs. Afterwards, all the writs, both those with and without seals, were collected and deposited in the royal On treasury."

This account was written by Robert of Torigny, the noted historian who as abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel in 1172 no doubt took part in the events he describes. It can be concluded from his remarks that the Infeudationes militum was drawn up from the barons’ verbal testimony because the names of the subtenants and the parts and divisions of their fees were left unrecorded. This fact is suggested too by a comparison of the entry in the feodary for Mont-Saint-Michel and also by a list of the abbey’s subtenants and fees, following Robert’s description of the survey in the cartulary, that may be a copy of either the writs returned by him in 1172 or the notes from which he framed his reply.²¹

In considering the purpose of the Norman survey, the initial question is: Did Henry II increase the assessment of knight service in the duchy as he did in England? The loss of all but a few fragments of the Norman pipe rolls for Henry’s reign makes it uncertain whether heavier assessments were made.²² It is known from the rolls for Richard and John that scutage was levied in their reigns on the customary servicium debitum, unless an honor had come under ducal control through escheat and wardship or its quota had not been reported in 1172. In the latter instance the demand was made on the total enfeoffment of the honor.²³ That Henry II himself intended to abide by the traditional quotas is strongly suggested by the writs returned in 1172. If his intention had been to raise the barons’ service, it is hard to imagine why he requested that the servicium debitum be set down in a sealed writ.

On the contrary, the intention must have been to preserve the customary quotas as a matter of certified written record for both host service and scutage.²⁴ Similar registers, it seems, were kept for the military service due from townsmen.²³

The immediate incentive for recording the names and numbers of the barons’ knights is more difficult to discover. This information may have been intended for future administrative use when a barony came under ducal control.²⁶ A more direct purpose could have been to record the barons’ military strength, because in times of emergency the Norman dukes had a right to call out the duchy’s full knight service. The desire to learn the duchy’s feudal strength and to fix the servitia debita perhaps explains why only this information was enrolled in the Infeudationes militum.

In more general terms, the 1172 inquiry can be viewed as part of an overall program to maintain an accurate record of Norman resources and to recover ducal rights and lands lost as a result of the Anglo-Norman civil war.²⁷ In 1163 Henry II instructed that the lawful rents and privileges of both the duke and the barons in each Norman diocese be surveyed.²⁸ Eight years later he had a survey taken of all the estates and forests that had belonged to the ducal demesne in the reign of his grandfather Henry I but that were now occupied by others, and he ordered that these lands be restored to the ducal demesne.²⁹ The capacity to conduct largescale investigations was an important feature of Norman administration under Henry II, it appears; and it follows that this capacity could hardly have been realized without some cooperation from a major portion of the baronage.

II

Like its Norman counterpart, the English Cartae baronum is the product of a universal survey that relied heavily on baronial cooperation for its completion. Because there is no exemplar of the writ that commissioned the Cartae, the barons’ returns must be trusted as a source of the particulars. The best evidence of the questions asked by Henry II is found in the archbishop of York’s carta (return):

To his most beloved lord, Henry, by the grace of God king of England, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, his Roger, by the same grace archbishop of York and legate of the Apostolic See, greeting. Your majesty has commanded that all your faithful men, both churchmen and laymen, who hold of you in-chief… shall signify to you by their letters, bearing their seals outside, how many knights each of them has who were enfeoffed by the old enfeoffment [de veteri fefamento] in the time of King Henry, your grandfather, namely on the day and in the year that he was alive and dead; and how many he has who were enfeoffed by the new enfeoffment [de novo fefamento] after the death of your said grandfather of blessed memory; and how many knights’ fees [feoda militum] are on the demesne [super dominium] of each. And the names of all those knights, both of the old enfeoffment and of the new, are to be inscribed in that writ, because you wish that, if there are any who have not yet sworn fealty to you and whose names are not yet entered in your role, they should swear fealty to you before the first Sunday in Lent. As one of your faithful men, being subject in all things to your command, I have with all diligence, and in so far as the shortness of the time would allow, made an investigation within my tenement and by the present writing signify to you my lord the results.³⁰

The important questions touching the tenurial arrangements of the barons were, therefore: (1) How many knights do you have enfeoffed from the time of the de veteri, or old, enfeoffment, that is, before the death of King Henry I on 1 December 1135? (2) How many knights do you have enfeoffed from the time of the de novo, or new, enfeoffment, that is, since the death of King Henry I? And (3) how many knights’ fees remain on your demesne, or super dominium?⁰’ The final query warrants further explanation. It refers to the number of knights a baron would have to arm and equip from his private resources if he had created fewer fees than the number of knights he owed to the king’s service under his servicium debitum. Technically, it would be incorrect to speak of the balance of service due from the demesne in terms of the knight’s fee because the phrase super dominium implies the absence of knightly tenure. Nonetheless, an honor with a servicium debitum of sixty knights and a reported enfeoffment of fifty knights could be said to contain sixty knights’ fees—-just as the rear-vassal who owed his lord the services of five knights but had granted tenures to only three would be considered as holding five knights’ fees, and the lord would be considered to have thereby enfeoffed five knights. It should thus not be a surprise to find the phrase feoda militum super dominium in twelfth-century documents.³² In fact, this conceptualization no doubt aided in the calculation of taxes using the knight’s fee as the unit of assessment. The statement that an honor contained sixty knights’ fees need not then always mean that exactly sixty knights were given tenures; some of the sixty fees might be merely notational.

The barons also were asked to give the names of their knights, so that they could be checked against a roll to determine which of them had not yet sworn homage to the king. All such knights would be required to do so before the first Sunday in Lent. The crown’s insistence on this information was firm, and at least one carta was rejected because it lacked the knights’ names.³³

It is also interesting that the cartae had to be sent extra sigillum pendentes, that is, with the seals on the outside as with letters patent. The seal was affixed to a strip of parchment run through the bottom of the message so it could be inspected and read without damaging the seal.³⁴ By ordering each baron, who alone was responsible for making out his return, to affix his seal to the carta, the king aimed to legally certify its contents as an accurate representation of the baron’s entire enfeoffment. The omission of any fees could be seen as an admission of disownership.³⁵ To avoid such a consequence, the archbishop of York formulated this postscript to his carta:

And since my lord, of these knights there are some from whom I demand more service than they are now performing, while others are witholding what is said to belong to the demesne of the archbishop rather than to themselves, I humbly ask that this writing shall not be held against me or my successors if we are unable to restore the rights of the church.³⁶

Similarly, the head of the powerful Clare family took the precaution of sending the king a note explaining that a one-half knight’s fee of the new enfeoffment held by Isaac the Jew had been inadvertently excluded from his carta.⁰⁷

English honors that were unaccounted for in the Cartae baronum were mostly in royal custody at the time of the survey.³⁸ On the whole, the baronage cooperated remarkably well with the crown’s inquiry into their tenurial arrangements. Many responses actually provided more details than had been requested, as the carta of a Lincolnshire baron illustrates:

To his revered Lord, Henry, king of the English Lambert of Etocquigny, greeting. Know that I hold from you by your favor 16 caru cates of land and 2 bo vates for the service of 10 knights. In these 16 carucates I have 5 knights enfeoffed by the old enfeoffment:

Richard of Hay holds 1 knight’s fee; and he withheld the service which he owes to you and to me from the day of your coronation up to now, except that he paid me 2 marcs.

Odo of Cranesby holds 1 knight’s fee. Thomas son of William holds 1 knight’s fee. Roger de Millers holds 2 knights’ fees.

And from my demesne I provide the balance of the service which I owe to you: that is, 5 knights. And from that demesne I have given Robert de Portemort three-quarters of a knight’s fee.

Therefore, I pray to you that you will send me your judgement concerning Richard of Hay who holds back the service of his fee, because I cannot obtain that service except by your command. This is the total service in the aforesaid 16 carucates of land. Farewell.³⁹

Lambert recorded not only the totality of his enfeoffment in responding to the king’s writ but also the extent of his entire fief and royal service. He also took the opportunity to ask the king’s assistance in motivating Richard of Hay—a tenant-in-chief—to perform the full service for his fee. The frequency with which the barons’ cartae contain such unsolicited details and requests adds immeasurably to their interest.

The texts of the York and Etocquigny cartae, like others found in the feodary, read like faithful copies of the originals, but many of the entries in the feodary are clearly summaries or abridgements.⁴⁰ Omitted, for instance, are the salutation and introduction accompanying the carta returned by the abbot of Abingdon.⁴¹ The transcripts of the cartae are enrolled in the feodary under the county from which a carta had been forwarded, or in which a baron had his chief estates. Notices sometimes appear stating the lands and fees of those who had failed to respond to the survey or were granted newly created fees by the king after the survey had been completed.⁴² An examination of these notices, which are often written in a later hand, suggests that the feodary was drawn up prior to 1189.⁴³ The date of the survey itself is controversial and must be considered before its purpose can be explained.

The traditional date for the Cartae baronum was fixed as February-March 1166 by the antiquarian Robert W. Eyton.⁴⁴ Historians have never been certain how to reconcile this dating with Ralph de Diceto’s report of a general inquisition into English tenures in 1163. Charles Homer Haskins thought the 1163 date was an obvious error on the chronicler’s part.⁴³ More recently, John Schlight, accepting Ralph’s date of 1163, has advanced the thesis that the survey lasted three years and has placed the error in the lap of modern authorities.⁴⁶ Of course, these divergent perspectives assume a single inquest. They overlook the possibility of two independent inquiries—which, in fact, was the case.

That the survey might have run for three years is entirely unacceptable. The Domesday survey lasted no longer than one year, and English feudal surveys following the Cartae took place within a period of two months or less.⁴⁷ The administrative process was swift even when it covered the entire kingdom. The archbishop of York’s carta points out the short time he had to prepare his return and also makes it clear that the survey was concluded within one year: the knights were to be checked against the king’s roll and, if not found therein, were to perform homage before the first Sunday in Lent. Unfortunately, his statements do not indicate whether the year was 1163 or 1166.

Diceto’s report of the 1163 inquisition is mentioned in a chronological list of the confrontations between Thomas à Becket as archbishop of Canterbury and Henry II,