History of England During the Early and Middle Ages, Volume 1

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Bell & Daldy, 1867
 

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Page 542 - Richard's reign is in itself of little importance for English history. But its indirect results changed the face of the country. Among them, the purchase of charters by the municipalities may be classed in the first order. Richard once said that he would sell London itself, if he could find a purchaser. The sheriffs and their officers were removed throughout the kingdom, that their places might be sold. If it be true that the great justiciary, Glanville, was imprisoned, and forced to ransom himself...
Page 473 - ... robbers. The bishops and learned men cursed them continually, but the effect thereof was nothing to them; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned. To till the ground was to plough the sea: the earth bare no corn, for the land was all laid waste by such deeds; and they said openly, that Christ slept, and his saints.
Page 153 - I fear not death, since I have fulfilled the greatest duty of life; but I must pray thee not to let my hair be touched by a slave, or stained with my blood.
Page 78 - I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin. I have been fostered in the land of the Deity, I have been teacher to all intelligences, I am able to instruct the whole universe. I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth ; And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. Then I was for nine months In the womb of the hag Ceridwen ; I was originally little Gwion, And at length I am Taliesin.
Page 580 - For when the tenant shall make homage to his lord, he shall be ungirt and his head uncovered, and his lord shall sit, and the tenant shall kneel before him on both his knees, and hold his hands jointly together between the hands of his lord, and shall say thus : ' I become your man from this day forward...
Page 580 - I become your man from this day forward of life and limb and of earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and faithful, and bear to you faith for the tenements (MN) that I claim to hold of you, saving the faith that I owe unto our sovereign lord the king;' and then the lord so sitting shall kiss him.
Page 247 - He has shown in his maps the territorial identity of many ancient Saxon Tithings with modern English Parishes and Townships. He says, "Ten families constituted a tithing, the self-governing unit of the state, which is now represented among us by the parish, and ten tithings were a hundred, whose court administered justice among the little communities themselves."* Pearson has shown that the Hundreds of Devonshire contain on the average...
Page 437 - Henry the emperor (husband of Maud) dies, May 22. A council held at London, in which the marriage of priests is condemned. AD 1126. .'Henry returns to England in September, bringing with him his new queen and his daughter Maud, and many Norman prisoners, " whom he ordered to be kept in strong bonds.
Page 276 - Out of the surplus, the king maintained his court, entertained strangers, paid his judicial commissioners, and contributed to public works. The church, the army, the fleet, the police, the poor-rates, the walls, bridges, and highways of the country, were all local expenses, defrayed by tithes, by personal service, or by contributions among the guilds.
Page 93 - But if we venture to assert Arthur's existence, it is on condition of restricting his dominions. In the narrative of the ninth century, which describes him as lord-paramount of Britain, fighting twelve battles from the south to Scotland, going as a pilgrim to Jerusalem, and wearing the Virgin's image on his shield, he is already passing into the hero of romance. History only knows him as the petty prince of a Devonian principality, whose wife, the Guenever of romance, was carried off by Maelgoun...

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