of the judicial body; Humfrey de Bohun, Gilbert Malet, and Manasser Bisset were present as officers of the household; John, constable of Chester, was (then or afterwards) son-in-law to the grantee's wife, and Geoffrey de Say was the son of the earl's aunt; Osbert Fitz Richard and David de Jarpenville (probably John de Rochelle also) were among the earl's feudal tenants and are found attesting another of his charters; and Hasculf was the enterprising chaplain who had plotted to carry off the late earl's corpse and present it to the nuns of Chicksand. The only person whose presence need puzzle us is the Earl of Essex himself; for William fitz Stephen 19 asserts that he was despatched from Henry's court after the arrival there of the excommunicated prelates and the Archdeacon of Poitou. Either, then, he had previously paid a flying visit to Winchester, or he must have been absent when this transaction was recorded.

19 Memorials, iii. 127.

Movements of Henry II. in 1175

509

IN

THE FIRST KNOWN FINE (1175)

N his masterly introduction to Select Pleas of the Crown, Professor Maitland, with his usual skill, discusses the evolution of the Curia Regis and the relation of the central to the itinerant courts. An appendix to this introduction is devoted to "early fines"; and the conclusion arrived at, as to the date when regular fines began, is that "the evidence seems to point to the year 1178 or thereabouts, just, that is, to the time when King Henry was remodelling the Curia Regis; thenceforward we have traces of a fairly continuous series of fines" (p. xxvii.). More definitely still, in his latest work, he traces the existence of fines "from the year 1179."

The earlier document I here print from the valuable cartulary of Evesham (Vesp B. xxiv., fo. 71, etc.) is, I contend, a true fine, and is fortunately dated with exactitude (20th July) :—

Hæc est finalis concordia facta in curia domini Regis apud Evesham ad proximum festum sancte Margarete post mortem comitis Reginaldi' Cornub' coram Willelmo filio Audelini et Willelmo filio Radulfi et Willelmo Basset et aliis justiciariis domini regis qui ibi tunc aderant, inter Rogerum filium Willelmi et Robertum Trunket de terra de Ragl' unde placitum fuit inter eos in curia domini Regis. Scilicet quod predictus Wibertus Trunket clamavit quietam predicto Rogero terram illam de Ragl' et (sic) feud[um] et hereditatem suam et totum jus suum quod in predicta terra

1 Vol. i. (Selden Society).

24 Reg." "MS. The earl died 1st July, 1175. This fine further cofirms the accuracy of the Gesta Henrici (see Eyton, p. 192).

habebat, et ipse trunchet reddidit in curia domini Regis terram illam de Ragl' in manu (sic) abbatis de Evesham, et ipse abbas ibi statim in curia Regis reddidit eam predicto Rogero. Pro hac autem concessione dedit predictus Rogerus predicto trunchet xx. marcas argenti, et predictus abbas dedit truchet unum anulum argenteum cum cural.

The transcript of this fine is immediately followed by a royal charter confirming it, and establishing Roger in possession :

H. dei gratia. . . Sciatis me concessisse et presenti carta confirmasse finem que factus fuit in curia mea inter, etc., etc. . . . et Wibertus eam reddidit solutam et quietam in manu abbatis de evesham de cujus feodo terra illa est. . . . Et ideo volo et firmiter precipio. . . . Test. Willelmo Audelin', Willelmo filio Radulfi, Willelmo Basset, Berteram de Verdun, Gaufrido Salvagio. Apud Evesham.

Mr. Eyton, to whom this fine was unknown, does not, in his Court and Itinerary of Henry II., include Evesham among the places visited by the king in 1175, but makes him visit Feckenham about October (p. 196). But as we learn from the above fine that Henry was at Evesham on July 20, Mr. Eyton's conclusions must be reconsidered. Henry, according to him, was at Woodstock July 8 and at Nottingham August 1. Now this latter date is derived from a Nottingham charter (p. 193), among the witnesses to which are William fitz Audelin "Dapifer," William Basset, and William fitz Ralf, the very three justices before whom our fine had been levied at Evesham on July 20th. I hold, therefore, that Henry proceeded (possibly through Lichfield, as Mr. Eyton asserts) from Woodstock to Nottingham via Evesham; and, further, that he visited Feckenham (to the north of Evesham) on this occasion, and not, as Mr. Eyton imagined, in October. We find accordingly that of the Feckenham charters quoted by that writer (p. 196), one is witnessed by all three of our officers, William fitz Audelin "Dapifer," William fitz Ralf, and

The King's own Court

511

William Basset; one by William fitz Audelin and William fitz Ralf; and the third by William fitz Ralf and William Basset.

Now, working from the Pipe Rolls, Mr. Eyton discovered that

while the king was in Staffordshire there were pleas held in that country which are expressed to have been held by William fitz Ralph, Bertram de Verdon, and William Basset in curia Regis (p. 193). He also noted that

the Pipe-Roll of 1175, after duly recounting the results of the ordinary assizes, held by William de Lanvall and Thomas Basset (who appear to have visited York while the king was there), contains the following (in regard to a different kind of judicature than that at which the two justiciars presided), and which probably took place in a court of which the king in person was president :

"Placita et conventiones per Willelmum filius Radulfi, Bertram de Verdon, et Willelmum Basset, in curia Regis." These Placita were apparently nothing more than fines with the crown (p. 194).

So, too, he found that at Northampton

the three justiciars who had attended him in his special curia in Staffordshire and at York, negotiated a fine by Robert de Nevill, pro rehabenda saisina de Uppetona quæ fuit Radulfi de Waltervilla" (p. 194).

66

My own evidence proves that the same three justiciars had been with him, earlier in the summer, in his special curia at Evesham, where an actual fine was levied.

Thus we have proof that in the summer of 1175 the king was accompanied on his progress by a special group of justices, with whose assistance he held pleas, just as, a generation later, John, in his ninth year, "was journeying about the country with three judges in his train-Simon Pateshull, Potterne, and Pont Audemer." While he was doing this, as Eyton has shown, two great eyres were going on throughout the country, one of them conducted by

Maitland's Select Pleas of the Crown, I. xv.

William de Lanvall[ei] and Thomas Basset, the other by Ranulf de Glanville and Hugh de Cressi. It is noteworthy that all these four are found, with William fitz Audelin, among the witnesses to a royal charter assigned by Mr. Eyton-rightly no doubt-to the king's stay at York (circ. 10th Aug., 1175), as they also are among the witnesses to the Nottingham charter mentioned above (p. 510), assigned by Eyton to August 1st. The latter, therefore, brings together the king's own party of three or four justices with the four justices in eyre.

The great importance of this royal iter consists in its bearing on the evolution of the curia regis. The years 1175 and 1176 from a critical epoch in this institutional development. Dr. Stubbs, writing on this subject, reminds us that "the first placita curiæ regis mentioned by Madox are in 1175" (i. 600), and speaks of the "two circuits of the justices in 1175, and the six circuits of the judges in 1176" (ib.). So far, indeed, all is clear. The two judicial eyres of 1175 are known to us from the Pipe-Rolls; the six of 1176 are found in the chronicles also, for they were settled by the Assize of Northampton in January of that year (i. 484-5). The really difficult subject is the king's own iter, for which, we have seen, there is clear evidence, but of which Dr. Stubbs, working from Madox, seems to have been unaware. His words are :—

All the eighteen justices of 1176 were officers of the Exchequer ; some of them are found in 1175 holding "placita curiæ regis " in bodies of three or four judges, and not in the same combinations in which they took their judicial journeys. We can scarcely help the conclusion that the new jurisprudence was being administered by committees of the general body of justices, who were equally qualified to sit in the Curia and Exchequer, and to undertake the fiscal and judicial work of the eyre.

[Note. For instance, in 1176, William Fitz Ralf, Bertram de Verdun, and William Basset hear pleas in Curia Regis touching Bucks. and Beds. ; yet, on the eyre, these two counties are visited by three other judges, etc.].