EMEUTE IN NORTHUMBRIA. 371 swore "by the splendour of God" that he would never let him loose, and William never broke a vow of vengeance. The saddest fate of all was reserved for Waltheof. Denounced for conspiring with the Danes by his treacherous wife Judith, he was condemned by his peers on the other count of concealing treason against his suzerain. William was by this time thoroughly embittered against his English subjects, and had every political. reason for destroying a powerful noble like Waltheof. The earl was therefore beheaded (A. D. 1075) after a year's imprisonment. The piety of his last days edified the devout who heard that he recited the psalter daily, and died saying the Lord's Prayer. Above all, he was the last great English earl, and his countrymen, when they could not follow him as a leader, revered him as a saint. Yet the one memorable act of his later life had been the cowardly assassination of four brothers, who had been his own comrades in arms, but whose father had slain his grandfather in battle. The tedious tale of English risings and their suppression has only one other important episode. Walcher, a native of Lorraine, had been appointed bishop of Durham; he seems to have been an easy, well-meaning man, who guided himself by the councils of Liulf, a native of those parts. The jealousy of the bishop's chaplain, Leofwine, was aroused, and he procured Liulf's murder by the aid of the sheriff Gilbert, Walcher's nephew (A. D. 1080). The bishop professed to outlaw the assassins, but received them into his house and tried to compromise matters with Liulf's kindred. The people assembled as if for the scir-gemot, slew all the Normans they could find, drove the rest into a church, and set fire to the doors. The besieged sent out Gilbert and his soldiers, who were instantly despatched. The bishop then 372 DEVASTATION OF NORTHUMBRIA. appeared at the doors, hoping to conciliate respect by his character and office. "Short rede, good rede, slay ye the bishop," was the cry; Walcher fell on the consecrated threshold, and not one of his company escaped, except the Englishmen, who were saved on account of their connections. The wretched Leofwine, probably also an Englishman, dragged himself, half burned, to the doors, and was the last victim. The Norman misrule in the north was still tempered by rebellions. But William's brother and viceroy, the bishop of Bayeux, took a speedy and sharp vengeance for the crime. He marched northwards, mutilating and beheading at random on his way, and renewed the horrors that had made Northumbria a desert ten years before. CHAPTER XXIII. RESULTS OF THE CONQUEST. COMPILATION OF DOMESDAY BOOK. ITS USE. OMISSIONS. NUMBERS AND ELEMENT INTRODUCED. LEGAL CHARACTER OF THE CHANGES MADE. N the year A. D. 1085, William was alarmed by the news of a joint invasion from Denmark and Flanders. An army was hastily brought over from Normandy, and quartered throughout England; the numbers were greater than had ever landed before; perhaps the king apprehended rebellion. In a few months the danger had passed away; Knut was detained by contrary winds and the treason of his captains, so that William was able to dismiss a portion of his force. But as it was not to be endured that such a kingdom as England should lie at the mercy of any foreign foe, the king determined in council on a new military organization, which should enable him to collect an army at a moment's notice. As land was the basis of all calculations of this sort, commissioners were appointed for different counties to make a census of population and property. Their method of procedure was to summon before them the sheriffs, the lords of manors, the parish priests, the hundred reeves, the bailiffs, and six villeins out of every hamlet. These men stated on oath what amount of land there was in the district, whether it was wood, meadow, or pasture, what was its value, what services were due from its owners; and generally the numbers of free and bond on the estate. In some instances, other particulars were inserted, such as the number of live stock, which the transcribers struck out or retained, without any fixed rule, in the summary made for the crown. The English, unaccustomed to a census, murmured at the prospect of more accurate taxation, and their chroniclers thought it "shameful to tell" what "the king had thought it no shame to do."2 Yet the accurate definitions of land in Anglo-Saxon charters must have familiarized the people with these inquiries on a small scale; and the registries of the county courts, and the old conveyances of property, in which husbandmen and live stock were sometimes enumerated, were perhaps part of the evidence which came before the commissioners. The mere existence of hundreds and tithings is further proof that the people did not live without boundaries or legal divisions before their conquest by William. The idea of Domesday Book, if it had any precedent, was probably derived from the customs of England rather than from those of Normandy. But its true cause lies in the necessities of a new government and of difficult times. It served for centu That the same men were not commissioners for all England is proved by a letter of Lanfranc's: "G... amico suo. Scias autem in illis comitatibus quorum exquirendorum cura tibi commissa est me nihil in dominio habere." Lanfr. Opera, vol. i. p. 77. The eastern counties seem to be meant. 2 Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, p. vii. A. S. Chron., A. 1085. ries as the basis of all taxation, and the authority by which all disputes about landed tenures and customs were decided. The statement of an early historian' that William could summon sixty thousand men to arms, if need were, must not be taken to mean that sixty thousand knights or men-at-arms were quartered on as many military fees. The knights' fees in the counties south of Thames numbered little more than two thousand a century later, when the number was probably greater than under the Conqueror; and nine thousand for all England would be a large estimate at any time in the twelfth century. But it is quite possible that the disposable force of the realm, archers and other light-armed men included, might vaguely be computed at some number like sixty thousand. The tenants-in-chief were directly responsible for the service of the heavy-armed men, who were considered the great strength of an army; but it lay with themselves whether they would keep their legal quota always at hand. The bishop of Lincoln, who owed a service of sixty men-at-arms, had enfeoffed a hundred and three under Henry II; and the bishop of Durham, who owed for ten, had enfeoffed seventy. On the other hand, Radulf Hansel, of Nottinghamshire, had enfeoffed about seventeen, owing for 1 Orderic, vol. ii. p. 224. 2 My estimate from the ten counties south of Thames and Avon, as given in the Liber Niger Scaccarii, is 2047. These counties probably contained rather more than a fourth of the population of England, but allowance must be made for the knights on crown lands (king's thanes) who seem not to be entered. The statement ascribed to Stephen de Segrave, in the Annales de Burton (p. 364), that the old scutage of the kingdom was assessed on 32,000 fees, and that a new assessment would embrace double the number, must be understood of hides, five of which might be roughly estimated as a knight's fee. In fact as the hidage of England can hardly have reached 100,000 (see Appendix B), it is easily demonstrable that even the smaller number of 32,000 is impossible or, if barely possible, would leave no land out of military service. |