private disposal,1 was carefully farmed,2 if it was not actually in private hands; a new tower or ditch might involve the payment of compensation to some customary tenant. And when the castle was the centre of an administrative district, the area and intensity of its economy were greatly increased. A hundred points of law and custom depended upon the existence of a mighty keep, whose military purpose, though never forgotten, had been overgrown by a variety of new functions and duties. Its maintenance was largely due to the labours and bargains of men who had built up the little town under its protection. Distant monasteries and local hospitals and lazar houses were supported from its revenues. In the castle hall the justices and the bailiff did justice over the countryside and kept an eye on the Jews who were allowed to transact their dangerous and increasingly complicated business. All kinds of men met in the streets of the town-clerks with royal writs, recognitors, claimants, knights and servants conveying the royal treasure, falconers and dog-keepers with their precious charges; men with wine, fish, building stone, paling, rope and bundles of shafts or pikes; merchants, pilgrims, monks on the business of their houses;-they can all be seen as one turns the pages of royal letters and accounts.

1. e.g., the turris, chestnut-grove, and various pieces of land at Avranches were not farmed. Rot. Scacc., i, 11; ii, 289. Delisle, Introduction to the Actes de Henri II, p. 345.

2. The bailiff of Argentan accounted for 65s. "de terra mote in Argentomo" (Rot. Scacc., i, 20). This may, however, have been the site of an earlier castle. Compare, however, the "domus Ricardi de Bailloul que est in fossato Regis" (ibid.).

3. In 1247 there were outstanding claims for compensation by a person whose property King Philip had taken when he built a new tower at Falaise Querimoniae Normanniae, no. 419. King John's fossé at Falaise had involved similar interference with private interests, nos. 403, 457.

4. See below p. 355.

In time of war came new activities. Repairs were hurried on, the ditches were cleaned out, and perhaps buildings were removed which might provide shelter for the enemy. Some high official might come on a tour of inspection, to direct the necessary increase in the garrison and make arrangements for its payment. A special castellan might be sent down, with a force of mercenaries and a royal clerk; and on their behalf letters and writs were issued from the ducal chancery directing the payment of treasure or the immediate despatch of victuals and ammunition, so that, stocked and garrisoned, the castle might be ready for the enemy.2

In

One of the most vivid pictures of war in the twelfth century was drawn by Jordan Fantosme in his chronicle of the war in England during the rebellion of 1173.8 these rough but stirring verses we can see in action the simple mechanism of which the castle was the centre. The young king Henry is in rebellion against his father in Normandy, while the Earl of Leicester and others lead the rising in England. The old king is across the sea, but he knows how every stronghold lies and how it is held; he sees the north of England as though he were reading a plan. The messengers bring him news. It appears that forty days are ample time in which to ride from Wark or Alnwick to Southampton, to cross the Channel, find the king, and return. "The messengers depart, they spur their horses, on the great paved roads they slacken their reins. The horses are

1. In 1206 the viscount of Thouars razed and transferred elsewhere a hospital near the ditch of his castle. His charter is quoted from the Fonteneau MSS. in Mém. de la Société des Antiquaires de l'Ouest (1839), iv, 182.

2. See note B at the end of this chapter.

3. The metrical chronicle of Jordan Fantosme, in Howlett, Chronicles of the reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard 1, iii, 201. Fantosme was an eyewitness of some of the events which he describes. life, see Howlett's preface, vol. iii, pp. lx-lxvi.

On his

very good, which gallop under them."

Throughout

the poem we feel how enormous was the value of the horse 2 the loss of the war horse is as serious as the loss of many soldiers who do not wear armour. The young king, on his part, sends messengers to Scotland; he writes a letter in French (en Romanz) and seals it with a ring.3 He has a friend in Count Philip of Flanders, who sends Flemings to help King William of Scotland; and hundreds more are with the earl of Leicester. How the English hate the Flemings! They come for wool; they are mostly weavers, not true knights; they are mercenaries in a strange land. They are a bold race, and good fighters, but they are destroyed; they will never again cry 'Arras.' At the battle of Fornham "they gathered the wool of England very late. Upon their bodies crows and buzzards descend, who carry their souls to the fire which never burns . . . There was not in the country a villein or clown who did not go to kill Flemings with fork and flail. The armed knights intermeddled with nothing except the knocking down, and the villeins did the killing. By fifteens, by forties, by hundreds and by thousands they made them by main force tumble into the ditches. "4 While the earl of Leicester fails in the Midlands, the king of Scotland goes from castle to castle in the north country. We see how casual an ordinary siege is, how easily the besiegers are diverted if they meet with resistance, if the castle is well stocked with corn and wine and the commander is loyal. Council is taken, the marshals come and go among the tents, serjeants and esquires fold the tents and take down the pavilions, and the huts are burnt. At Appleby there

1. ll. 317-9, p. 230. Here, as elsewhere, I give Howlett's translation. 2. Compare the reference to Odinel of Um fraville's horse, ll. 1669, 1671, p. 342; and Howden's remarks on the old horse of Philip Augustus: "super Morellem senem, quem, inquiuut, decem annos habuit" (iv, 59). The value of the war horse as a prize won in war or the tourney might be illustrated from the Marshal's life and from the rolls. 3. Chronique de Fantosme, 1. 246, p. 224.

4. 11. 1060-2, 1085-91, pp. 292, 294.

is only an aged castellan, Gospatric the Englishman, and the castle is not properly garrisoned; it is soon taken. At Brough there is a small number of knights. They are driven from the stockade into the keep, and are burnt out; they have to surrender; but a knight who has newly arrived, goes back, hangs two shields on the battlements, and until the fire destroys them, hurls javelins and sharp stakes at the Scots. As a result of the capture of Appleby and Brough Carlisle is cut off from Richmond; corn and wine cannot reach it, and it is in great danger. We see, too, how the open country fares. The plan everywhere is first destroy the land, then one's foe.'1 At Prudhoe they do not lose inside as much as might amount to a silver penny; "but their fields they have lost with all their corn, and their gardens were stripped by those bad people; and he who could do no more damage took it into his head to bark the apple-trees; it was a mean " We see the desecration of churches, and women fleeing to the monastery, and peasants led by ropes. Then the army of relief is got together, four hundred knights and more; the archbishop of York sends sixty. King William is surprised at the siege of Alnwick. There is much good fighting; but the king and his knights have to surrender. The victors send a messenger, who rides hard for three days, 'by day and night he fatigues himself with journeying.' Meanwhile King Henry has crossed the Channel and has been met by the loyal Londoners. He is at Westminster, heavy of heart. All his knights have gone to rest when the news comes: "the king was leaning on his elbow, and slept a little, a servant at his feet was gently rubbing them; there was neither noise nor cry, nor any who were speaking there, neither harp nor viols nor anything was sounding at that hour, when the messenger came to the door and gently called." 3

revenge.

1. "Primes guaster la terre et e puis ses enemis," 1. 451, p. 242. 2. 11. 1682-1685, pp. 342, 344.

3. II. 1960, 1962-6, p. 366.

NOTE A.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII.

EXPENDITURE AT CHATEAU-GAILLARD, 1197-8. (Magni Rotuli Scaccarii Normanniae, ii, 309–310.)

In operationibus Belli Castri de Roka1 et Castri de Insula et domorum Regis de Insula et [in] operationibus domorum et hericonorum et fossatorum de Cultura et in operationibus domorum Ville de subtus Rokam et in operationibus de pontibus et breticis et hericonibus de versus Toenie, scilicet:

In virga et palo

Boskeroniis 2

qui prostrabant et escaplebant maremia ad predictas operationesCarpentariis qui operabantur predicta maremia postquam fuerunt in platea apportata ad faciendas predictas operationes Minutis operariis, scilicet, hotariis oisereorum, mortereorum, chivereorum, baiardeorum,3 portatoribus aque in barillis et custodibus predictorum operariorum Portatoribus maremiorum et quarellorum taillatorum

Fabris et in carbone forgeriarum ad predictas operationes faciendas

1. This gives us the first official name of the new castle. The name Castrum Gaillart appears in official acts of King Philip from 1203. See Eng. Hist. Rev. (1912), xxvii, 117.

2. Woodmen.

3. Hodmen with baskets, mortars, handbarrows, tubs.