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The debts under section E amounted to
Aforementioned surplus owing to
Richard of Argences

Surplus owing to Richard

£ s. d.

31 10 6

98 13 4

67 2 101

1. This sum is credited to Richard of Argences in another part of the roll (p. 413) towards the payment of his enormous fine of 1000 silver marks sterling (see Rot. Scacc., i, 245) of which he still owed 439 marks, and 78. 101⁄2d. in sterling money in 1198. The silver mark was worth £2. 13. 4d. in Angevin money. Stapleton remarks (II, cviii) that the size of the fine 'is indication of the vast profits which the officers employed in the collection of the revenue were enabled to appropriate to themselves, and which, when labouring under the royal displeasure, they were compelled in this manner partly to disgorge.'

310

CHAPTER VIII.

War and Finance.

In this chapter I shall first discuss the information contained in the records upon the structure, organisation and maintenance of the army in Normandy; and in the second place turn to consider two or three matters of a more general nature arising out of this discussion. The material is meagre and scattered, but it seems desirable to make as much use as possible of the administrative diary which the Chancery rolls of King John's reign contain— the first diary of its kind in English or Norman history.

I.

The old national system of the feudal host supported by a national levy still existed in Normandy in 1204 as the chief factor in time of war. The system was badly strained, and was ill-fitted to comprehend the increasing mercenary element, but it was by no means discarded.

Henry II had by his assize of arms reorganised the national levy on the basis of wealth, and casual references to a visus armorum suggest that his regulations were enforced in John's reign. Moreover, the Angevin kings had laid additional stress upon the public character of the

1. Rot. Norm., 83. The men of Guy de Diva are to be free "de taillagio et de visu armorum quamdiu ipse fuerit in servicio nostro." Cf. Rot. Pat., 1, on the host which was to meet at Argentan; John, September 27th, 1201, sends three officials "ad videndum qui vestrum venerint et qualiter quisque venerit." On the public liability of freemen, see Prou, in Revue historique, 1890, xliv, 313; Haskins, in American Historical Review, xiv, 457. The inquest at Chizé (above p. 297) illustrates this duty of "exercitus et equitatio."

army in less direct ways. For example, drastic and savage punishments for default take the place in the ordinances of Henry II and John of the fixed amercements which are found in the Anglo-Saxon laws and in ordinary French practice.2 And, more important, any tendency on the part of the greater vassals to feudalise and turn to their own profit the public obligations of the freeman was checked by royal insistance upon the judicial and financial rights of the sovereign.3 Hence, although the arrière-ban or national levy was less important in practice, it was fixed more firmly than ever in the administrative system of the country.

Although the arrière-ban is mentioned on the rolls, it is not quite clear whether a distinction was maintained at the end of the twelfth century between the feudal force (exercitus) and the host of freemen. The references

1. Assize of Arms, c. 10 (Select Charters, p. 156) mutilation, not loss of lands or chattels, to be the punishment for non-observance of the assize. Cf. the elaborate regulations for the organised defence of England in 1205, with their penalty of perpetual servitude; Stubbs, Constitutional History, i, 634. Such regulations were, of course, unusual, and are really important as showing the intensity of the royal will. In ordinary cases of non-attendance at the host, amercements were exacted. See below.

2. Vinogradoff, English Society in the Eleventh Century, p. 28; Prou, "De la nature du service militaire du par les roturiers aux xi et xiie siècles," in Revue Historique, 1890, xliv, 321-3.

3. Cf. Statuta et Consuetudines, c. xlviii (Tardif, I, i, 38), “Nullus vero hominum audeat talias vel exactiones ab hominibus suis exigere, nisi per scriptum Ducis et ejus indulgenciam, scilicet pro gravamine guerre," etc. The privilege enjoyed by the archbishop of Rouen with regard to the arrière-ban, illustrates the practice to which it is an exception: "De retrobanno Normannie sic erit, quod cum oportuerit submoneri retrobannum, secundum consuetudinem terre Archiepiscopus per nos vel per litteras nostras vel per capitalem Senescallum nostrum vel per litteras ejus submoneri debet, et ipse Archiepiscopus summonebit retrobannum secundum consuetudinem terre, et ducet vel duci faciet, et si retrobannum plenarie non venerit justicia erit Archiepiscopi." (John's charter in Rot. Norm., 3.)

concern the conduct of knights, and it is possible that the later dukes were satisfied to summon the better armed subtenants, in addition to the stated feudal levy. At any rate it is apparent that the army, comprising large numbers of soldiers (servientes) on horse and foot was called out nearly every year between 1198 and 1204.2 Its usual rendezvous was Argentan.3 Its administration or organisation was the duty of the Marshal, if a single reference to the functions of John the Marshal may be trusted. Those great military officials, the constable and marshal, together with the seneschal or highest officer of state, still retained the functions which they had exercised in days when the host was the normal instrument of warfare.1

A more important element than the arrière-ban in the military system of a feudal state was the organised militia of the communes. 5 It is true that in Normandy, although

1. Account in 1198 “de misericordiis militum Ballie de Domfront qui non venerunt ad rerebandum exercitus ex quo summoniti fuerunt," (Rot. Scacc., ii, 495). John's letter to William of Caieux, Argentan, June 5th, 1200: "vobis mandamus quatinus ad nos cum retrouuarda accedatis desicut retrobannum nostrum mandavimus," (Rot. Norm., 36).

2. The evidence for 1198, 1200, 1201, 1202, and probably 1203 rests upon Rot. Scacc., ii, 445, 495; Rot. Norm., 36; Rot. Pat. 1, 21b; Rot. Norm., 83. Most of these passages are quoted in previous notes. For Rot. Pat., 21b, see note at the end of this chapter. Rot. Scacc., ii, 445, contains this entry: "Henricus de Ponte Audemer reddit compotum de x li. pro 1 summario cum apparatu quem Burgenses Fiscanni debent Regi quando exercitus Normannie submonitus est." It should also be noted that local forces were occasionally summoned for special purposes, such as Count John's attack on Vaudreuil in 1194: above, p. 155. 3. Cf. above, p. 232.

4. See the note at the end of this chapter.

5. Borrelli de Serres, Recherches sur divers services publics du xiii au xviie siècle, i (1895), 467 seqq.; Giry, Etablissements de Rouen, ii, 36-ch. 28, 29; Luchaire, Les communes françaises (ed. 1911), pp. 177190; Jean Yanoski, in the Mémoires presentés par divers savants à l'académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1860, 2e series, vol. iv, part ii, pp. 1–105.

2

1

the militia was regarded as a potential field force, it was used mainly for defensive purposes, whereas Philip Augustus frequently employed it in the open. But its defensive value was very great, and King John was fully alive to the fact. The communes which he created, many of which were very short-lived, were designed to have a military function, and are excellent examples of the feudal character of these organisations. The immediate consequence, as Luchaire observed, of the communal bond was that the commune, as a seigneurie and member of the feudal hierarchy, owed military service. The Norman towns, like the Spanish, were chartered " ad persecucionem inimicorum,” if not " ad persecucionem inimicorum crucis Christi." "It is our good pleasure," John wrote to the men of Fécamp on June 30, 1202, "that you and others in your neighbourhood shall have a commune for so long as it may please us, and that you be ready to defend your land by arms and in other necessary ways.' Failure to serve in the communal levy was met with communal punishment. For example, according to the établissements of Rouen, a citizen who was not present at the hour fixed for the start upon a communal expedition was punished by the destruction of his house, or if he had no house of his

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1. Cf. Howden, iv, 56, 58. On the other hand it should be noted that Philip Augustus demanded fixed quotas of men and carts from the towns, and organised these according to districts; also that he frequently took money instead of service. Borrelli de Serres, op. cit., 476, 489; and below, pp. 326-7. There are signs that fixed quotas were demanded from some Norman towns, e.g., from Rouen, Rot. Scacc., ii, 306, "servientes quos cives Rothomagi debuerunt invenire Regi in gerra." 2. Delisle, Cartulaire Normand, pp. xv-xviii. Aufai, Dom front, Evreux (formed in Richard's reign), Fécamp, Harfleur, Montivilliers were of short duration.

3. Luchaire, op. cit. p. 178; see also Giry, i, 440

4. Fuero del Teluel, c. 2, quoted by Davis in English Historical Review, xxiii, 768.

5. Rot. Pat., 13b. The date given in the enrolment is July 30th, but the context points to June 30th.

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