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destroyed.1 Again, the courts refused to acknowledge deeds which had issued from the chancery of John, the prince who had forfeited his duchy;2 hence many vested interests of recent origin must have been swept on one side, a fact which probably accounts for the disappearance of several of the communes which had been granted by John to Norman towns. But upon the whole one cannot but be impressed by the care with which the new government maintained the social and economic life of the Normans uninterrupted. The authentic charters of early Norman dukes, of the Conqueror and his sons, of Henry II and Richard were respected. The exchequer accepted the letters of contemporary English statesmen, for example, of Earl William the Marshal, as evidence of occurrences before the annexation.3 The coronation of King Richard was established as the point of departure, or limit of legal memory, for fiscal enquiries and for certain important recognitions and prescriptive rights.4

In the meantime the Normans adjusted themselves to the new order of things. One of Philip's earliest acts was the regulation of the currency and the establishment of the rates of exchange between the monetary systems of Normandy and central France. By this decree sterling

1. A case in Jugements, no. 34. Robert the Angevin lost his suit against the Templars. His charter, he said, had been burnt in his house ten years before (1198).

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2. Olim, i, 492, no. ix (1260): nec consuevit dominus Rex tenere litteras ipsius regis Anglie." No recognition or confirmation of John's charters is contained in the documents collected by Delisle in his Cartulaire Normand, though earlier charters are frequently confirmed.

3. Jugements, no. 246, Easter, 1219: "cum in isto scaccario cognitum sit per litteras domini archiepiscopi Cantuarie et etiam litteras patentes comitis W. marescali Anglie, quod idem Radulphus [obierat?] jam elapsis xx annis et eo amplius," etc.

4. Viollet, in Histoire Litteraire, xxxiii, 63-4. This date was abolished in the Charter to the Normans (1315) and replaced by a prescription of forty years; ibid, p. 72.

5. Cart. Norm., no. 112, p. 20; Delisle in Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, x, 199.

money, and the money of Tours and Le Mans were given legal currency in Normandy, and all other money was to be exchanged at a fixed rate. Philip also defined or enlarged the privileges of the towns. Communes of the type of Rouen or of Mantes and other French towns spread through the duchy. The men of Rouen even came to an agreement with the men of Paris about the commerce of the Seine. Rapidly and imperceptibly the burgesses and peasantry and the bulk of the lesser gentry lost any interest they had in the old English connection. The loss of Normandy worked a violent revolution in the society of the Anglo-Norman baronage, but in it alone.

1. Cart. Norm., pp. xv-xviii; Actes, nos. 804, 829, 830, 903, 904, 1024, etc. For Philip's policy with regard to the towns, see Giry, Les Etablissements de Rouen, i, 31, 32, 52, 358.

2. In January 1210; Cart. Norm., nos. 171, 1097; p. 296.

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CHAPTER X.

On Some Social and Political Consequences of the Wars in Normandy.

Sir William mentioned the old laird of Bernera, who, summoned by his chief to join him with all the men he could make, when the Chief was raising his men for Government, sent him a letter to this purpose :-"Dear Laird,-No man would like better to be at your back than I would; but on this occasion it cannot be. I send my men who are at your service; for myself higher duties carry me elsewhere." He went off accordingly alone, and joined Raasay as a volunteer.

Sir Walter Scott's Journal (1890), ii, 129. MORE than one Norman in the years which followed the success of Philip Augustus had to face perplexities similar to that of the Scottish laird of Bernera; but few were permitted to avail themselves of his honourable compromise. The Normans were, indeed, in positions of varying difficulty. For the most part those who had lands in England and in Normandy had sooner or later to make a choice or lose all. One fortunate or quick-witted person is recorded to have exchanged his Norman property for lands in England,' but the majority of landholders were compelled to surrender their holdings upon one side or the other of the English Channel.

The legal and political consequences of this cleavage between the English and Norman baronage were far reaching. We may best approach the subject by considering (1) the policy adopted by Philip Augustus with regard

1. Rot. de Fin., 219 (1204). "Elyas de Wimblevill dat domino Regi xxx m. pro habenda terra de Dene cum pertinenciis suis qui fuit Alani Martell, quam idem Alanus ei dedit in excambio pro terra quam prefatus Elyas habuit in Normannia, et pro habenda illa secundum convencionem inter eos factam per cartas suas

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to the Normans who had deserted their country to follow John; (2) the effect of this policy upon England; and (3) its importance in the history of the French state.

I.

Many persons whose interests lay entirely within the borders of Normandy suffered severely. There was not, it is true, so much hardship as might have been expected as a mere result of the change of government. Here and there privileges of the forest were lost, or rents were raised.2 One suggestive case was brought to light at Montpinçon by the commissioners of Saint Louis: certain dues, it was alleged, were still exacted as in Angevin times although the market, in return for which they had originally been paid, was no longer held.3 Again, a few people complained that owing to the poverty or weakness of their predecessors at the time of the conquest, they were deprived of their rights. But it is not cases of this kind which most frequently attract the attention as one reads the Querimoniae Normannorum or the judgments of the Exchequer. The greater suffering was caused by the flight or disappearance of Normans during the first decade or so. of the thirteenth century. The break between Normandy and England was complete; except to the merchant and other licensed travellers England suddenly became a forbidden land; and even the merchant was easily suspected. Hence the man who had claims against a refugee, the lord whose tenant or the tenant whose lord had deserted, and the relatives whom the deserter had left behind, often found themselves in a position of extreme

1. See the Querimoniae Normannorum of 1247 in the Recueil des Historiens de France, vol. xxiv, and Delisle's Recueil des jugements de l'échiquier de Normandie.

2. Querimoniae, nos. 95, 363, 369, 474, 481, 490, 504, 551. 3. Ibid, no. 355.

4. Ibid, nos. 81, 445.

5. Ibid, no. 70.

discomfort. There were those who had been under an obligation to the deserter or had suffered injustice from him or had otherwise been brought into peculiar relations with him. For example, William Crassus the seneschal had seized a meadow which one winter had been flooded by his pond; and, after the conquest, the meadow had been confiscated with his other lands and had thus been lost to its original owner.1 Guy of Dive had seized some rents which had belonged to the father of Henry of Bruecourt, and because Guy had afterwards lost his lands Henry and his father had permanently lost the rents. On the other hand gifts, sales and dowries which had been alienated before 1204 were frequently confiscated with the lands of those who had alienated them. A lady had farmed out her dowerlands to a man who had afterwards gone to England, and the royal officials had seized the lands. 4 There were wards who had lost their inheritance through the desertion of their guardians,5 and widows whose husbands died in England holding their land jure uxoris.& Several persons who had given their lands in pledge, found themselves deprived. Upon all such cases lawyers could raise perplexing questions of fact. A second group of

cases might also give rise to perplexing questions of law. Suppose, for example, that a man who had owned a little property in Normandy had entered an English monastery, or died in England in possession of an

1. Ibid, no. 379.

2. Ibid, no. 7; cf. no. 94.

3. Ibid, nos. 60, 415, 426. See also judgments in cases of dower, given in favour of the claimants, in Recueil des jugements, nos. 7, 18, 20. 4. Jugements, no. 21. This judgment illustrates the continuity of records: "judicatum est quod Milisent, uxor Roberti de Praeeris habeat, si voluerit, recordationem assisae in qua tradidit Rogero Tirel dotem suam ad firmam, quae capta est in manu Regis, quia idem Rogerus de dote sua erat saisitus quando perrexit in Angliam." 5. Querimoniae, no. 78.

6. Ibid, no. 466.

7. Ibid, nos. 75, 372, 452.

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