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Hundred Rolls contain some evidence of their distribution in the reign of Edward I. 1

That John did not expect the confiscation of the Terrae Normannorum to be permanent, and that it was frequently inspired by motives of retaliation, is shown by the royal letters of 1204 and of the next few years. He was slow to exact the full penalty for the disaffection of the Normans. The evidence proves rather that he welcomed a new means of filling his coffers. Those who returned were able to recover the lands which they had lost 'occasione Normannorum,' on payment of a fine. One of these persons, a tenant of Hugh of Longchamp, whose lands had also been confiscated, paid a fine of a hundred marks; on the other hand, he was relieved by the king from the payment of an annual rent of five marks which he had been accustomed to pay to Hugh; but the significant clause is added that if Hugh should chance to return to the king's grace, and to recover his lands, he might buy back his customary rights to the rent for the sum of forty marks. The arrangement shows that the door was not

1. For example, there is the historical account of Casewick (hundred of Nesse, Lincolnshire), part of the honour of Chokes (Rotuli Hundredorum, 1. 344). This may be verified from Domesday Book, f. 366b, and the Testa, 341b. The history of the large honour of Chokes, which lay chiefly in Northamptonshire (Red Book, i, 172; ii, 727-8), could easily be traced from its foundation after the Conquest, by the Picard knight, Gunfrid of Choques, through the period of confiscation in John's reign, to the reports contained in the Hundred Rolls. A great deal of information about the confiscations, which is not included in the lists of Terrae Normannorum, may often be found in returns to the inquest of 1212, contained by the Testa de Nevill and the Red Book of the Exchequer.

2. Cases in Rot. de Fin., 204 [cf. Actes de Philippe Auguste, no. 832], 221, 259, 267, 334, 335. The first step towards return was a safe conduct, e.g., Rot. de Fin., 278: "Willelmus de Martywas dat domino Regi centum marcas et unum palefredum pro habendis litteris domini Regis de conductu veniendi in Angliam ad loquendum cum domino Rege et pro habenda terra sua unde disseisitus fuit."

3. Ibid, 228.

losed to Hugh, although in the meanwhile the king was quite ready to fleece his tenants at his expense. In a similar humour John exacted fines for the confirmation of grants made by deserters before their desertion,1 and was even willing to allow the claims of a loyal heir to confiscated property. 2

The idea of retaliation may be seen at work in John's treatment of the lands held in England by ecclesiastical lords. These lands, or many of them, were seized in virtue of the general precept issued by John. Some of them are mentioned in the fragmentary valuation of 1204.* This action, however, does not appear to have had permanent effects: the Norman clergy as a whole did not lose their English rents nor cease to control their English property. A few cathedral chapters and monastic houses suffered, but official records and chartularies agree in showing that the relations between the majority of English tenants and their clerical lords were not changed by the separation between the two countries. 5 The increased difficulty of travel must have been the main check upon their intercourse. At the same time, the fear of confiscation was a very real one to the Norman clergy. Precautions against it were sometimes inserted in the deeds of this period which were drawn up between English and

1. Ibid, 238, 249.

2. Ibid, 476.

3. Ibid, 335, “occasione generalis precepti terrarum Normannorum et canonicorum."

4. Lands of the following are mentioned, the abbots of Préaux, Bec, Caen, Grestain; the abbesses of Préaux, Caen, and Montivilliers; the prior of Noyon, the monks of Montebourg and Mortain, the canons of Coutances. See Rot. Norm., 122–37 passim.

5. The safe conducts enrolled upon the Chancery rolls show that in most cases the king had not retained these lands any length of time. There is a case of redemption by the abbot of Saint Wandrille in Rot. de Fin., 400, as late as 1207. On the continuity of relations between Norman ecclesiastics and their English tenants, see, for example, Porée, Histoire de l'abbaye du Bec (Evreux, 1901), i, 446-7.

Norman parties.1 After Philip had confiscated the lands of those Normans who lingered in England, John was careful to retaliate upon the English lands, not merely of laymen, but of ecclesiastics, if they had allowed themselves to benefit by the losses of their neighbours. Thus Hasculf Paynell, who asserted that Norman clerks were withholding his rents, received the rents and advowsons belonging to the Norman church in the Channel Islands 2

III.

Begun as a counter-stroke to Philip's policy of expropriation, John's measures hardened, as we have seen, into a tradition of hostility to France and Frenchmen. This tradition had momentous effects upon English politics and English law. It gave precision to the growing selfconsciousness of the nation. From a continental standpoint, however, Philip's policy had a feudal rather than a national tendency. The conquest of Normandy caused no very important change in Norman law or custom, and had far less influence upon the political institutions of France than it had upon the political future of England. But none the less it established, at a critical period in the history of the French monarchy, two very important feudal principles.

In the first place, the legal supremacy of the king of

1. An interesting case in Rot. Chart., 151b; also in Round, Calendar, no. 105. On 30th May, 1205, John confirmed an agreement between the bishop of London and the abbot of Saint Ouen, by which the latter farmed certain English lands to the bishop. The king promised that "si predicte terre occasione aliqua in manum nostram devenerint predictus episcopus terras bene et in pace teneat respondendo nobis de eadem firma quam abbati et conventui reddere debebat."

2. Rot. de Fin., 437; Rot. Pat., 81. A somewhat similar case in Rot. Pat., 67b: a letter of October 12, 1206, to Geoffrey fitz Peter"mandamus vobis quod faciatis habere Willelmo de Witefeld terram Abbatisse Mutervileriensis, scilicet Waddon, qui est in manu nostra, tenendam quamdiu eadem Abbatissa tenuerit terram ipsius Willelmi in Normannia." Waddon, in Dorset, had been seized in 1204 (Rot. Norm.,

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France over the great vassals of the crown was shown to be a reality and not a mere form. The moral effect of the condemnation and successful eviction of John was felt throughout the succeeding centuries. This result is closely connected with the second principle established by Philip. During the wars against Henry II and his sons, he insisted more and more upon a strict application of the theory of liege homage in his relations with the great vassals of the crown. This theory as it was defined in the twelfth century comprehended two points; first, that a vassal owed primary and personal allegiance to his liege-lord; and, secondly, that he had the privilege of being tried (and, conversely, is required to appear for trial) in his liegelord's court.1 The numerous treaties made between Philip and his Angevin rivals are of great significance on account of their rulings upon these points. Together with the various charters and concords which carried out their provisions they form a group of documents which are very important in the history of feudal law. For example, the treaty of Messina defined the relations between the Angevin empire and the king of France, while those of Mantes in July, 1193, and of Louviers in January, 1196, illustrate the problems of homage upon the borders. It is curious to observe how, as time went on, Philip interpreted the doctrine in his own favour, until John is finally caught in its legal meshes. During the reign of Henry II and Richard the houses of France and Anjou were so nearly equal that the principle of liege homage, if applied with precision, was as advantageous to the solidarity of one as to that of the other. To take the most important example: the triangular relations of the king of France, the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders. As late as 1163 the counts of Flanders construed their obligations to the king of France, their liege lord, to mean that they were

1. See Lot, Fidèles ou Vassaux? pp. 250, 251, 255; and, on the subject in general, Holtzmann, Französische Verfassungsgeschichte (1910), pp. 25-7.

only obliged to serve him in person with ten knights, and that under certain circumstances they might attend upon his ally of Normandy, unless this was forbidden by his peers in the royal court. In other words, the privilege of trial in the king's court was used as a safeguard of the count's freedom to neglect his feudal duties. Again, the reader will remember how, in 1197, Richard insulted Philip by appearing at an interview supported by the presence of the counts of Flanders and Boulogne, with whom he had recently concluded treaties.2 This conduct must have stung Philip the more, in that by the treaty of Louviers Richard and he had explicitly agreed to respect the rights of each other to the service of their liege vassals. It was of vital consequence to him that the count of Flanders should be tied to his service. But in the reign of John, Philip, by his juristic ability, turned the tables upon his enemy, and secured the advantages of his previous policy. As the change is of some importance in the explanation of our subject, I will briefly analyse the ways in which it was manifested.

(1) Philip extended the principle of liege homage to John himself. By the treaty of Le Goulet, and by subsidiary or later acts, John agreed to pay Philip a heavy relief (rechatum), and to allow his claims to Brittany and Anjou to be established by the judgment of the French court. The later condemnations of John were a natural consequence of this complaisance.5 John's position was further weakened by his agreement to

1. Lot, op. cit., p. 24.

2. Above, p. 179.

3. Cart. Norm., p. 277, "Neque nos recipiemus amodo homines ligios regis Francie contra ipsum quamdiu vixerit, nec ipse nostros homines ligios contra nos quamdiu vixerimus."

4. On the legal relations between France and Normandy, see Lot, op. cit., ch. vi, and especially Robert of Torigni's interpolation in the chronicle of William of Jumièges, which attempts to explain them away. Ibid, p. 261.

5. Above, p. 200.

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