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hand, the castle of Alençon was the centre of an old and established jurisdiction which had but recently been added to the demesne; here therefore it was thought to be safer that the farmers should act as bailiffs, and that the castle should be placed in the hands of a man of high rank, Fulk Paynell, who was paid handsomely for his services.1 But, in spite of these varieties of policy, and in spite also of the confusion in terminology, it is clear that the farmers were theoretically distinguished from the chief officer of the bailiwick, and that the latter was generally in charge of the castle at its centre. As will be seen, the tendency was to concentrate these important commands, which, unlike many of the older farmed offices, were tenable absolutely at the will of the duke, in the hands of a few trusted servants and companions. King John came to rely upon a very limited number of persons in his last years in Normandy.2

The last years of Henry II brought the final changes in the fiscal system of Normandy.3 The connection between England and Normandy was exceedingly close in Henry's reign; and in 1176 the arrival of Richard of Ilchester, bishop of Winchester, as seneschal in Normandy was followed by a thorough examination and revision of Norman finances. The bishop, who might be described as an experienced 'permanent official in the Treasury,' did his work in a year and a half. It has been suggested that the exchequer as a judicial department dates from Richard's period of office, and that he introduced the system of keeping

1. Rot. Scacc., i, pp. 18 and foll.

2. English Historical Review, xxii, 30, and note.

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3. A change in the chancery is expressed by the adoption of the formula Henricus Dei gratia rex Anglorum" in 1172-3. Delisle, Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des chartes, lxvii, 361-401.

4. See Valin, pp. 135-136.

accounts and the exchequer roll into Normandy.1 This is, I believe, erroneous; but there is sufficient evidence of his activity in other directions. The exchequer rolls are a striking parallel to the great Rolls of the Pipe kept by the English Exchequer; for example, there is the same distinction between these fines and amercements for which the bailiff is responsible personally, and those for which the persons concerned are responsible; and it is possible that Richard of Ilchester reformed the Norman method of bookkeeping on English lines. Again, in the end of the century the word vicecomes returns in legal usage as the name of the normal local official. This is significant; for there is no change in the system of bailiwicks just described; it looks very much as though a common system has given the Norman bailiff a common name, and that the vicecomes of the early custumal, 3 is not, in the writer's mind, a Frankish viscount but an ordinary English sheriff, and his sphere of jurisdiction an ordinary English shire. At any rate it is curious that the custumal should speak of the 'viscounty' where the roll of 1172 speaks of the 'ballia.' But the English administrator did not come to

1. Valin, p. 134. I have controverted M. Valin's view with regard to the court of exchequer below p. 85. I also think it is impossible to believe that no rolls of the exchequer existed before 1176. There are references in the roll of 1180 to debts which had been accumulating through seven years. (Rot. Scacc., p. 94) and even through twenty years (p. 12). Since all the rolls after that of 1180 perished except four, it is not difficult to assume the existence of rolls long before 1180, as in England. 2. Dialogus de Scaccario, Bk. ii, c. xii (Oxford ed., p. 142). 3. Statuta et consuetudines, cc. xliv, lv (Tardif, I, i, 37, 44).

4. English Historical Review, xxii, 22, 23, where I think I have made too much of these variations. John generally addresses his letters to bailiffs. A viscounty might be spoken of as a "prepositura" if it really meant a farm, e.g., the viscounty of the Avranchin appears as a "prepositura" in the exchequer rolls (I, 40; II, 537) probably because the castle, etc., was not farmed and did not form a "prepositura" by itself, as Falaise, Vire, Alençon did. (See the interesting inquiry in Delisle's Introduction to the Actes de Henri II, p. 345.) Delisle has given a list of the various titles and addresses used by Henry II in referring to his ministers, pp. 209, 221.

introduce English methods or terminology, and it would be rash to ascribe these changes to him. His work was to restore financial order after the great rebellion of 1173. The war between Henry and his sons had upset the whole state. There had been much redistribution of land, and many changes in the official world. There had also been much bargaining in claims and rights. Opportunity was taken to revise the farms of the bailiffs, and possibly to renew the extensive inquiries, by means of local juries, into the lapsed rights of the Crown. Hence the frequent references in the rolls to lands recovered by jury, and to the roll of 1176 as a standard of reference.2 Hence probably the change of officials implied by the almost universal distinction between the old farm and the new farm.3

I will take the bailiwick of Falaise as a typical and concrete case of the administrative system here described. The noble castle of Falaise might be expected to be the centre of a bailiwick, and it would necessarily be a prepositura. The bailiwick is apparently not of old standing, for it is called simply the ballia of Richard Giffart' in the roll of 1180, though it appears as the 'ballia Falesie' in the roll of knights' fees in 1172.4 In 1180 Richard Giffart was the castellan, and Odo, the son of Vitalis, farmed the prepositura. About the time of the loss of Normandy

1. Diceto, i, 415.

2. Geoffrey Trossebot "habet in munitione castri de Bonnavilla, blada viva et bacones et caseos et moretum, sicut continetur in Rotulo anni mclxxvi” (p. 69). The entry is repeated in 1198 (p. 370). The accounts of Dieppe are settled in 1180 for the past five years (p. 66). See English Historical Review, xxii, 23, 24. I think M. Valin is in error in regarding the roll of 1176 as a starting point (Valin, p. 134). See above p. 74.

3. Benedict of Peterborough states that there was a change of officials in Normandy and elsewhere in 1177 (i, 198). For the meaning of the phrases 'vetus firma' and 'nova firma,' see Dialogus de Scaccario, Bk. ii, c. 9 (Oxford ed., pp. 131, 132).

4. Rot. Scacc., i, 41; Red Book, ii, 641

King Philip Augustus ordered an inquiry into the value of the revenue from Falaise as it was on the day in which King Richard crossed the sea on crusade. The jurors testified that the prepositura was farmed for 540 li.; and they made a very neat summary of the receipts which were not included in this sum. These were the proceeds of the pleas of the sword, the escheats, the viscounty and the corn rents known as bernage. The viscounty was the relic of the old jurisdiction of the Oximin, which had been so important in the time of the Montgomeries, but was now only represented by a farm of 100 li.2 The bernage of the Oximin was also accounted for separately on the rolls, and for the remaining exceptions to the farm of the prepositura, the proceeds of the pleas of the sword and the escheats, the bailiff was responsible. On the roll of 1198 the bailiwick and prepositura are distinguished from each other still more carefully, for after the death of Henry II the prepositura was granted to the old Queen Eleanor, with the exception of certain local payments, amounting to 90 li. 4s. Consequently on the roll of 1198 we find the accounts of the prepositura separated from those of the bailiwick of Falaise, and added as a kind of postscript on the membrane of the roll.5 The bailiff in this year,

1. Cart. Norm. p. 19, no. 111. An inquest of c. 1205 (Cart. Norm., p. 22, no. 120) on Evreux and Gaillon, gives the contents of a typical farm molendina, terre arabiles, census, placita de quibus bellum non poterat evenire,' etc.

2. Rot. Scacc., i, 106, where it is also stated that Robert 'de Capella' had paid 2011 for the right to farm it. See Stapleton, Observations, I, lxxi seq., lxxviii, cxxxiii.

3. Rot. Scacc., i, 49.

4. Cart. Norm., p. 19, no. 111. The exemptions to the grant are identical in this inquiry and in the account for 1198 (Rot. Scacc., ii, 414). For Richard's charter, granting the reversion to Berengaria, May 12, 1191, see Stapleton, Observations, II, cix note.

5. Rot. Scacc., ii, 414 This does not imply that Eleanor had the castle in her possession; that went with the bailiwick; she had the farmed revenues only. In January, 1203, King John granted the castle and bailiwick of Falaise to John Marshal (Rot. Pat., 24).

Robert Reinnard, was kept very busy by the levying of tallages, the management of escheats, the collection of bernage and of fines, proffers and amercements of various kinds. The farm of the old viscounty was still accounted for by other officers, but was sadly in arrears, and evidently could only be collected with difficulty. 2

The roll of 1198, when compared with that of 1180, brings out another point of interest. The old county of the Oximin had extended from the sea, in the diocese of Bayeux, to the southern borders of Normandy beyond Argentan. This unwieldy area, cut up as it was by lay and ecclesiastical franchises, had been divided; but most of it seems to have been farmed by Robert of Bellême and his predecessors before 1112. As has been said, the relic of this jurisdiction, the viscounty of the Oximin, was accounted for in the rolls under or near the account of the bailiwick of Falaise, which represented the chief centre of the old viscounty. The other jurisdictions split off from the Oximin were the bailiwicks of Exmes (Oximis), known generally as a viscounty, and of Argentan. In the year 1180, the northern part of the old county in the diocese of Bayeux had been attached with the exception of the upper portion to the bailiwick of the Auge; but in 1195 and 1198 it appears independently as a separate bailiwick, with the confusing title 'ballia de Oximino.' Hence in 1198 we have, in the old county of the Oximin, the new bailiwick of the Oximin in the north-east, the bailiwicks of Falaise and Argentan, the old viscounty of the Oximin (now unimportant), the bailiwick of Exmes, which is attached to the viscounty and prepositura of Exmes, the viscounty of Argentan with the prepositura; and the prepositura of Falaise, Queen Eleanor's dower. There could be no better example of the development of Norman administration, a development simple enough in

1. Rot. Scacc., ii, 397.

2. Ibid, ii, 404

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