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I. Alod And Fee

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

J. E. A. Jolliffe
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Extract

The degree to which England had already adopted or grown into feudalism by the generation before the Norman Conquest is one of the oldest of historical controversies, and one in which the opposing views, having reached something like a stalemate, seem now disposed to concede a measure of recognition to each other's premisses. Recent treatments of the tenth and eleventh centuries are cautious and compromising. They are apt to speak of “nascent feudalism”, or of the Normans’ mission to develop and give precision to a Saxon feudalism which is never clearly delineated, but which is assumed to be far advanced. I would suggest on the contrary that, given the known components of early English law and the admitted difficulty of bringing this hypothetical Saxon feudalism to definition, the proper approach to the subject should be one not of compromise but of scepticism, and that, as no major passage of Saxon politics can be made to bear that surface appearance of baronial motive and interest which the play of Norman feudalism everywhere presents, any phrase or text of Saxon law which can be made to carry a feudal implication should be tested rigorously to see if it is susceptible of no other interpretation before a strictly feudal meaning is imposed upon it. I must confess that no single term or maxim of the English codes or charters having any claim to genuineness has ever seemed to me to bear a feudal connotation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , 1937 , pp. 225 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1937

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References

1 1 Cf. the Writ printed by Professor D. C. Douglas, E[nglish] H[istorica[] R[eview], XLII, 247, conferring lands feodo libere. In dominio is, of course, the more common phrase under the Conqueror and Rufus.

2 D[omesday] B[ook], n, 57b, Feudum Ansgari. Cf. also the feuda or honores of Eadnoth, Brictric, Phin Dacus, and Witgar.

3 Cf. III Cnut 46: Carta alodii.ad ceternam hcereditatem, and I Cnut 11: In alodio(id est bocland).

4 Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, i. The thegn's law is that he should be worthy of his book-right.

5 Cf. the verbal gifts in the hundred court, without condition, Birch, C[artularium] S[axonicum], 1128, and the rules for the distribution of an intestate thegn's lands at his death, II Cnut 70, 1.

6 The Saxon charter conveyed land in some such form as this: liberaliter in ceternam possessionem…ut Mo predicto territorio voti compos vita perfruatur comite, et post obitum ejus cuicumque voluerit heredi derelinquat. Birch, C.S. 1197.

7 Birch, C.S. 814. King Edmund's grant of Weston to his thegn Æthelhere: eatenus ut vita comite tarn fidus mente quam subditus operibus mihi placabile obsequium prœbeat. Et post meum obitum cuicunque amicorum meorum voluero eadem fidelitate immobilis obediensque fiat. Sicque omnes posteriores prœfatam terram possidentes in hoc decreto fideliter persistant sicuti decet ministro.

8 D.B. I, 65 b: Hœc sunt de victu monachorum…non poterant ab œcclesia separari;D.B. I, 47b: Rediret ad œcclesiam quia de dominica firma est, D.B. I, 67b, I, 41 a.

9 Cf. Whitelock, A[nglo]-S[axon] Wills, No. I, where the bishop is seen to be able to alienate only the stock he has added to the manors of the biscoprice, Whitelock, A.S.Wills, No. XIV. Cf. also Kemble, C[odex] D[iplomaticus], 1110. To secure the right of alienating land held pontificali jure the bishop has to obtain a book ad possidendam hereditatem, Kemble, CD. 403. D.B. I, 40a, Semper fuit in episcopatu.

10 Kemble, CD. 181, etc.

11 A genuine tradition in this matter is preserved in a spurious foundation charter of Winchcomb Abbey (Kemble, CD. 197) neque agros meœ hœreditatis foras transdonare…vel accomodare, nisi ad tempus et ad conditionis statutum unius hominis.Kemble, C. D. 323.

12 Ine, §§ 63 et seq.

13 Kemble, CD. 1287. Thus the lœn to the miles Eadwine reserves general service— sanctœ dei œcclesiœ necessitates atque utilitatis, Kemble, CD. 625.

14 Cf. Professor Stenton's repudiation of the feudal nature of the service of these Iœns in English Feudalism, pp. 128 et seq.

15 D.B. 1, 172b (Oswaldslaw Hundred): Hœc predictœ ccc hidœ fuerunt de ipso dominio œcclesiœ et siquidem de ipsis cuicumque homini…prestitum fuisset….neque poterat terram retinere nisi usque ad impletum tempus.

16 Of such grants Bishop Oswald says that they give book-right where only œn-right was. Cf. Kemble, CD. 617: Oswald arcebisceop bocað Eadrice his þegne…swa swa he hit œr hœfde to lanlande. The phrases donare, vendere ad vitam trium hominum recur in Domesday, e.g. D.B. 1, 43 a; 1, 66 a; i, 66 b; 1, 175 a.

17 Cf. J. E. A. Jolliffe, “English Book Right”, E.H.R. vol. L.

18 Kemble, CD. 586: Perpetua largitus sum hœreditate, et post vitœ suœ terminum duobus tantum heredibus immunem derelinquat.

19 D.B. 1, 213a: Hoc manerium tenuit Leueua conanendata Wallef comitis.

20 D.B. I, 137a: Hoc manerium tenuit Aluuard teignus comitis Heraldi. vendere potuit.

21 D.B. I, 35 b: Godtovi tenuit de comite Heraldo et potuit ire quo voluit.

22 D.B. 1, 137a: Hoc manerium tenuit Aluuard homo comitis Heraldi et vendere potuit.

23 D.B. 1, 23 a: Titeherste…Almar tenuit de comite Goduino in alodium.

24 D.B. 1, 257 a, I72b-i75a.

25 The method by which the “thegn's-law” of the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum and the thegn's temporary land-right were being conflated into a tenure of thegnage in the twelfth century appears in a grant of Ellingham in feodofirma theineslage. Here we have the farm (a rent of £4), the fee giving perpetuity to the farm (a Norman addition), and the “thegn's law” carrying heriot or service. Simeon of Durham, Scriptores Tres, LV.

26 Cf. a recent treatment of the subject by Professor Julius Goebel in his Felony or Misdemeanour.