Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF YORKSHIRE
- 2 THE TRANSFORMATION OF YORKSHIRE 1066–1135: TERRITORIAL CONSOLIDATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE INTEGRATION
- 3 THE TRANSFORMATION OF YORKSHIRE 1086–1135: MILITARY ENFEOFFMENT AND MONASTERIES
- 4 THE REIGN OF STEPHEN
- 5 THE SCOTS IN THE NORTH
- 6 CARTAE BARONUM, NEW ENFEOFFMENTS AND THE NATURE OF THE HONOUR
- 7 THE FIRST CENTURY OF ENGLISH FEUDALISM
- Tables
- Select bibliography
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
- Index
6 - CARTAE BARONUM, NEW ENFEOFFMENTS AND THE NATURE OF THE HONOUR
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF YORKSHIRE
- 2 THE TRANSFORMATION OF YORKSHIRE 1066–1135: TERRITORIAL CONSOLIDATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE INTEGRATION
- 3 THE TRANSFORMATION OF YORKSHIRE 1086–1135: MILITARY ENFEOFFMENT AND MONASTERIES
- 4 THE REIGN OF STEPHEN
- 5 THE SCOTS IN THE NORTH
- 6 CARTAE BARONUM, NEW ENFEOFFMENTS AND THE NATURE OF THE HONOUR
- 7 THE FIRST CENTURY OF ENGLISH FEUDALISM
- Tables
- Select bibliography
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
- Index
Summary
In 1166 Henry II conducted a great inquest into military enfeoffment on the honours of his magnates, both laymen and clerics. He asked his tenants-in-chief to provide answers to three questions. First, how many knights were enfeoffed on their honours at the death of Henry I (the old enfeoffment). Secondly, how many knights had been enfeoffed since the death of Henry I (the new enfeoffment). And thirdly, how many knights would have to be armed and equipped from their private resources in order to fulfil the service quota or servitium debitum owed to the king, if they had enfeoffed fewer knights than were required. As Professor Holt has stated, the answers they provided, known as the cartae baronum because they were sent to the king in sealed letters, ‘are a curiously neglected source in English history’. What is particularly interesting about these letters is not so much the lists of military tenants and fees they contain, but the details which were either additional to or omitted from the information sought by the king. These additions and omissions reveal that some magnates were anxious about providing the information required of them, particularly the number of knights' fees of the new enfeoffment.
This chapter will first illustrate the anxiety displayed by the magnates in their cartae, and will then attempt to explain what the magnates were anxious about.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Conquest, Anarchy and LordshipYorkshire, 1066–1154, pp. 231 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994