Henry II's Machinations in Italy, ca. 1169

An extract from

Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, Volume II
by Roger, of Hoveden,
Editor and introduction by Stubbs, William
http://bit.ly/2IfSLjF

http://bit.ly/2IdD8cD
Roger of Hoveden. Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Houedene Volume II:. Cambridge University Press. pp. xci –. ISBN 978-1-108-04882-8.

...
The precise transaction which placed Henry II. in direct political contact with Italy was, as in the case of Germany, the Becket quarrel. In the year 1169 he offered the cities of the Lombard League a large sum of money for their fortifications, and proposed a marriage with one of his daughters to the young king of Sicily, if they would use their influence to procure the deposition or translation of the archbishop [Becket]. Italian affairs had, however, long before this been an object of interest in England. The Norman conquest of Apulia occupied a place in the common histories hardly less important than the Crusades; many Englishmen, such as Robert of Salisbury, the chancellor of Sicily, Herbert of Middlesex, the bishop of Cosenza, and Richard archbishop of Syracuse, had sought and obtained high preferment in the south. English physicians studied like Athelards at Salerno, English canonists like S. Thomas himself at Bologna. Rome had been a kind Alma Mater to Nicolas Breakspere and Robert Pullanus. From North Italy had come to England Lanfranc and the two Anselms; from the court of king Roger, Thomas le Brun, the minister of the English exchequer. Peter of Blois was the intimate friend of both Henry II. and William the Good [of Sicily]. The constant missions to and from Rome had made Italians and Englishmen pretty well acquainted. Henry's political exigencies, however, brought them still nearer. William the Good was connected by blood very closely with the Beaumonts of Leicester and Warwick, a family which supplied Henry II. with several ministers in his early years. Many of his [William the Good's] principal clergy were Englishmen or Normans, and he seems to have been an enthusiastic admirer of Henry II. What action was taken in consequence of Henry's proposition to him is not known, probably none; but we find him in 1173 writing to console the king on the rebellion of his sons, and, as soon as the princess Johanna was old enough to be asked for, petitioning for her as a wife. The proposal was referred to the national council, and accepted. Johanna was sent to Palermo, and received a magnificent dower. In that splendid court she reigned supreme during her husband's life. His fleet covered the Levant, and although the loss of Jerusalem was sometimes laid to his charge in consequence of his disabling the Byzantine empire from action, the last two years of his life were devoted to the equipment of the Crusade. As his health failed he made a will, by which he left to stores to Henry not only all the provisions collected for the expedition, but a vast treasure besides, going moreover so far as to offer the succession to his crown to him or one of his sons. This proposal Henry wisely declined, as he did also the thorny crown of Palestine. His moderation was hardly appreciated by his contemporaries, whose idea of his ambition transcended all probability. This close connexion with William the Good, coupled with Henry's attempt to marry John to the heiress of Savoy, a measure which would have put the Alpine passes at his disposal, and some rumour of his promises to the Lombard League, perhaps formed the basis of the story that, looking at the unsettled condition of Italy, he was disposed to become a candidate for the suffrages of the Roman citizens with a view to the empire.
...

Extract of a Letter from John of Salisbury to Hugo de Gant

MTB Letter #539
Intrigues of Henry II with Italian States
Materials for the History of Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury Volume VII p. 30

Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry (1847). History of the conquest of England by the Normans, tr. by W. Hazlitt. pp. 411–.
https://bit.ly/2MGKhYv

John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1848). Joannis Saresberiensis opera omnia. Nunc primum in unum collegit et cum codicibus manuscriptis: Epistolae. J. H. Parker. pp. 208–.

John (of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres) (1979). The Letters of John of Salisbury. Letter 290 John of Salisbury to Hugh de Gant, ca 1169: Clarendon Press. pp. 658–. ISBN 978-0-19-822240-8.
Volume II: The Later Letters (1163-1180)
Edited with a facing-page translation from the Latin text by H. E. Butler , W. J. Millor , and Revised by C. N. L. Brooke

Letter 290 to  Hugoni de Gant                                            ca end of August II69

Actiones gratiarum debitas parturit animus. Sed ut ait propheta, vires non habet parturiens. Nam devotionis effectum suspendit hactenus persequutionis acerbitas, sed affectum, quin in partum gratulationis erumpere gestiat, nulla vis potest aut potuit cohibere. Et quidem Deo propitiante jam in eum calculum Christi et ecclesiae suae causa perducta est, ut de caetero periclitari non possit, eo quod schismatis capita defecerunt, et Anglicanae ecclesiae malleus comprehensus in operibus suis de caetero cui innitatur invenire non valet.Ventum erat ad summum, ubi constat habitudines periculosas esse, cum ille qui, sollicitando tam curiam quam schismaticos, Fredericum videlicet et complices suos, videns se bac via non posse proficere adversus Dominum et adversus Christum ejus, transmissa legatione confugit ad Italiae civitates, promittens Mediolanensibus tria millia marcarum et murorum suorum validissimam reparationem, ut, cum aliis civitatibus quas corrumpere moliebatur, impetrarent a Papa et ecclesia romaua dejectionem vel translationem cantuariensis archiepiscopi. Nam, ob eamdem causam Cremonensibus duo millia marcarum promiserat, Parmensibus mille, et totidem Bononiensibus. Domino vero Papae obtulit, quia data pecunia liberaret eum ab exactionibus omnium Romnnorum, et decem millia marcarum adjiceret, concedens etiam ut tam in ecclesia cnntuariensi, quam in aliis vacantibus in Auglia, pastores ordinaret ad libitum. Sed quia fidem multa promissa levabont, et in precibus manifesta continebatur iniquitas, repulsam passus est; et, quod per se impetrare non poterat, regis Siculi viribus conatus est extorquere. Sed nec ille, licet ad hoc toto nisu syracusanus episcopus et Robertus, comes de Bossevilla, multiplicatis intercessoribus, laboraverint, exauditus est pro sua reverentia, vel potentia, vel gratia, quamvis earn in ecclesia romana plurimam habeat. Dimissi sunt ergo nuncii regis impotes voti, hoe solum impetrato, ut dominus Papa mitteret nuncios qui pacem procurarent, Gratianum scilicet subdiaconum, et magistrum Vivianum, Urbis-Veteris archidiaconmn. qui munere advocationis fungi solet in curia. Eos tamen ante, praescripta forma pacis, sacramenti religione adstrinxit, quod praefinitos terminos non excederent, mandatis quoque adjiciens ut a regis Bumptious abstineant, nisi pace ecclesiae impetrata, et ne ultra diem qui eis praestitus est, aliquam faciant moram. Forma autem pacis quae archiepiscopo expressa est, nihil inhonestum continet vel quod ecclesiam dedeceat aut personam, nec auctoritatem ejus in aliquo minuit, quin libere, omni occasions et appellatione cessante, in ipsum regem, in regnum et personas regni, severitarem ecclesiasticam valeat exercere, prout sibi et ecclesiae Dei expedire cognoverit. Consilium tamen amicorum virorumque sapientum est, ut dum pacis verba tractantur, mitius agat et multa dissimulet; postea, si (quod absit!) pax non processerit, gravius quasi resumptis viribus persecutores ecclesiae prostraturus.

Spera ergo, dilecte mi, et quicquid interim audieris, non movearis, quia Deus in tuto posuit causam suam. Audies forte superbiam Moab: sed memineris quod superbia major est quam fortitudo ejus. Nam territi sunt in Sion peccatores, possedit timor hypocritas, qui nisi revertantur a pravitate sua, expellentur et stare non poterunt: jam enim securis ad radicem eorum posita est, et ventilabrum habet angelus in manu sua, ut grana discernat a paleis. Praefati nuncii ad regem profecti sunt, sed quid apud ipsum invenerint, nondum nobis innotuit: hoc tamen certum est quod se rex verbo et scripto obligavit ad exequendum consilium et mandatum domini papae, scriptumque ejus prae manibus est, a quo si resilierit, facile convincetur, sed nec sic credendum censuit ecclesia, antequam verborum fidem operum testimonio roboraret. Salutatus a te, plurimum et affectuose te resalutat archiepiscopus, se ad amorem et honorem tuum exponens promptissima devotione.


To a friend of a friend

My mind wishes to bear the thanksgiving that is due, but as the prophet says it has no strength for the labour, for bitter persecution has frustrated me from putting my devout wish to effect. But my affection no force can or will prevent from longing to give birth to rejoicing. By God's mercy, the cause of Christ and His Church has now been brought to the that it can no longer be in peril: the heads of the schism have failed and the Hammer of the English Church, caught in his own deeds, cannot find any support henceforth. He had reached his peal - where one's position is proverbially dangerous. He had worked hard to win help from the Curia and the schismatics - Frederick, that is, and his accomplices. But he saw that he was profiting nothing in this way against the Lord and His anointed; and he had resort, by means of an embassy, to the cities of Italy and promised the Milanese 3000 marks and the most effective repair to their walls, if they could -with the other cities he was striving to corrupt - obtain from the Pope and the Roman Church the deposition or translation of the archbishop of Canterbury. To the same end he had promised 2000 marks to the men of Cremona, 1000 to those of Parma and the same to the Bolognese. To the Pope he offered money to free him from his debts to all [his] Roman creditors and 10000 marks besides; and conceded that he should choose and consecrate at his will bishops for the see of Canterbury and the other vacant sees in England. His many promises roused distrust, and in his pleas there evidently lay wickedness; so he suffered a rebuff and what he could not obtain by his own asking  he has tried to obtain by the strength of the king of Sicily. The bishop of Syracuse and Count Robert de Basenuilla have worked energetically to this end with many helpers; yet he has not been heard in accordance with the respect he showed or with his power or favour, although his favour is high in the Roman Church. And so the king's messengers were sent away without achieving their object, with this only won, that the Pope would send ambassadors to try to make peace: the subdeacon Gratian and Master Vivian, archdeacon of Orvieto, who is commonly an advocate in the Curia. The terms of peace have been laid down, and the Pope has tied them by oath in advance not to exceed the terms; and he has also commanded them to receive nothing at the king's expense unless the Church's peace has been won, and not to stay beyond the day fixed for their return. The terms of peace have been revealed to the archbishop and contain nothing dishonourable or shameful to the Church or to his person; nor do they diminish in any way his authority -he can still freely exercise the Church's penalties against the king himself, the kingdom and the great men of the realm, all excuse and appeal set aside, if he thinks the occasion makes it expedient for himself  and God's Church. But his friends advise-the wise ones-that while the terms of the peace settlement are being negotiated, he should act mildly and say nothing on many points. Afterwards, if (which God forbid) peace does not ensue, he can take on. his power again and lay low the Church's persecutors more direly. Be of good hope, my dear friend, and whatever you hear meanwhile, do not be too much disturbed, since God has  placed His cause in safety. You will hear maybe of Moab's boasting, but you will remember that its boasting is greater than its courage. For the sinners were terrified in Zion, and fear possessed the hypocrites who will be expelled and lose their footing unless they turn from their wickedness The axe is now laid to their root,  and the angel holds the winnowing fan in his hand, to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Pope's ambassadors have reached the king, but what reception they have found there we have not yet heard. But this is certain, that the king has bound himself in word and in writing to follow the Pope's advice and command; his written undertaking is in their hands, and if he departs from it he will readily be convicted. But the Church did not reckon that his word could be trusted even so, before he confirms his verbal assurances by the witness of his deeds. The archbishop answers your greeting, very fully and affectionately, and others himself with a most ready devotion to your love and honour.


Other References

W. L. Warren (1977). Henry II. University of California Press. pp. 221–. ISBN 978-0-520-03494-5.

Henry II (DNB00) - Wikisource, Dictionary of National Biography

Lombard League - Wikipedia

Joan of England, Queen of Sicily - Wikipedia

Greenwood (Mary Anne Everett) (1849). Lives of the Princesses of England, from the Norman Conquest. Henry Colburn. pp. 308–.

Joanna, Queen of Sicily | Dana Cushing - Academia.edu

Anne J. Duggan; Peter D. Clarke (22 April 2016). Pope Alexander III (1159–81): The Art of Survival. Chapter IX: Beyond Becket -King Henry II and the Papacy 1154-1189: Routledge. pp. 257–. ISBN 978-1-317-07837-1.

Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler (1836). Text-book of Ecclesiastical History. Carey, Lea, and Blanchard. pp. 192–.

Thelma S. Fenster; Carolyn P. Collette (2017). The French of Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Jocelyn Wogan-Browne. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 278–. ISBN 978-1-84384-459-

Alliance of England and Sicily in the Second Half of the 12th Century
Evelyn Jamison
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
Vol. 6 (1943), pp. 20-32
Published by: The Warburg Institute
DOI: 10.2307/750419
https://www.jstor.org/stable/750419

Vills and Villeins

The Kingdom of England

The realm of England was divided into administrative and judicial districts called shires [counties] each overseen by a royal officer knowns as a sheriff [shire reeve]. The shires themselves were subdivided into smaller units called hundreds [sometimes in different counties called wapentakes or even lathes or rapes]. Hundreds themselves in turn were divided into vills.

Within each vill all adult males [those aged over 12] were enrolled into smaller groups known as tithings, a group pledged to mutual accountability.. Under the system of frankpledge, each tithing was individually responsible for the discipline of the members of its constituent households [hearths] and their keeping of the King’s Peace. Under William the Conqueror all tithings were compulsorily made to adopt this frankpledge system.


Vill - Hull Domesday Project

Anglo-Saxon_law: The_preservation_of_peace

hides - Hull Domesday Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankpledge

The Frankpledge System : Morris, William Alfred,-  Internet Archive

A tithing originally meant a grouping of households in an area comprising a land area of of about ten hides. The heads of each of those households were referred to as tithingmen [assumed to be all adult males aged over 12. Each tithingman was responsible for the actions and behaviour of all the members in the tithing, under the collective system of responsibility known as frankpledge.

Fundamental Axiom of Feudalism in England

Nulle terre sans seigneur

No land without a lord.
No property [land] without a liege.

Homage and Fealty

Adam Lucas (2016). Ecclesiastical Lordship, Seigneurial Power and the Commercialization of Milling in Medieval England. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-14647-6.

Vills and Villeins

The Vill in Medieval England
Author: Warren O. Ault
Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 126, No. 3 (Jun. 8, 1982), pp. 188-211
Published by: American Philosophical Society
https://www.jstor.org/stable/986507

A manor, normally, was a single estate comprising both the demesne lands of the lord and those of his tenants, and his hall of residence, the manor house. If all the inhabitants of a vill were tenants of the same lord, vill and manor coincided, and they would have the same name. But a vill could comprise more than one manor each with its own lord, and some larger manors could comprise several vills. Manors and vills [villa and manorium] were different things. A manor had a court, a village moot, an assembly of the tenants, where they were required to perform service due to the lord of the manor and fulfill their obligations to each other. Vills had no such court, unless they were also a manor.

Medieval society was largely agricultural and its wealth and power were tied to the productivity of the land and its possession. The Vill was the smallest geographical, agricultural and administrative unit of habitation under the feudal system. It was a term that was used in the Domesday Book to describe such a productive entity, an enterprise overseen by its landlord. A Vill was roughly the size of an ecclesiastical parish and often coterminous with one. A Vill was the Norman-French translation of the Latin word, Villa (pl. Villae) or Anglo-Saxon place naming -ton or tun (township or enclosed piece of land), settlements which consisted of a number of houses and their adjacent fields. Today we might call a vill a village, and the larger ones a township. The inhabitants of a vill were called villeins (Latin villani). Technically in legal parlance villeins were serfs tied to the land in the feudal system - peasant tenant farmers in bond to a lord of a manor. Villeins had more rights and status than those held in slavery, but were held in servitude under a number of legal restrictions which differentiated them from freemen.

Vills, as settlements, were frequently set up and organised by their lords of the manor [lordships] when wanted their people, those who owed service to them for their lands, more closely grouped together around their manor houses, rather than living in remote farmsteads, so that the villains could easily and directly service the lands of their lord's demesnes.

There are some 15,000 to 18,000 places with place names recorded in the counties of the Domesday Book (1086). If each place name represented one Manor (or Vill) this would mean each had an average population of around 100 persons.

David Bates (July 2012). Anglo-Norman Studies XXXIV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2011. The Invention of the Manor in Norman England by C. P. Lewis: Boydell Press. pp. 123–150. ISBN 978-1-84383-735-0.

Mick Aston; Dr. Christopher Gerrard (7 February 2013). Interpreting the English Village: Landscape and Community at Shapwick, Somerset. Windgather Press. ISBN 978-1-909686-06-9.

Frederic Seebohm. The English Village Community Examined in Its Relation to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common Or Open Field System of Husbandry: An Essay in Economic History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-03634-4.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.47889/page/n11

J.H. Round Feudal England. BoD – Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3-7326-7588-3.
https://archive.org/details/cu31924014477271/page/n8

Bloomsbury Publishing (1995). Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. Chapter 6 - Bede's Words for Places: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 99–. ISBN 978-0-8264-2573-7.
F. W. Maitland (1987). Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-34918-5.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503278/page/n5

H. C. Darby; Henry Clifford Darby (1986). Domesday England. Chapter II: Rural Settlements: Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–. ISBN 978-0-521-31026-0.

N. J. Higham; Martin J. Ryan (2011). Place-names, Language and the Anglo-Saxon Landscape. Boydell Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-84383-603-2.

N. J. Higham; Martin J. Ryan (2010). The Landscape Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-84383-582-0.

Alexander Mansfield Burrill (1998). A New Law Dictionary and Glossary Vill The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 1040–. ISBN 978-1-886363-32-8.

Alexander Mansfield Burrill (1998). A New Law Dictionary and Glossary Villanus The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 1041–. ISBN 978-1-886363-32-8.

Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity. XXX: On the Political Condition of the English Peasantry during the Middle Ages: The Society. 1844. pp. 205–.

Thomas Percy (1868). Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript: Ballads and Romances. On Bondman: the name and the class by F.J. Furnivall: N. Trübner & Company. pp. xxix–lviii.
https://archive.org/stream/bishoppercysfoli02percuoft/bishoppercysfoli02percuoft_djvu.txt


Royal Vills or Kingstun [villa regalis]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_vill

The royal vill was where the feorm or food-rent was received by the man who was in charge of the royal vill and its estate for the king, the royal ealdorman or reeve. It was the royal reeve who was responsible for the revenue collection of the feorm at the royal vill and whose duties also combined administrative functions of organising the moot for the hundred in which it was the centre whether as a general assembly or as a local court. Royal reeves evolved later under Norman rule into shire reeves or sheriffs responsible for collecting taxes.

Situated in each royal vill typically was a monastery or minster which may have been sponsored by the king . Described as “England garrisoned with spiritual burhs”, the minster served a territory of jurisdiction identical to that administered by the royal ealdorman or reeve. In effect the Church helped to enforce royal power geographically. In its turn the Church sponsored kingship as it was the ideal model of rule as described in the Bible. The Church in England [especially in Southern England] was a mission from Rome. Minster churches [monasteries] were the centres of missionary work promulgating Christianity organised by the monks. Later the minster system of organising the Church was replaced by the diocesan system.

Hector Munro Chadwick (1963). Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions. Adminstrative System: The King's Reeve: CUP Archive. pp. 228–.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minster_(church)

Robert A. Dodgshon; Robin A. Butlin (2013). Historical Geography of England and Wales. Elsevier. pp. 58–. ISBN 978-1-4832-8841-3.

Andrew Galloway (2011). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture. Chapter 4: Cambridge University Press. pp. 87–. ISBN 978-1-107-49520-3.

Encyclopaedia Britannica: 11th Edition. My Ebook Publishing House. pp. 458–. ISBN 978-606-8846-00-2.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:EB1911_-_Volume_04.djvu/611

Pounds N. J. G. (2000). A History of the English Parish: The Culture of Religion from Augustine to Victoria. Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–. ISBN 978-0-521-63351-2.

Rosamond Faith (1999). The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship. A&C Black. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-0-7185-0204-1.

Barbara Yorke (2002). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. Routledge. pp. 8–. ISBN 978-1-134-70725-6.

Stephen Rippon (2012). Making Sense of an Historic Landscape. OUP Oxford. pp. 152–. ISBN 978-0-19-953378-7.

Stephen Driscoll; John Hunter; Ian Ralston (16 December 2009). The Archaeology of Britain: An Introduction from Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. Chapter 14 Landscapes: Routledge. pp. 305–. ISBN 978-1-135-18958-7.

References

http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/structure-of-domesday-book/countyhttp://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/data-terminology/administrative-units/shire

http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/structure-of-domesday-book/vill

http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/structure-of-domesday-book/fief
http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/structure-of-domesday-book/manor
http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/structure-of-domesday-book/hundred

http://www.domesdaybook.net/domesday-book/data-terminology/administrative-units/castlery

Manors

Paul Vinogradoff (31 October 2010). The Growth of the Manor. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-01450-2.
https://archive.org/details/growthofmanor0000vino_z3h5

Hyams, Paul R. “The Proof of Villein Status in the Common Law.” The English Historical Review, vol. 89, no. 353, 1974, pp. 721–749. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/566397. 

Hilton, R. H. “Freedom and Villeinage in England.” Past & Present, no. 31, 1965, pp. 3–19. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/650099.

Hatcher, John. “English Serfdom and Villeinage: Towards a Reassessment.” Past & Present, no. 90, 1981, pp. 3–39. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/650715. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villein

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manor
Harold J. Berman (June 2009). Law and Revolution, the Formation of the Western Legal Tradition. Harvard University Press. pp. 440–. ISBN 978-0-674-02085-6 http://bit.ly/2WqLR0C


Dr Barbara Yorke (2002). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. Routledge. pp. 21–. ISBN 978-1-134-70724-9.

Manors

A Vill Iis a geographical area whereas the word manor implies properly the jurisdiction exercised by a lord over the inhabitants of one or more vills. A vill would typically be a parish. Indeed the inhabitants of a vill might owe service to more than one lord.


There is a geographic centre to a manor, the manor house; the word manor was applied especially from an early date to the dwelling-place of the lord to whom service was due. It was the house where taxes [geld] were paid, and where the lord's courts were held.


During the Anglo-Saxon period, what we know as the manorial system had come into being as an economic fact. The estate held by a lord was the economic unit of landed property. In the vill which was at  the centre of that estate there was the lord's house, and, side by side with it, the church which he had built for the use of his tenants and of which he was the patron or advocate. Round these two buildings were clustered the houses of the tenants, freemen who paid the lord a yearly rent in money or kind, and serfs, the villani, who were bound to his service and worked upon his demesne lands.


The servile class formed the larger proportion of the inhabitants of the township : they were the villani, the villeins, the people of the vill.


https://goo.gl/ueXGnd

Some Notes on Manors & Manorial History by A. Hamilton ThompsonIn
Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society. Volume XV. 1928. pp. 294–.
https://goo.gl/V745Wq archived https://goo.gl/uwTQ9Y

Paul Vinogradoff (2010). The Growth of the Manor. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-01450-2.
The growth of the manor : Vinogradoff, Paul - Internet Archive

A History of Lordships of the Manor
http://www.msgb.co.uk/lordships.html


Fiefs

Fiefs Latin, feudum.

The Latin word feudum is translated as Holding but is more commonly known as a fief.

By convention, the term fief is used to describe all the manors held by a tenant-in-chief in one county. These would be described in a single block, or chapter, unless the tenant-in-chief was a minor landholder in which case they were described in part of a collective fief towards the end of the county. All the county fiefs held by a tenant-in-chief constituted his Honour. Honour and fief are both conventional, not technical terms, and they are sometimes used interchangeably.

The usage in Domesday Book is even looser: feudum was applied to honours, fiefs, and even to single manors, both before and after the Conquest. Many historians would regard a pre-Conquest feudum as an anachronism.

The history of English law before the time of Edward I (second edition, 1898);

Sir Frederick Pollock; Frederic William Maitland (1898) . The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I. Volume I. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-58477-718-2.

Sir Frederick Pollock; Frederic William Maitland (1899). The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I. Volume II. University Press.

Susan Reynolds (1996). Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820648-4.

Susan Reynolds (1996). Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Fiefs and Medieval Property Relations: Clarendon Press. pp. 48–. ISBN 978-0-19-820648-4.

It is, of course, quite possible that the military service due from and owed by a single manor or vill may be equivalent to a knight's fee (feodum unius militis); but it might be more, or sometimes less, some often amounting to only a fraction of a knight’s fee..

Ecclesiastical Organisation

J. Blair, 'Introduction: From Minster to Parish Church', in Minsters and Parish Churches, 1-19.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190410064959/http://ls-tlss.ucl.ac.uk/course-materials/ARCL2018_73443.pdf

 Domesday Book recorded two types of ecclesiatical organisation

1. Parochial or Parish System

Priest of the manor, priest of the vill, church of the vill [ecclesia villae].

These were vills and manors in which the church and its priest was generally sponsored by the lord of the manor

Parish (Church_of_England) - Wikipedia
Proprietary church - Wikipedia
Nigel Saul (2017). Lordship and Faith: The English Gentry and the Parish Church in the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-870619-9.

2. Minster System

The older Anglo-Saxon in which there was a central collegiate minster, usually a monastery which with its group of clergy [canons] served a number of villages around it, as a team ministry

Minster Hypothesis - Wikipedia

Oaths and Oath-Taking

Oaths and the taking of oaths, and the powerful, dramatic and formal ritual ceremony surrounding them have been undertaken since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks.

Oaths among many other matters govern behaviour in the courts, commerce when deals are being made, international relations between nations, and the signing of contracts and the making of enforceable promises between private parties.

Oaths may be taken secretly or before witnesses (necessary if they are to be proved in a court of law).

For an oath to be valid it must be made according to some proper or prescribed formula. There must exist a conventional procedure having a conventional effect.

In Ancient Greek times oaths were used in the tragedies and comedies by the dramatists to mark points in the drama where the plot changes direction here characters in that plot might be being compelled to act in ways not necessarily in their st interests or by their own moral conviction.

The taking of an oath might be considered to be an illocutionary act. That is an act where the very act of speaking it in itself constitutes the intended action.

The ritual behind the taking of an oath was pretty much fixed over time and place, a ritual very much traditional and stable in the society in which it is held..

Structure of an Oath

What did this ritual comprise?

1) The invitation and offer.

2) The invocation of God or the gods or other supernatural beings as witnesses and guarantors of the oath.

When making an oath it must attract the attention of the guaranteeing God or gods.

An oath is a kind of prayer to a God or gods, or a supernatural being to witness a promise or an assertion, and to enforce it.

Historically the taking of an an oath was a divinely ordained act and might be considered to be an illocutionary supernaturally protected ritual. In medieval times its sanctity was was sanctioned, aided and assured by God.

3) A verb of swearing.

4) The body of the promise or oath

5) The conditional curse. Every oath carries a conditional and implicit self curse.

It is a promise guaranteed by an invocation to God (or gods) and the offering of a self-curse if it is not kept or fulfilled, in the event if the promise is broken or perjured in any way.

6) Oaths sometimes include and involve details of the sacrifice and sanctifying ritual such as swearing on a bible or holy relic

In Ancient Egypt and Greece an oath was often made binding by a sacrifice on the altar of the witnessing and guaranteeing god

Consequences of keeping or not keeping an oath

Oaths bring success prosperity and triumph, and an honorable reputation to the pious man if they are honoured.

If they are perjured they bring destruction, excommunication and suspension to the individual who failed to fulfill the conditions. This is the very essence of pure tragedy. [traditionally perjury was the bearing of false witness or making a false oath.]

Documenting oaths

Documenting or the writing down an oath as text tends to have the effect of , i.e. encourages having the oath read out loud. Written language was always meant to be spoken. In earlier societies laws where most members of that society were illiterate, these societies always had a law-giver, someone who memorised and spoke the legal text of a law. The reading out loud of an oath made its content public.

Types of oath:

Evidentiary oath = swearing that the testimony that one is about to give is “true”.

Promissory oath = commitment to do or not to do something.


References

Judith Fletcher (2011). Performing Oaths in Classical Greek Drama. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-50035-7.

Alan H. Sommerstein; Judith Fletcher (2007). Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society. Bristol Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1-904675-67-9.

Wilfred Lewis Warren (1973). Henry II. Henry II as Oathbreaker: University of California Press. pp. 217–. ISBN 978-0-520-02282-9.

Saints in Invocations and Oaths in Medieval Literature

Jan Ziolkowski

The Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Vol. 87, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 179-192

Published by: University of Illinois Press

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27709990

CHEYETTE, FREDRIC L. "C." In Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours, 187-98. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2001. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv3s8ngk.19.
https://goo.gl/RpQk8v

Godefridus J. C. Snoek (1995). Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction. Oath Taking on the Relics and the Eucharist: BRILL. pp. 132–. ISBN 90-04-10263-9.

Gaines Post (2006). Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State 1100-1322. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 415–. ISBN 978-1-58477-692-5.

POST, GAINES. "THE ROMAN LAW AND THE “INALIENABILITY CLAUSE” IN THE ENGLISH CORONATION OATH." In Studies in Medieval Legal Thought: Public Law and the State 1100-1322, 415-33. Princeton University Press, 1964. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183pr3p.13.

THE CORONATION IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: The Evolution of the Office and the Oath
H. G. RICHARDSON
Traditio
Vol. 16 (1960), pp. 111-202
Published by: Cambridge University Press
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27830405

The English Coronation Oath

H. G. Richardson

Speculum

Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan., 1949), pp. 44-75

Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of America

DOI: 10.2307/2853920

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2853920 

Edward Stillingfleet (bp. of Worcester); Abednego Seller (1689). A discourse [by E. Stillingfleet] concerning the unreasonableness of a new separation, on account of the oaths, with an answer to the History of passive obedience [by A. Seller.].