Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T07:18:25.942Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Observations on English Government from the tenth to the twelfth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

James Campbell
James Campbell
Affiliation:
Worcester College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Prudent historians, when they consider the ordered power of the late Anglo-Saxon state, are apt to indulge a professional instinct, to hedge their bets. Such phrases as ‘specious uniformity’ and ‘rudimentary precocity’ have found favour. It has long seemed likely, and it has by now become certain, that such caution is superfluous.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 25 , December 1975 , pp. 39 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Barlow, F., The Feudal Kingdom of England (London, 1955), pp. 42, 46Google Scholar; Galbraith, V. H., The Making of Domesday Book (Oxford, 1961), pp. 46, 47Google Scholar.

2 Radford, C. A. Ralegh, ‘The Later Pre-Conquest Boroughs and their Defences’, Medieval Archaeology, xiv (1970), pp. 83–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the articles cited there.

3 Dolley, R. H. M. and Metcalf, D. M., ‘The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar’, Anglo-Saxon Coins, ed. Dolley, R. H. M. (London, 1961), pp. 136–68Google Scholar.

4 Peterson, H. Bertil A., Anglo-Saxon Currency. King Edgar's Reform to the Norman Conquest (Lund, 1969)Google Scholar. Cf. Suchodolski, A., ‘Renovatio Monetae in Poland in the Twelfth Century’, Wiadomści Numizmatyczne, v (1961), pp. 57–75Google Scholar of the supplement and Lyon, C. S. S., ‘Variations in Currency in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Mints, Dies and Currency, ed. Carson, R. A. G. (London, 1971), pp. 101–20Google Scholar.

5 Bolin, S., ‘Tax Money and Plough Money’, Scandinavian Economic History Review, ii (1954), pp. 5–21, esp. p. 17Google Scholar.

6 Ed. C. Johnson (London, 1950), p. 9; on the assumptions that instantis monete (last line) means ‘of the current issue’ and that the chronology is, as elsewhere in the Dialogus (cf. p. xx), unreliable.

7 Harvey, S., ‘Royal Revenue and Domesday Terminology’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xx (1967), pp. 221–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Dolley, M., The Norman Conquest and the English Coinage (London, 1966), p. 10Google Scholar.

9 Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor (London, 1970), pp. 183–84Google Scholar.

10 Two of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C. and Earle, J., (Oxford, 1892), p. 173Google Scholar.

11 Galbraith, V. H., Studies in the Public Records (London, 1948), p. 45Google Scholar.

12 Hart, C., The Hidation of Northamptonshire (Leicester, 1970), esp. pp. 39–43Google Scholar. It seems reasonable to take such a post-Conquest instance as indicative of English practice, especially as the key document, the Northants Geld Roll, is in English.

13 Harvey, S., ‘Domesday Book and its Predecessors’, English Historical Review, lxxxvi (1971), pp. 753–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 But cf. pp. 50–51 below.

15 Studies in the Public Records, pp. 37–40.

16 Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J. (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar, no. LII (possibly post-Conquest).

17 Ibid., no. LXXII.

18 Ibid., nos. LIV, LXXXIV, CIX, CX and App. I nos. IV and V, for which see pp. 50–51 below.

19 Ibid., nos. XXXIX, CIV and App.II nos. II–IX. Cf. p. 49 below.

20 Ibid., nos. XXXIX, CIV, App. II nos. III, IX and cf. Earle, J., Hand-Book of Land Charters and other Saxonic Documents (Oxford, 1888), pp. 275–77Google Scholar.

21 Davis, G. R. C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), pp. xi–xiiGoogle Scholar.

22 Cf. ProfessorWhitelock's, Dorothy suggestion on the survival of letters in English, English Historical Documents c. 500–1042 (London, 1955), p. 577Google Scholar.

23 But see Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., The Governance of Mediaeval England (Edinburgh, 1963), p. 273Google Scholar.

24 Whitelock, , English Historical Documents, p. 849Google Scholar.

25 Okasha, E., Hand-list of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971)Google Scholar.

26 Richardson, and Sayles, , op. cit., pp. 265–84Google Scholar.

27 Cf. Galbraith, , Studies in the Public Records, p. 57Google Scholar.

28 Stubbs, W., The Constitutional History of England, i (Oxford, 1891), pp. 223–27Google Scholar.

29 To the instances cited ibid., p. 226, add those mentioned on pp. 45–47 below and by Yver, J., ‘Les premières institutions du duché de Normandie’, Settimane di studio del centro italiano sull'alto medioevo, xvi (Spoleto, 1969), p. 319Google Scholar. Some capitularies and some Anglo-Saxon ‘codes’ resemble one another fairly closely in general form.

30 Maitland, F. W., Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897), p. 518Google Scholar.

31 Cam, H. M., Local Government in Francia and England (London, 1912), p. 156Google Scholar

32 The Governance of Mediaeval England, p. 26, n. I; Ganshof, F. L., Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne (Providence, R.I., 1968), p. 29Google Scholar.

33 Stenton, F. M., Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1971), pp. 645, 648Google Scholar.

34 Joranson, E., The Danegeld in France (Rock Island, 1923)Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., pp. 72–73; cf. pp. 45–58, 62–52.

36 Lot, F., ‘Les tribute aux Normands et l'église de France au ixe siècle’, Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, Ixxxv (1924), pp. 58—78Google Scholar.

37 Joranson, , op. cit., p. 191Google Scholar; Finn, R. Welldon, An Introduction to Domesday Book (London, 1963), p. 254Google Scholar.

38 Dolley, M., Anglo-Saxon Pennies (London, 1964), pp. 14–15Google Scholar.

39 Yver, , ‘Les premières institutions du duché de Normandie’, op. cit., p. 343Google Scholar, nn. 109, 110. Frankish moneyers were at work in the Danelaw in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, Dolley, M., Viking Coins of the Danelaw and of Dublin (London, 1965), pp. 17–20Google Scholar.

40 Morrison, K. and Grunthal, H., Carolingian Coinage (American Numismatic Society Notes and Monographs, no. 158, 1967), pp. 1–8Google Scholar.

41 Capitularia Regum Francorum, ii, ed. Boretius, A. and Krause, V.(Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Legum, Sectio II (Hanover, 1890)), pp. 314–18Google Scholar.

42 Morrison, and Grunthal, , op. cit., p. 6Google Scholar.

43 Brooks, N., ‘The Development of Military Obligations in Ninth and Tenth Century England’, England before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), p. 81Google Scholar.

44 Loyn, H. R., ‘The Hundred in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries’, British Government and Administration, ed. Loyn, H. R. and Hearder, H. (Cardiff, 1974), pp. 1–15, esp. 2–3Google Scholar; Dannebauer, H., ‘Hundertschaft, Centena und Huntari’, Historisches Jahrbuch, lxii–lxix (1942–1949), pp. 155–219, esp. pp. 163–65Google Scholar.

45 Liebermann, F., Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ii, pt. ii (Halle, 1912), p. 516Google Scholar.

46 In important aspects and areas the centena may have been an innovation of Charlemagne's time: Loyn, , op. cit., pp. 2—3Google Scholar; Ganshof, , Frankish Institutions under Charlemagne p. 32Google Scholar; Guérard, B.Le Polypytque de l'abbé Irminon (Paris 1844), i, pp. 43–44Google Scholar.

47 Attenborough, F. L., The Laws of the Earliest English Kings (reprint, New York, 1963), p. 121Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., pp. 149, 153.

49 Robertson, A. J., The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry! (Cambridge, 1925), p. 12Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., p. 185.

51 Ganshof, F. L., The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy (London, 1971), pp. 112–17Google Scholar.

52 Bullough, D. A., ‘The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Ælfric’, Settimane …, xix (Spoleto, 1971), p. 455, n. 2Google Scholar.

53 Hadrill, J. M. Wallace, ‘The Franks and the English in the Ninth Century’, History, new ser., xxxv (1950), pp. 212–14Google Scholar.

54 Idem, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), p. 148.

55 E.g. Bethurum, D., The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957), esp. p. 61Google Scholar; Clemoes, P., ‘Ælfric’, Continuations and Beginnings, ed. Stanley, E. G. (London, 1966), pp. 182–83Google Scholar.

56 Harmer, F. E., Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), p. 22Google Scholar.

57 Knowles, D., The Monastic Order in England (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1966), p. 42Google Scholar.

58 Constitutional History, i, p. 224.

59 Metz, W., Das Karolingische Reichsgut (Berlin, 1960), pp. 11–90Google Scholar; Ganshof, , The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy, pp. 130–32Google Scholar.

60 Ganshof, , op. cit., pp. 292–95Google Scholar.

61 Capitularia, ii, op. cit., pp. 317–18. For breve in its common Domesday meaning of schedule or return see Ganshof, , The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy, p. 293Google Scholarand Lesne, E., Histoire de la propriété écclésiasiique en France, iii (Lille, 1936), pp. 1–30, esp. 1–6Google Scholar. It was the term almost invariably used by Carolingian government in such contexts as: ‘per omne regnum suum litteras misit, ut episcopi, abbates et abbatissae breves de honoribus suis quanta mansa quisque haberet … deferre curarent’ (‘Annals of St. Bertin’, s.a. 869, ed. Grat, F., Vielliard, J. and Clémencet, S. (Paris, 1964), pp. 152–53Google Scholar

62 Joranson, , The Danegeld in France, p. 49Google Scholar.

63 Lesne, , iii, op. cit., pp. 1–30Google Scholar. The early meanings of descriptio commonly have to do with a record or survey made for purposes of taxation (Ducange, Glossarium, s.v.). In the Carolingian period it denotes asurvey, e.g. of the kind which was made for the division of the empire in 843 (p. 48 above) or inventory e.g. such that ‘by consulting it the king could discover not only what he possessed, but also what his possessions were worth’ (Ganshof, , The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy, pp. 293–94Google Scholar). For its use to denote an estate survey, see Lesne, , op. cit., iii, 11–20Google Scholar.

64 Polyptyque de l'abbé Irminon, op. cit., i, p. 25.

65 Perrin, C.-E., Recherches sur la seigneurie rurale en Lorraine (n.p., 1935), pp. 3–93Google Scholar.

66 Ibid., pp. 47–64; cf. pp. 600–3.

67 Ibid., pp. 614, 607.

68 Lesne, , op. cit., iii, pp. 19–20 76–77Google Scholar.

69 Robertson, , Anglo-Saxon Charters, no. XXXIXGoogle Scholar; Capitularia, i, pp. 250–52.

70 Robertson, , op. cit., nos. XXXIX and CIV (pp. 194–97Google Scholar); Capitularia, i, loc. cit.; Lesne, , op. cit., iii, p. 156Google Scholar.

71 Patrologia Latino, ed. Migne, , cxxxixGoogle Scholar, col. 442.

72 Perrin, , Recherches sur la seigneurie rurale en Lorraine, pp. 101–239, 599Google Scholar.

73 Turner, R. V., ‘The origin of the medieval English jury’, Journal of British Studies, vii (1967–1968), no. 2, pp. 1–10Google Scholar.

74 Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., Law and Legislation from Æthelberht to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1966), p. 28Google Scholar.

75 Robertson, , Anglo-Saxon Charters, App. I, nos. IV, VGoogle Scholar.

76 Yver, , ‘Les premières institutions du duché normand’, p. 339Google Scholarfor recent work on the early Norman fiscal system.

77 Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1960 reprint), pp. 25–26, 514; Dolley, and Metcalf, , ‘The Reform of the English Coinage under Eadgar’, p. 157Google Scholar.

78 Painter, , Studies in the History of the Medieval English Feudal Barony (Baltimore, 1943), pp. 74–79Google Scholar; Holt, J. C., Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1965), pp. 19–42Google Scholar.

79 Dolley, , The Norman Conquest and the English Coinage, pp. 35–36Google Scholar.

80 Allen, D. F., A Catalogue of Coins in the British Museum. The Cross-and-Crosslets (‘Teolby’) Type of Henry II (London, 1951), p. lxxxviiiGoogle Scholar.

81 Stenton, F. M. in Victoria County History of Rutland, i (London, 1908), pp. 134–36Google Scholar; J. M. Ramsay, ibid., pp. 165–71.

82 Holt, J. C., The Northerners (Oxford, 1961), p. 199Google Scholar.

83 Tait, J., in Victoria County History of Lancashire, ii (London, 1908), pp. 181–82, 187–88Google Scholar.

84 Stenton, , Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn, pp. 438–40Google Scholar; Barlow, F., The English Church 1000–1066 (London, 1963), pp. 162–65Google Scholar.

85 Ibid., pp. 183–208.

86 E.g., Round, J. H., Family Origins and Other Studies (London, 1930), pp. 272–74Google Scholar.

87 Pelling, H., The Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1900 (London, 1967), pp. 108, 206, 289CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 I am indebted to Miss P. A. Adams for her help with this paper and to Dr D. M. Metcalf, who advised me on the Anglo-Saxon coinage but is not responsible for any errors.