Charter of Henry II. to Geoffrey de Mandeville the Younger (Jan. 1156).
H. Rex Angl[orum] (et) Dux Normannie et Aquitanie et Comes Andegavie Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus Justiciariis Baronibus Vicecomitibus ministris et omnibus fidelibus suis Francis et Anglis Anglie et Normannie salutem. Sciatis me fecisse Gaufridum de Magna Villa Comitem de Essexa et dedisse et hereditarie concessisse sibi et heredibus suis ad tenendum de me et heredibus meis Tertium Denarium de placitis meis ejusdem Comitatus. Et volo et concedo et firmiter precipio quod ipse Comes et heredes sui[733] post eum [habeant] et teneant comitatum suum ita bene et in pace et libere et quiete et plene et honorifice sicut aliquis Comes in Angliâ vel Normanniâ melius, liberius, quietius, plenius, et honorificentius tenet Comitatum suum. Præterea reddidi ei et concessi totam terram Gaufridi de MagnaVilla proavi sui, et avi sui, et patris sui, et omnia tenementa illorum, tam in dominiis quam in feodis militum, tam in Anglia quam in Normannia, que de me tenet in capite, et de quocunque teneat et de cujuscunque feodo sint, et nominatim Waledenam et Sabrichteswordam[734] et Walteham. Et vadium quod Rex Henricus avus meus habuit super predicta tria maneria sua imperpetuum ei clamavi quietum sibi et heredibus suis de me et de meis heredibus. Quare volo (et firmiter precipio) quod ipse et heredes sui habeant et teneant (de me et de meis heredibus) comitatum suum predictum ita libere (et quiete et plene) sicut aliquis Comes in Anglia (vel Normannia) melius, (liberius quietius et plenius comitatum suum) tenet. Et habeant et teneant ipse et heredes sui omnia predicta tenementa antecessorum suorum predictorum et nominatim predicta tria maneria ita bene (et in pace et libere et quiete et honorifice et plene, in bosco et plano et pratis et pascuis in Aquis et molendinis in viis et semitis in forestis et warrennis in rivariis et piscariis infra Burgum et extra et in omnibus locis et nominatim infra Civitatem London[ie], cum Soco et Saca et Toll et Team et Infangtheof et cum omnibus Libertatibus et liberis consuetudinibus et quietanciis suis) sicut Gaufridus de MagnaVilla proavus suus et avus suus et pater suus unquam melius, (liberius, quietius, et honorificentius et plenius) tenuerunt, tempore Regis Willelmi et Regis Henrici avi mei. Testibus T[heobaldo] Archiepiscopo Cantuar' (Rog[er]o Archiep[iscop]o Eborac' Ric[ardo] Ep[iscop]o London', Rob[erto] Ep[iscop]o Lincoln', Nigello Ep[iscop]o Eliensi, Tom[a] Canc[ellario], Rag[inaldo] Com[ite] Cornub', R[oberto] Com[ite] Legrec', Rog[ero] Com[ite] de Clara, H[enrico] de Essex Conesta[bulo], Ric[ardo] de Hum[ez] Conest[abulo], Ric[ardo] de Lucy, War[ino] fil[io] Ger[oldi] Cam[er]ario, Man[assero] Bisset dap[ifero], Rob[er]to de Dunest[anvilla] et Jos[celino] de Baillolio) Apud Cantuariam.
The first point to be considered is that of the date. It is obvious at once from the names of the primate and the chancellor that the charter must be previous to the king's departure from England in 1158. But the only occasion within this limit on which the charter can have passed is that of the king's visit to Canterbury on his way to Dover and the Continent in January, 1156 (115⅚). On no other occasion within this limit did he land at or depart from Dover. Now, it is quite certain that the charter to Earl Aubrey (de Vere), which is tested "Apud Dover in transitu Regis," passed at the time of this departure from Dover (January 10, 1156).[735] We find, then, that as in 1142 the charters to Earl Geoffrey and Earl Aubrey were part of one transaction and passed on the same occasion, so now, the charters to Earl Geoffrey the second and Earl Aubrey, his uncle, passed almost on the same day. The long list of witnesses to the former, for which we are indebted to the Rawlinson MS., enables us to compare it closely with those of the four other charters which passed, according to Mr. Eyton, about the same time.[736] The proportions of their witnesses found among the witnesses to this charter are respectively: seven out of ten in the first; nine out of eighteen in the second; the whole ten in the third; and seven out of fourteen in the fourth. As the king had spent his Christmas at Westminster, we can thus fix the date almost to a day, viz. circ. January 2, 1156. And this harmonizes well enough with the evidence of the Pipe-Rolls, which show that Earl Geoffrey was in receipt of the tertius denarius in 1157, as from Michaelmas, 1155.
On looking at the terms of this instrument, we are struck at once by the fact that it is a charter of actual creation. This is in perfect accordance with the view advanced above, namely, that the charter granted at Devizes to this Geoffrey, as his father's son, has no bearing on the earldom of Essex, "and that only an absolutely new creation could confer the earldom on Geoffrey, as he was not his father's heir." It is thus that the existence of his brother Ernulf became a factor in the problem of no small consequence.[737]
Being thus an undoubted new creation, its terms should be examined most carefully. It will then be found that the precedent they follow is not the charter of the Empress (1141), but the original charter of the king (1140).
| Stephen (1140). | Maud (1141). | Henry (1156). |
|---|---|---|
| Sciatis me fecisse Comitem de Gaufrido de Magnauillâ de Comitatu Essexe hereditarie. | Sciatis omnes ... quod ego ... do et concedo Gaufrido de Magnavilla ... ut sit Comes de Essexâ. | Sciatis me fecisse Gaufridum de Magnauillâ Comitem de Essexâ. |
The explanation is, of course, that the first and third are new creations, while the second is virtually but a confirmation of the previous creation by Stephen. So again, comparing this creation with that of Hugh Bigod, the only instance in point—
| (1155). | (1156). |
|---|---|
| Sciatis me fecisse Hugonem Bigot Comitem de Norfolca, scilicet de tercio denario de Nordwic et de Norfolca. | Sciatis me fecisse Gaufridum de Mandavillâ Comitem de Essexa, et dedisse et hereditarie concessisse sibi et heredibus suis.... Tertium denarium de placitis meis ejusdem Comitatus. |
Here the absolute identity of the actual formula of creation accentuates the difference between the clauses relating to the "Tertius Denarius." It will therefore be desirable to compare the clauses as they stand in the Mandeville and the Vere charters (January, 1156):—
| Mandeville. | Vere. |
|---|---|
| Sciatis me ... dedisse et hereditarie concessisse sibi et heredibus suis ad tenendum de me et heredibus meis tertium denarium de placitis meis ejusdem Comitatus. | Sciatis me dedisse et concessisse Comiti Alberico in feodo et hereditate tertium denarium de placitis Oxenfordscyre ut sit inde Comes. |
It is said with truth in the Lords' Reports that "inde" is an ambiguous word, as it might refer either to the county or to the "third penny" itself. And, indeed, the above extract from the charter to Hugh Bigod would lend support to the latter view. But the case of Earl Aubrey was, we must remember, peculiar. As we saw in the charter of the empress (1142), she recognized him as already a "comes" in virtue of his rank as Count of Guisnes (p. 188). It is my belief that in the present charter he is styled "comes" by Henry on precisely the same ground. For if Henry had recognized him as Earl of Oxford in virtue of his mother's charter (1142), he must also have recognized his right to "the third penny" of the shire which was granted by that same charter.[738] But he clearly did not recognize that right, for he here makes a fresh grant. Therefore he did not recognize the validity of his mother's charter. Consequently, he styled Aubrey "comes" in virtue only of the comital rank he enjoyed as Count of Guisnes. And as he could not make a "comes" of a man who was a "comes" already (p. 187), he merely grants him "the third penny of the pleas" of Oxfordshire, "that he may be earl of that county" ("ut sit inde Comes"). Hence the anomalous form in which the charter is drawn.[739]
Different, again, yet no less instructive, is the case of the Earl of Sussex. There the grant runs—
"Sciatis me dedisse Willelmo Comiti Arundel castellum de Arundel cum toto honore Arundel ... et tercium denarium de placitis de Suthsex unde comes est."
This charter has been looked upon as relating to the earldom itself, whereas it is clearly nothing but a grant of the castle and honour of Arundel and of the "Tertius Denarius" of Sussex, "of which county he is earl."[740] When these two phrases are compared—"ut sit inde Comes" and "unde Comes est"—their meaning is, surely, clear. William was already Earl of Sussex (alias Arundel alias Chichester), but his right to the "Tertius Denarius" of the county was not recognized by the king. The fact that this right required to be granted nominatim confirms my view that it was not conveyed by Stephen's charter to Geoffrey.[741]
The distinction between the "dedi et concessi" of the "Tertius Denarius" clause and the "reddidi" and "concessi" of those by which the king confirms to Geoffrey his ancestral estates is one always to be noted. The terms of what one may call this general confirmation are remarkably comprehensive, going back as they do to the days of King William and of the grantee's great-grandfather; and the profusion of legal verbiage in which they are enwrapped is worthy of later times. The charter also illustrates the adaptation in Latin of the old Anglo-Saxon formulæ, themselves the relics of those quaint jingles which must bear witness to oral transmission in an archaic state of society.[742]
The release of the lien (upon three manors) which Henry I. had held is a very curious feature. One of these manors, Sawbridgeworth in Herts., is surveyed in Domesday at great length. Its value had then sunk from £60 to £50; but early in the reign of Henry II., Earl Geoffrey gave it in fee to Warine fitz Gerold, the chamberlain, "per (sic) LXXIIII libratas terræ, singulas XX libratas pro servitio unius militis."[743]
Under this charter Earl Geoffrey held the dignity till his death, at which time we find him lord of more than a hundred and fifty knights' fees. The earldom then (1166) passed to his younger brother William, and did so, as far as we know, without a fresh creation. For the limitation, it is important to observe, in this as in other early creations, is not restricted to heirs of the body—a much later addition. As this point is of considerable importance it may be as well here to compare the essential words of inheritance in the three successive charters:—
| Stephen (1140). | Maud (1141). | Henry II (1156). |
|---|---|---|
| Sciatis me fecisse Comitem de Gaufrido de Magnavillâ de Comitatu Essexe hereditarie. Quare volo ... quod ipse et heredes sui post eum hereditario jure teneant de me et de heredibus meis ... sicut alii Comites mei de terra meâ, etc. | Sciatis ... quod ego do et concedo Gaufrido de Magnavillâ ... et heredibus suis post eum hereditabiliter ut sit Comes de Essexâ. | Sciatis me fecisse Gaufridum de Magna Villa Comitem de Essexa.... Et volo ... quod ipse Comes et heredes sui post eum habeant et teneant Comitatum suum ... sicut aliquis Comes in Angliâ, etc. |
It is noteworthy that the earliest of these three—the earliest of all our creation-charters—has the most intensely hereditary ring, a fact at variance with the favourite doctrine that the hereditary principle was a late innovation, and ousted but slowly the official position. It is further to be observed that the term "Comitatus," of which the denotation in Scottish charters has been so long and fiercely debated, has here the abstract signification which it possesses in our own day, namely, that of the dignity of an earl.
When we think of their father's stormy career, it is not a little strange to find these two successive Earls of Essex high in favour with the order-loving king, throughout whose reign, for more than thirty years (1156-1189), we find them honoured and trusted in his councils, in his courts, and in his host. Of Earl William Miss Norgate writes: "The son was as loyal as his father was faithless; he seems, indeed, to have been a close personal friend of the king, and to have well deserved his friendship."[744] His fidelity was rewarded by the hand of the heiress of the house of Aumâle, so that, already an earl in England, he thus became, also, a count beyond the sea.
Yet well might men believe that the awful curse of Heaven rested on this great and able house. At the very moment when Earl William seemed to have attained the pinnacle of power, when he had reached the point which his father had reached some half a century before, then, as in his father's case, the prize was snatched from his grasp. King Richard, rightly prizing the earl's loyalty and worth, announced his intention, at the Council of Pipewell (September, 1189), of leaving him, with the Bishop of Durham as his assessor, in charge of the kingdom, as Justiciar, during his own absence in the East. Such an office would have made the earl the foremost layman in the realm. But before the time had come for entering on his exalted duties, indeed within a few weeks of his appointment, he was dead (November 14, 1189).
Like his brother Geoffrey before him, the earl died childless; the vast estates of the house of Mandeville passed to the descendants of his aunt; to his earldom there was no heir.[745] Such was the end that awaited the ambition of Geoffrey de Mandeville. The earldom for which he had schemed and striven, the strongholds on which his power was based, the broad lands which owned his sway—all were lost to his house. And as if by the very irony of fate, Ernulf, his disinherited son, alone continued the race, that there might not be wanting in his hapless heirs an ever-standing monument to the greatness at once of the guilt and of the fall of the man whose story I have told.
[700] "Willelmi de Say et Galfridi de Mandeville, qui apud Borewelle interfecti fuerunt" (Chron. Ram., App. p. 347).
[701] "Isto itaque tali modo ad extrema deducto, nox quædam et horror omnes regis adversarios implevit, quique ex dissensione a Galfrido exorta regis annisum maxime infirmari putabant, nunc, eo interfecto, liberiorem et ad se perturbandum, ut res se habebat, expediorem fore æstimabant" (Gesta, p. 104). "Sicque Dei judicio patriæ vastatore sublato, virtus bellatorum qui secum manum ad perniciem miserorum firmaverunt plurimum labefacta est, cognoscentes Dominum Christum fideli suo Regi de hostibus dare triumphum, et adversantes ei potenter elidere, ad hoc expavit cor inimicorum illius" (Historia Eliensis, p. 628).
[702] "Quod post dilationes, non sine difficultate, tandem invitus fecit; locum enim illum et vicinas ejus partes multum dilexerat. Prophani milites recedunt cum iniquo satellite" (Chron. Ram., p. 332).
[703] "Eodem quoque anno, Ernulfus filius comitis, qui post mortem patris ecclesiam incastellatam retinebat, captus est et in exilium fugatus" (Gervase, i. 129. Cf. Hen. Hunt.).
[704] "Cujus princeps militum ab equo corruens effuso cerebro spiritum exhalavit" (ibid.).
[705] "Magister autem peditum suorum, qui plus cæteris solitus erat ecclesias concremare et frangere, dum mare transiret cum uxore sua, ut multi perhibuerant, navis immobilis facta est. Quod monstrum nautis stupentibus et sorte data rei causam inquirentibus, sors cecidit super eum. Quod cum ille totis viribus, nec mirum, contradiceret, secundo et tertio sors jacta in eum devenit: formidantibus igitur nautis positus est in cymbam parvulam ipse et uxor ejus et eorum pecunia nequiter adquisita, ut cum illis esset in perditione; quo facto, navis ut prius maria libera sulcavit, cymba vero in voragine subsistens circumducta et absorpta est" (Hen. Hunt.).
[706] There is abundant evidence that the two names are used indifferently.
[707] Burke's Extinct Peerage. So also Dr. Stubbs.
[708] Harl. Cart., 84. C. 4. The charter being attested by Thomas the Chancellor must be previous to August, 1158, as it passed at Westminster. It has a rather unusual set of witnesses.
[709] This charter may fairly be dated 1157-1158, on the following grounds. It speaks of Warine fitz Gerold as the king's chamberlain, and as living. But he died in the summer of 1158. It is, however, subsequent to Henry's accession, because it was not till after that event that Fitz Gerold was enfeoffed in Sawbridgeworth (Liber Niger), and also subsequent to 1155, because Geoffrey occurs as earl. But as Maurice (de Tiretei) was not sheriff, within these limits, till Michaelmas, 1157, we obtain the date 1157-1158.
[710] Sloane Cart., xxxii. 64.
[711] Liber Niger (ed. 1774), p. 326. The return of the Barony of Helion (p. 242), in which an Ernulf de Mandeville appears as holding half a knight's fee in Bumsted (Helion), is of later date.
[712] Rot. Pip., 1 Ric. I. The "Ernald de Magneville" who was among the Crusaders that reached Acre in June, 1191, may have been a younger son of the disinherited Ernald, if the latter was then dead. An Ernulf de Mandeville is found among the witnesses to a star of Abraham fitz Muriel (1214), granting a house in Westcheap to Geoffrey "de Mandeville," Earl of Essex and Gloucester.
[713] Rot. Pip., 3 John.
[714] Testa, p. 142 b.
[715] See, for the exceptionally heavy alienations in this county (some £440 a year), the Pipe-Roll of 2 Henry II., p. 57.
[716] Dugdale MS., 15 (H) fol. 129.
[717] "Feod[um] Rad[ulfi] de Nuers iiii. milites" (Liber Niger).
[718] Compare them with the preceding charter of Earl Geoffrey.
[719] Dugdale MS., ut supra.
[720] William's succession to Otwel suggests that they were somehow related to William fitz Otuel (p. 169).
[721] With this charter of Earl William may be compared another (Cart. Cott., x. 1), in which he confirms to Westminster Abbey the church of Sawbridgeworth. The witnesses are "Willielmo de Ver, Asculfo Capellano, Ricardo de Vercorol, Willelmo de Lisoris, David de Jarpouilla, Symone fratre eius, Osberto filio Ricardi, Osberto de sancto Claro, Willelmo de Norhala, Johanne de Rochella, Eustachio Camerario, Rogero et Simone clericis Abbatis West'." The second and third witnesses are also found attesting the earl's charter to the nuns of Greenfield (see p. 169). Compare further "A charter of William, Earl of Essex" (Eng. Hist. Review, April, 1891). "Asculfus (or Hasculfus) Capellanus" was the hero of the adventure, on the earl's death, thus related by Dugdale: "A chaplain of the earl's, called Hasculf, took out his best saddle-horse in the night, and rode to Chicksand, where the Countess Rohese then resided," etc., etc.
[722] This is a good instance of the custom, so constantly met with in Domesday, by which a house in a county town was attached to a manor.
[723] Dugdale MS., ut supra.
[724] Dodsworth MS., vii. fol. 299.
[725] Ibid.
[726] Ibid., xxx. fol. 104.
[727] "Alano de Matem" is among them (cf. p. 89).
[728] "Willelmus de Mandevill tenet in Kaingham feodum unius militis de feod[o] Comitis Hereford[ie]" (Testa, pp. 102 a, 106 a).
[729] Lansdowne MS., 865, fol. 118 dors.; Harl. MS., 154, fol. 45.
[730] Lansdowne MS., 229, fol. 123 b. This note is followed by one of the charter by which the Empress confirmed Humfrey de Bohun in his post of Dapifer, and of which the original is still extant among the Duchy of Lancaster Royal Charters (Pipe-Roll Society: Ancient Charters, p. 45).
[731] See Appendix BB.
[732] It was, I believe, duly entered in the lost volume of the Great Coucher.
[733] "Sui" omitted in Rawlinson MS.
[734] "Dabrichteswordam" (Rawlinson).
[735] R. Diceto, p. 531.
[736] (1) To the church of St. Jean d'Angely (Canterbury); (2) to Christchurch, Canterbury (Dover); (3) to St. Mary's Abbey, Leicester (Dover); (4) to Earl Aubrey (Dover) (Court and Itinerary of Henry II., pp. 15, 16).
[737] It is true that the charter to Geoffrey Ridel (Appendix BB) proves that Geoffrey de Mandeville the younger enjoyed, at the court of the Empress, the title of Earl of Essex. But the same charter proves that Henry did not hold himself bound by his mother's charters or deeds.
[738] "Do et concedo quod sit Comes de ... et habeat inde tertium denarium sicut comes debet habere."
[739] It is one of the mysteries of the Pipe-Rolls that no such payment to the earl is to be traced on them, though the grant is quite unmistakable in its terms. See Appendix H.
[740] The "unde" of this charter answers to the "inde" in the charters to Earl Aubrey.
[741] See Appendix H.
[742] See, for instance, survivals of them in the charters of Henry I. to Christchurch, Canterbury, and of Henry II. to Oxford. The former runs, "on strande and on stream, on wudan and on feldan" (Campbell Charter, xxix. 5); the latter, "by water and by stronde, by Gode (sic) and by londe" (Hearne's Liber Niger, Appendix).
The formula "cum omnibus ad hoc rebus rite pertinentibus, sive litorum, sive camporum, agrorum, saltuumve" (Kemble, Cod. Dipl., No. 425; Earle, Land Charters, p. 186), suggested to Prof. Maitland (Select Pleas in Manorial Courts) a connection with the "leet" through the "litus" of early Teutonic law, but Mr. W. H. Stevenson, correcting him, observed (Academy, June 29, 1889) that litorum referred to the seashore at Reculver (with which this grant deals). Both these distinguished scholars are mistaken, for the words only render the general formula: "by lande and by strande ('litorum'), by wode and by felde." So for instance—
"bi water and bi lande
mid inlade and mid utlade
wit inne burghe and wit outen
bi lande and by strande
bi wode and by felde" (Ramsey Cart., ii. 80, 81).
Thus we have "in bosco et plano ... infra burgum et extra" (supra, p. 236). See also pp. 286, 314, 381.
[743] Liber Niger (1774), i. 239.
[744] Angevin Kings, ii. 144.
[745] The inheritance was in dispute for some time between his aunt's younger son and the two daughters and co-heirs of her elder son deceased. As the latter were eventually successful in their claim, there was no one heir to whom the earldom could pass, as of right, under the charter of 1156 (accepting it as representing a limitation to heirs whatsoever). I have, however, elsewhere suggested (Pipe-Roll Society: Ancient Charters, p. 99) that the salvo to the elder of the two daughters of her antenatio may have been connected with a claim to the dignity by her husband, in her right.