Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England

by Frederic William Maitland

[971] K. 1346 (vi. 205). Compare Fustel de Coulanges, L’Immunité Mérovingienne, Revue historique, xxiii. 21.

[972] E.g. K. 1117 (v. 231): ‘tribus semotis causis a quibus nullus nostrorum poterit expers fore’; K. v. pp. 259, 283, 334.

[973] To this class belong the foundation charter of Evesham mentioned above, p. 235, and Offa’s charter for S^t. Albans, K. 161 (i. 195), which Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 469, are unwilling to decisively reject. Cenwulf’s charter for Abingdon, K. 214 (i. 269), H. & S. iii. 556, sets a limit to the amount of military service that is to be demanded. Æthelstan’s charter for Crediton, recently printed by Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, p. 5, frees land from the trinoda necessitas.

[974] E.g. K. i. p. 274; ii. pp. 14, 15, 24, 26, 83; v. pp. 53, 62, 81.

[975] Observe how Bede describes a gift made by Oswy in the middle of the seventh century; Hist. Eccl. iii. 24 (ed. Plummer, i. 178): ‘donatis insuper duodecim possessiunculis terrarum in quibus ablato studio militiae terrestris, ad exercendam militiam caelestem etc.’

[976] The passages in the dooms which mention it are collected in Schmid, Glossar, s. v. ángild. They are discussed by Maurer, Krit. Ueberschau, ii. 32.

[977] The clauses of immunity which mention the ángild will be collected in a note at the end of this section.

[978] K. 210 (i. 265); B. i. 497; H. & S. iii. 585. The clause in question is not found in every copy of the charter. If some monk is to be accused of tampering with the book, there seems just as much reason for charging him with having omitted a clause which limited, as for charging him with inserting a clause which recognized, the jurisdiction of the church.

[979] These clauses will be discussed in a note at the end of this section.

[980] A.D. 841, K. 250 (ii. 14): ‘Liberabo ab omnibus saecularibus servitutibus ... regis et principis vel iuniorum eorum, nisi in confinio reddant rationem contra alium.’ Compare K. 117 (i. 144): ‘nisi specialiter pretium pro pretio ad terminum.’ Also Leg. Henr. 57 § 1: ‘Si inter compares vicinos utrinque sint querelae, conveniant ad divisas.’ Ibid. 57 § 8: ‘aliquando in divisis vel in erthmiotis.’ Ibid. 9 § 4: ‘Et omnis causa terminetur, vel hundreto, vel comitatu, vel hallimoto soccam habentium, vel dominorum curiis, vel divisis parium.’ See above, [p. 97].