[1061] K. 262 (ii. 33); B. ii. 40: lease by church of Worcester to the king for five lives: ‘et illi dabant terram illam ea tamen conditione ut ipse rex firmius amicus sit episcopo praefato et familia in omnibus bonis eorum.’ K. 279 (ii. 61): lease by the same church to a dux and his wife with stipulation for amicitia.
[1062] These are preserved in Heming’s Cartulary; see K. 494–673.
[1063] In K. 498 (ii. 386) the aecclesiasticus census is two modii of clean grain; in K. 511 (ii. 400) the lessee must mow once and reap once ‘with all his craft’; in K. 508 (ii. 398) he must sow two acres with his own seed and reap it; in K. 661 (iii. 233) is a similar stipulation.
[1064] In many cases the clause of immunity has become very obscure owing to a copyist’s blunder. It is made to run thus: ‘Sit autem terra ista libera omni regi nisi aecclesiastici censi.’ Some mistake between rei and regi may be suspected. What we want is what we get in some other cases, e.g. K. 651, 652, viz. ‘libera ab omni saecularis rei negotio.’ The following forms are somewhat exceptional; K. 530 and 612, ‘butan ferdfare and walgeworc and brycgeworc and circanlade’; K. 623, 666, ‘excepta sanctae dei basilicae suppeditatione et ministratione’; K. 625, ‘exceptis sanctae dei aecclesiae necessitatibus et utilitatibus.’
[1065] Kemble gives it in Cod. Dipl. 1287 (vi. 124) and in an appendix to vol. i. of his history. Also he speaks of it in Cod. Dipl. i. xxxv., and there says that it is ‘a laboured justification’ by Bp Oswald of his proceedings. To my mind it is nothing of the kind. Oswald is proud of what he has done and wishes that a memorial of his acts may be carefully preserved for the benefit of the church. Of course, if regarded from our modern point of view, the form of the document is curious. The bishop seems engaged in an attempt to bind his lessees by his own unilateral account of the terms to which they have agreed. But his object is to have of the contract a record which has been laid before the king and the witan and which, if we are to use modern terms, will have all the force of an act of parliament, to say nothing of the anathema.
[1066] In places its language becomes turbid and well-nigh untranslatable.
[1067] It may be that the bishop has just obtained from the king a grant or confirmation of the hundredal jurisdiction over what is to be Oswaldslaw.
[1068] K. vi. 125: ‘hoc est ut omnis equitandi lex ab eis impleatur quae ad equites pertinet.’
[1069] K. vi. 125: ‘et ad totum piramiticum opus aecclesiae calcis atque ad pontis aedificium ultro inveniantur parati.’ The translation here given is but guesswork; we suppose that piramiticus means ‘of or belonging to fire (πῦρ).’
[1070] Ibid.: ‘insuper ad multas alias indigentiae causas quibus opus est domino antistiti frunisci, sive ad suum servitium sive ad regale explendum, semper illius archiductoris dominatui et voluntati qui episcopatui praesidet ... subditi fiant.’ Is archiductor but a fine name for the bishop? We think not. In the Confessor’s day Eadric the Steersman was ‘ductor exercitus episcopi ad servitium regis’ (Heming, i. 81), and it would seem from this that the tenants were to be subject to a captain set over them by the bishop. But in the famous, if spurious, charter for Oswaldslaw (see above, p. 268) Edgar says that on a naval expedition the bishop’s men are not to serve under the ordinary officers ‘sed cum suo archiductore, videlicet episcopo, qui eos defendere et protegere debet ab omni perturbatione et inquietudine.’ This would settle the question, could we be certain that the words ‘videlicet episcopo’ were not the gloss of a forger who was improving an ancient instrument. For our present purpose, however, it is no very important question whether the archiductor, the commander in chief of these tenants, is the bishop himself or an officer of his.