Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

Kenric was then called upon to plead, which he did, by claiming to be a free man, and desiring liberty to prove the same before God and a jury of his countrymen.

The sheriff was thereupon commanded to impannel a jury; and this was speedily accomplished, twelve men being selected and sworn, six of whom were belted knights, two esquires of Norman birth, and four Saxon franklins, as they were now termed, who would have been thanes under their ancient dynasty, all free and lawful men, and sufficient to form a jury.

Then, the defendant in the suit being a poor man, and of no substance, counsel, skilled in the law, were assigned him by the court, Thomas de Curthose, and Matthew Gourlay, that he might have fair show of justice; and so the trial was ordered to proceed.

Then Geoffrey Fitz Peter rose and opened the case by stating that they should prove the person at the bar to be a serf, known as "Eadwulf the Red," who has escaped from the manor of his lord at Waltheofstow, in Sherwood Forest, against his lord's will, on the 13th day of July last passed—that he had killed a deer, with a cross-bolt, on that same day, in the forest between Thurgoland and Bolterstone—and afterward murdered the bailiff of the manor of Waltheofstow, as aforesaid, with a similar weapon, at or near the same place, which weapons would be produced in court, and identified by comparison with corresponding weapons, and the arbalast to which they belong, found in the possession of the prisoner, when taken at Kentmere in Westmoreland—that he had been hunted hot-foot, with bloodhounds, through the forest, and across the moors to the Lancaster sands, when he had escaped only by the aid of the fatal and furious tide which had overwhelmed the pursuing horsemen—that he had been seen to land on the shore of Westmoreland, by a party of the pursuers, who had escaped the flood-tide by skirting the coastline, and had been traced, foot by foot, by report of the natives of the country, who had heard of the arrival of a fugitive serf in the neighborhood, until he was captured in a cottage beside Kentmere, on the 10th day of October of this present year. And to prove this, he called Sir Foulke d'Oilly.

He, being sworn, testified that he knew, and had often seen, his serf "Eadwulf the Red," on the manor of Waltheofstow, and fully believed the person at the bar to be the man in question. He had joined the pursuers of the fugitive on the day after the catastrophe of the sands, had been engaged in tracing him to the cottage on Kentmere, and fully believed the person captured to be the same who was traced upward from the sands. Positively identified and swore to the person at the bar, as the man captured on the 10th day of October, and to the crossbow and bolts produced in court, and branded with the name "Kenric," as taken in his possession.

Being cross-examined—he could not swear positively to any personal recollection of the features of "Eadwulf the Red," or that the person at the bar was the man, or resembled the man, in question. Believed him to be the man Eadwulf, because it was the general impression of his people that he was so.

Thomas de Curthose said—"This, my lords, is mere hearsay, and stands for naught." And Sir Ranulf de Glanville bowed his head, and replied—"Merely for naught."

Then Sir Foulke d'Oilly, being asked how, when he assumed this person's name to be Eadwulf, he ascribed to him the ownership of weapons stamped "Kenric," he replied, that "Kenric" was a name prepared aforehand, to avert suspicion, and assumed by Eadwulf, so to avoid suspicion.

Being asked where he showed that Eadwulf had assumed such other name, or that the name "Kenric" had ever been assumed by one truly named "Eadwulf," he replied, that "It was probable."

Thomas de Curthose said—"That is mere conjecture."