Passing, for the present, over minor points, I would fix on the 'Great Scutage', or 'Scutage of Toulouse', as the test by which Swereford's knowledge and accuracy must stand or fall. If he is in error on this matter, his error is so grievous and so far-reaching that it must throw the gravest doubt on all his similar assertions. The date of the expedition against Toulouse was June 1159 (the host having been summoned at Mid-Lent): from the chroniclers we learn that, to provide the means for it, and especially to pay an army of mercenaries, a great levy was made in England and beyond sea. The roll of the following Michaelmas records precisely such a levy, and the payments so recorded must have been made for the expenses of this campaign. But we can go further still; we can actually prove from internal evidence that sums accounted for on the roll of 1159 were levied expressly for the Toulouse campaign.[111] Yet we are confidently informed by Swereford that this levy was for a Welsh war, and that the scutage of Toulouse is represented by the levies which figure on the rolls of 1161 and 1162. He appears to have evolved out of his inner consciousness the rule that a scutage, though fixed and even paid in any given year, was never accounted for on the rolls till the year after.[112] But as even this rule will not apply to his calculation here, one can only suggest that he was absolutely ignorant of the date of the Toulouse campaign.[113] The value of Swereford's calculations is so seriously affected by this cardinal error, that one may reject with less hesitation his statement that the scutage of 1156 was taken for a Welsh war, and not, as there is evidence to imply, for a campaign against the king's brother. Swereford, again, may be pardoned for his ignorance of the fact that scutage existed under Henry I,[114] but when he unhesitatingly assigns the Domesday Survey to the fourteenth year of the Conqueror (1079-80), he shows us that the precision of his statements is no proof of their accuracy. On both these points he has misled subsequent writers.[115]
The incredible ignorance and credulity even of officials at the time are illustrated by the fact that the Conqueror was generally believed to have created 32,000 knights' fees in England, and that Swereford plumed himself on his independence in doubting so general a belief.[116] His less sceptical contemporary, Segrave, continued to believe it, and even Madox hesitates to reject it.
The persistent assertion that the Cartae Baronum were connected with, and preliminary to, the auxilium ad filiam maritandam of 1168 is undoubtedly to be traced to Swereford's ipse dixit to that effect. He distinctly asserts that the aid was fixed (assisum) in the thirteenth year (1167), that the returns (cartae) were made in the same year (1167), and that the aid was paid and accounted for in the fourteenth year (1168).[117] Modern research, however, has shown that the returns were made quite early in 1166, while the youthful Matilda, we know, was not married till October 1168. This throws an instructive light on Swereford's modus operandi. Finding from the rolls that the payments made in 1168 were based on the returns in the cartae, and not being acquainted with the date of the latter, he jumped to the conclusion that they must have been made in 1167, it being his (quite unsupported) thesis that all levies were fixed in the year preceding that in which they were accounted for on the rolls.
Proceeding further, we find him explaining (p. 9) that he omits the aid of 1165, 'quoniam probata summa auxilii propter hoc non probatur numerus militum'. And yet this aid, the last to be taken before the returns of 1166, is of special value and importance for the very purpose he speaks of. It is, indeed, an essential element in the evidence on which I build; and this compels me to discuss the point in some detail.
Those who contributed towards this aid either (1) gave arbitrary sums for the payment of servientes—whose number was almost invariably some multiple of five—or (2) paid a marc on every fee of their servitium debitum. We are only here concerned with those who adopted the latter course. Now let us take the case of those who adopted this alternative in the counties of Notts and Derby, and compare their payments with their servitium debitum as known to us from other sources.
| Payments (1165) | Service (1166) | |
|---|---|---|
| marcae | knights | |
| Hubert fitz Ralf | 30 | 30 |
| Ralf Halselin | 25 | 25 |
| Robert de 'Calz' | 15 | 15 |
| Roger de Burun | 10 | 10 |
In this case there is no doubt as to the servitium debitum, for it is ascertained from the cartae themselves. Having then proved, by this test, the exact correspondence of the payments, I turn to the case of Devonshire.
| Payments (1165) | Service (1166) | |
|---|---|---|
| marcae | knights[118] | |
| Robert 'filius Regis' | 100 | (?) |
| William de Traci | 30 | (?) |
| William de Braose | 25 | (?) |
| Oliver de Traci | 25 | (?) |
| Abbot of Tavistock | 15 | 15 |
| William fitz Reginald | 1 | 1 |
| Ralf de Valtort | 1 | 1 |
| Robert fitz Geoffrey | 1 | 1 |
Here we are supplied by this roll with four important servitia which would otherwise be absolutely unknown to us. And they happen to be of special interest. For while the carta of William de Braose returns twenty-eight fees, and that of Oliver de Traci twenty-three and a half (though he pays on thirty and a half),[119] their payments in 1165, by revealing their servitium debitum, show us that their fiefs represent the two halves of the Honour of Barnstaple (which, therefore, was assessed at 50 knights) then in their respective hands. Again, William de Traci returns his fees in his carta as twenty-five and three-quarters, and says nothing about any balance on his dominium, as he should have done. Hence we should not have known his servitium but for the roll of 1165.