[16] N.C., v. 372; servitia, i. 261.
[17] N.C., v. 373.
[18] Palgrave, as Mr Freeman observes, 'strongly and clearly brought out the absence of any distinct mention of military tenures in Domesday'. Dr Stubbs more cautiously wrote: 'The wording of the Domesday Survey does not imply that in this respect the new military service differed from the old.' (servitia, i. 262.) Mr Freeman confidently asserts: 'Nothing is more certain than that from one end of Domesday to the other, there is not a trace of military tenures as they were afterwards understood.... We hear of nothing in Domesday which can be called knight-service or military tenure in the later sense.' (N.C., v. 370, 371.) Mr Hunt (Norman Britain) follows the same line, and Gneist, vouching Palgrave, Stubbs, and Freeman, repeats the argument. (servitia, i. 130.)
[19] 'I spoke to Mr Falconberge to look whether he could out of Domesday Book give me anything concerning the sea and the dominion thereof' (1661).
[20] N.C., v. 465.
[21] N.C., v. 4.
[22] Ibid., p. 42.
[23] As so much stress has been laid on the argument from Domesday, it is desirable further to demonstrate its worthlessness by referring to the Lindsey Survey (vide supra, p. 149). This survey can only be a few years previous to 1120, and was therefore made at a time when, ex hypothesi, feudal tenures had been established for some time. Yet here, also, page after page may be searched in vain for any mention of 'knights' or 'fees'.
[24] Gneist, servitia, i. 132.
[25] Gneist, servitia, i. 118.