[46] Audito praecepto vestro.
[47] Praeceptum vestrum, per totam Angliam divulgatum, per vicecomitem vestrum Northumberlande ad me, sicut ad alios, pervenit.
[48] Mandavit nobis ... Vicecomes Stephanus, ex parte vestra quatinus, etc.
[49] Praecepit dignitas vestra omnibus fidelibus vestris, clericis et laicis, qui de vobis tenent in capite in Eboracsira ut mandent, etc.... Quorum ego unus, etc.
[50] It should be scarcely necessary to warn the reader against confusing the dominium, or non-infeudated portion of the entire fief, with the dominium, or demesne portion, of each Manor upon that fief.
[51] An instance in point is afforded by the Bardolf barony (i.e. fief) temp. John: 'Heres Dodon' Bardulf tenet feoda xxv. militum per totum. Inde xv. milites sunt feoffati et x. feoda sunt super dominium' (Testa de Nevill, p. 19).
[52] (1) Old feoffment, (2) new feoffment, (3) demesne.
[53] He and his successors are consequently found paying, time after time, on thirty-five fees.
[54] William de Beauchamp, of Worcestershire, is virtually a solitary exception. He inserts, cavendi causa, this significant clause: 'De hiis praenominatis non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum, nec antecessores mei unquam plus fecerunt, sed quia dominus Rex praecepit michi mandare quot milites habeo et eorum nomina, ideo mando quod istos [i.e. 16] habeo fefatos de veteri feffamento; sed non debeo Regi nisi servitium vii. militum.' But William was a sheriff at the time, and may have had special information which put him on his guard.
[55] Compare the case of the Irish bishops six years later (1172), who sent the king 'litteras suas in modum cartae extra sigillum pendentes' (Howden). Note also that the addition of the seal made the return essentially a carta. In Normandy, the tenants by knight-service were only required (1172) to seal the return (breve) of their servitium debitum.