Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

by John Horace Round

Et par costume seit rendu (lines 11272 et seq.).'

[⁹⁶] It can be shown that the 'service' in Normandy was based on precisely the same five-knight unit.

[⁹⁷] 'The estates of the twenty greatest feodaries in Domesday Book contain, according to the ordinary computation, 793, 439, 442, 298, 280, 222, 171, 164, 132, 130, 123, 119, 118, 107, 81, 47, 46 and 33 knights' fees.'—Gneist (Const. Hist., i. 334).

[⁹⁸] servitia, i. 289.

[⁹⁹] For instance, the Abbot of St Edmund's 'quinquaginta milites' are spoken of as 'milites de quatuor constabiliis' with 'decem miles de quinta constabilia' (Memorials of St Edmunds, Ed. Arnold, i. 269, 271).

[¹⁰⁰] Robert fitz Stephen lands with 30 knights, Maurice de Prendergast with 10, Maurice fitz Gerald with 10, Strongbow with 200, Raymond the Fat with 10, Henry himself with either 400 or 500, etc.

[¹⁰¹] See my Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 103.

[¹⁰²] Lines 11253 et seq. The figures, however, are far too large, and savour of poetic licence.

[¹⁰³] N.C., v. 368.

[¹⁰⁴] Meath with a servitium debitum of 100, Limerick of 60, Cork with two servitia of 30 each.