If the identity of 'Eadric' is matter of conjecture, that of 'Eustace eorl' is certain. But no one has known, or even suspected, that he held, at this period, high position in the west. It may be that, as I have already hinted, he was sent by William to a district, as yet only nominally subject, as being, from his previous connection with England, less obnoxious than a Norman was likely to prove. It would be refining overmuch to suggest that William might also intend to establish him as far as possible from his base of operations at Boulogne.
In any case, we have in this charter a welcome addition to our scanty knowledge of that obscure period when William, as it were, was feeling his feet as an English king. Nor is it its least important feature that it shows us William, contrary to what Mr Freeman held to be his fundamental rule, speaking of his predecessor as 'Harald kinge'.
Before taking leave of Regenbald, we may glance at one of the Domesday entries relating to his lands. Mr Freeman, in two distinct passages, wrote as follows:
|
An entry in 99 reads as if the
same Regenbald had been defrauded
of land by a Norman tenant of his
own. 'Ricardus tenet in Rode i.
hidam, quam ipse tenuit de
Rainboldo presbytero licentia
regis, ut dicit. Reinbold vero
tenuit T.R.E.' (Norm. Conq., v. 751) |
The rights of the antecessor are
handed on to the grantee of his
land. ... So in Exon 432.
'Ricardus interpres habet
i. hidam terræ in Roda quam ipse
emit de Rainboldo sacerdote
[Eadward's chancellor?] per
licentiam regis, ut dicit qui
tenuit eam die qua Rex E.
fuit[6]
et mortuus.' (Ibid., p. 784) |
Although these two passages are found in two different appendices, the entries thus diversely adduced, are, of course, one and the same. But, it will be seen, the 'tenuit' of Domesday is equated by the 'emit' of the Exon book. One of the two must be wrong. I should accept the Exon text because 'emit licentia regis' is the right Domesday phrase, because it makes better sense, and because it is a sound principle of textual criticism that the Exchequer scribe was more likely to write the usual 'tenuit' for the exceptional 'emit' than the Exon scribe to do the converse. I should then read the passage thus: 'emit de Rainboldo sacerdote—per licentiam regis, ut dicit—qui tenuit eam die', etc.
If my view be adopted, we here detect noteworthy error in our great and sacrosanct record.
The charter of Henry I to Cirencester Abbey—in which he had placed Canons Regular, and of which he claimed to be the founder—sets, as it were, the coping-stone on the story of Regenbald.[7] In it we read:
Dedi et concessi ... totam tenuram Reimbaldi presbyteri in terris et ecclesiis, et ceteris omnibusquæ subscripta sunt....
De rebus autem predictis quæ fuerunt Rembaldi hec statuimus.
The details of Regenbald's possessions are given, and are of special value for collation with Domesday. They set him before us not only as a landowner in five different counties, but also as the first great pluralist. Sixteen churches, rich in tithes and glebe—one might really term them 'fat livings'—had passed into the hands of Regenbald 'the priest'. From the king's phrase, 'dedi et concessi', he would seem to have been not merely confirming an endowment by Regenbald, but granting lands which had escheated to himself.[8]