This regular yearly payment of eighteen pounds had taken the place of various uncertain payments and services.... Thus the citizens of Exeter, who had offered to pay to William what they had paid to former kings, found their burthens far heavier than they had been in the old time. And the lady, while she lived, reaped her full share of the increased contributions of her own city.[37]
Or, as expressed in his great work:
The money payment was now raised from an occasional half-marc of silver to eighteen pounds yearly. The rights of the old lady were not forgotten, and Eadgyth received two-thirds of the increased burthen laid upon her morning-gift.[38]
If the 'twelve pounds had formed part of the morning-gift of the lady', and were accordingly received by her, as we learn,[39] in the days of King Edward, how could they possibly form part of a new 'burthen' laid upon Exeter, as a punishment for its resistance, by William? And if the only payment due, under Edward, was an occasional half-marc of silver 'for the use of the soldiers'[40] what were 'the royal revenues' from Exeter that Edith was drawing in 1050? A moment's thought is enough to show that Mr Freeman's statements contradict themselves, as, indeed, he must have seen, had he stopped to think. But this he sometimes failed to do.
The whole source of Mr Freeman's confusion was his inexplicable misunderstanding of the Domesday entry on the city.[41] We must first note that both his predecessors—Palgrave, who was lacking in 'critical faculty', and Ellis, who was 'far from being up to the present standard of historical scholarship'—had read this entry rightly, and given, independently, its gist. It will best enable my readers to understand the point at issue if I print side by side the paraphrases of Exeter's offer given by Palgrave and by our author.
| Palgrave | Freeman |
|---|---|
| Tribute or gafol they would proffer to their king such as was due to his predecessors...They (1) would weigh out the eighteen pounds of silver; (2) the geld would be paid, if London, York, and Winchester submitted to the tax; and (3) if war arose, the king should have the quota of service imposed upon five hydes of land.... But the citizens refused to become the men ... of their sovereign; they would not ... allow the Basileus to enter within their walls. | We are ready to pay to him the tribute which we have been used to pay to former kings.... The city paid in money only when London, York, and Winchester paid, and the sum to be paid was a single half-marc of silver. When the king summoned his fyrd to his standard by sea or by land, Exeter supplied the same number of men as were supplied by five hides of land.... But the men of Exeter would not, each citizen personally, become his men; they would not receive so dangerous a visitor within their walls.[42] |
I have numbered the clauses in Palgrave's paraphrase which render the three successive clauses in the Domesday Book entry. The first refers to the firma of the town, payable to its lord (the king);[43] the second to the 'geld' (tax), payable to the king qua king;[44] the third to its military service.[45] The distinction between the three clauses is admirably seen under Totnes (i. 108, b), and the sense of Domesday is absolutely certain to any one familiar with its formulas.[46]
The 'commutation of geldability' (as Mr Eyton termed it) was by no means peculiar to Exeter. Totnes paid, 'when Exeter paid', the same sum of half a marc 'pro geldo'. Bridport paid the same 'ad opus Huscarlium regis' (75), Dorchester and Wareham a marc each, and Shaftesbury two marcs (Eyton's Dorset Domesday, 70-72). In these Dorset instances, one marc represented an assessment of ten hides.
What Mr Freeman did was to confuse the first clause with the second, and to suppose that both referred to the 'money payment' of the town, the first under William, the second under Edward. He thus evolved the statement that under William 'the money payment was raised from an occasional half-marc of silver to eighteen pounds yearly'. This is roughly equivalent to saying of a house rented at fifty pounds, and paying a tax of one pound, that its 'money payment' was raised from one pound to fifty.
But this confusion, with all its results, is carried further still. Edith's share of the eighteen pounds is entered in Domesday as 'xii. lib[ras] ad numerum'. This Mr Freeman rightly gave as the amount in 1086;[47] but turning back a few pages, we actually read that