Resuming the narrative, we learn that the thegns—the party of non-resistance from the first—must have seized this opportunity for impressing on their 'concives' the necessity of embracing the offer, whereupon the latter, in the words of the Chronicle, 'gave up the town because the thegns had betrayed them'. It is just possible that the word 'geswicon' may point to some direct treachery, but it seems best and most naturally explained as referring to their unpatriotic advice, which would naturally appear to English eyes a 'betrayal' of the national cause. There can be little doubt, from the admissions of William of Poitiers (through the mouth of Orderic), that the terms of agreement included not only a free pardon for all past offences, and for the city's aggravated resistance, but also security for person and property from plunder by the Norman soldiery. And the witness of 'the great record' implies that 'the Exeter patricians', as Mr Freeman styled them[62] —'the civic aristocracy'[63] —gained their original selfish aim, and secured an undertaking that they should not pay a penny more than their 'tributum ex consuetudine pristina'.
What security, it may be asked, could they obtain for the terms they seem to have exacted? Bold as it may seem, I would here venture to read between the lines, and to make the suggestion—it is nothing more—that when there issued from the gates 'the clergy of the city, bearing their sacred books and other holy things' (as Mr Freeman rendered the words of Orderic), the real object of their coming forth was to make the king swear upon their relics[64] to the observance of the terms they had obtained. It was indeed the irony of fate if William, who was ever insisting on the breach of Harold's oath, was driven, by the force of circumstances, to take such an oath himself.
But, it may be urged, should we be justified in treating thus drastically the witness of Orderic, or rather, of William of Poitiers? At Alençon, I reply, in Mr Freeman's words:
William of Poitiers is silent altogether, both as to the vengeance and as to the insult. Neither subject was perhaps altogether agreeable to a professed panegyrist (Norm. Conq., ii. 285).
Stronger, however, is the case of Le Mans, and more directly to the point. 'William,' we read, 'followed the same policy against Exeter (1068) which he had followed against Le Mans' (1063);[65] and so, in 1073, we find him 'calling on the men of Le Mans, as he had called on the men of Exeter', to submit peacefully, and escape his wrath.[66] Unlike 'the Exeter patricians', indeed, 'the magistrates of Le Mans' did receive the king peacefully within their walls; they did not incur the guilt of offering armed resistance. But the essential point at Le Mans is that
the Norman version simply tells how they brought the keys of the city, how they threw themselves on William's mercy, and were graciously received by him. The local writer speaks in another tone. The interview between the king and the magistrates of Le Mans is described by a word often used to express conferences—in a word, parliaments—whether between prince and prince, or between princes and the estates of their dominions. They submitted themselves to William's authority as their sovereign, but they received his oath to observe the ancient customs and justices of the city. Le Mans was no longer to be a sovereign commonwealth, but it was to remain a privileged municipality.[67]
The words 'acceptis ab eo sacramentis, tam de impunitate perfidiæ quam de conservandis antiquis ejusdem civitatis consuetudinibus'[68] would apply exactly to the case of Exeter, and William may well have done there what he actually did, we here read, at Le Mans. There would have been at Exeter even greater need for an oath, in that its 'perfidia' had been so much the worse.
But now comes the curious parallel. Though quoting and scrutinizing so closely the meagre accounts of the Exeter campaign, Mr Freeman seems to have oddly overlooked the significant words of Florence, although, of course, familiar with his narrative. Florence, we find, employs a phrase corresponding with that in the Vetera Analecta.
| Florence | 'Vet An' |
|---|---|
| Cives autem dextris acceptis regi se dedebant. | Acceptis ab eo sacramentis ... sese et sua omnia dederunt. |
Mr Freeman argues from the case of Le Mans that dedere in these times did not imply the fulness of a Roman deditio.[69] But we are not merely dependent upon this. The words, 'dextris acceptis', I contend, imply a promise and a pledge for its performance, and cannot therefore be reconciled with an unconditional surrender.