Now if it were not for the fortunate preservation of the Vetera Analecta in the case of Le Mans, Mr Freeman would there also, as at Exeter, have been hoodwinked by 'the Norman version'.[70] I am anxious not to employ a phrase which might be deemed offensive or unjust, so I restrict myself to that which he himself applied to his predecessor, Palgrave, when, speaking of the story of Eadric and his brother, he wrote that Sir Francis Palgrave 'swallowed the whole tale'.[71] Whether my solution be accepted or not, it is, I repeat, conjectural. I have, at least, shown that there is a mystery to be solved, that Mr Freeman's version fails to solve it, and that, so far from Domesday recording the punishment inflicted upon Exeter, it actually heightens the mystery of the case by proving that Exeter obtained exceptionally favourable treatment.
It is not merely a question of how Exeter fell. The issue illustrates the policy and affects the character of William. The lame manner in which Mr Freeman accounts for his sudden conversion from fury to lamb-like gentleness is no less unsatisfactory than his treatment of the 'weighty account' in the Chronicle when he found that this, his valued authority, rendered the problem difficult. Even at Le Mans more was needed than merely to print both stories. The fact that we find in 'the Norman version' the truth conveniently glossed over ought to be insisted on and duly applied. Time after time in Mr Freeman's work we find him paraphrasing patches of chronicles, under the impression that he was writing history. The statements of witnesses are laid before us, neatly pieced together, but they are not subjected to more than a perfunctory cross-examination. Even if the accurate reproduction of testimony were all that we sought from the historian, we should not, so far as Domesday is concerned, obtain it in this instance. But the case of Exeter is one where something more is needed, where even accuracy is not sufficient without the possession of that higher gift, the power of seizing upon the truth when the evidence is misleading and contradictory. The paraphrasing of evidence is the work of a reporter; from the historian we have a right to expect the skilled summing-up of the judge.
[1] Letter from John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter, 1447.
[2] Exeter (1887), p. 34.
[3] It was also the subject of a special paper in his 'Historic Towns and Districts' (1883) reprinted from Arch. Journ., xxx. 297, pp. 49 et seq., and Sat. Rev., xxix. 764-5.
[4] Sat. Rev., xxix. 765.
[5] Norman Conquest, iv. 123. The metaphor of a 'sea' waiting in an 'island' is sufficiently original to be deserving of notice.
[6] Ibid., iv. 140.
[7] See 'The alleged destruction of Leicester', infra, p. 347.
[8] iv. 151. 'It is certain', Mr Freeman had written, 'that what William had to strive against in the West was a league of towns' (Sat. Rev., xxix. 765).