Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

by John Horace Round

[⁶⁹] Norm. Conq., iv. 560.

[⁷⁰] 'Edicta regalia suis opportune intimavit, et urbanis imperiose mandavit, ut prudenter sibi consulerent' (Ord Vit., ii. 255).

[⁷¹] Ibid., i. 662.

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THE ALLEGED DESTRUCTION OF LEICESTER

(1068)

This question was raised and discussed by Mr Freeman in his History of the Norman Conquest (iv. 196-7). We there read as follows:

Is it possible that in the case of Leicester, at least, no power was left either to follow or to resist? While we have no evidence either way on which we can rely with confidence, one of those secondary and local records, which sometimes contain fragments of authentic tradition, suggests, in a perfectly casual way, that a doom fell upon Leicester, which might, doubtless, with some exaggeration, be spoken of as utter destruction. And this incidental hint may perhaps draw some indirect confirmation from the highest evidence of all [Domesday] ... and it may be that Leicester earned its overthrow by a defence worthy of a borough which was to give its name to the greatest of England's later worthies.

The 'record' referred to is quoted in a footnote, and is a history of the foundation of Leicester Abbey, one of a class of narratives notoriously inaccurate and corrupt: