[866] Reports on the Dignity of a Peer, iii. 68.
[867] Gneist is right in insisting on the fact that an earl was only entitled to the "tertius denarius" in virtue of a distinct grant, but he fails to grasp the important point that such grant was not made to every earl as a matter of course, but only as a special favour. He is also, as we have seen, quite mistaken as to the extent of the third penny (see p. 287).
[868] Norman Britain, p. 168.
[869] These figures are taken from the Rolls of 2-7 Hen. II., a range sufficiently wide to establish their permanence. Occasionally, as in the case of Wilts and Sussex, the "tertius denarius" seems to be omitted for a year or two, but this does not affect the general result.
[870] Pipe-Roll of John, quoted by Madox (Baronia Anglica, p. 139).
[871] Madox (Baronia Anglica, p. 139).
APPENDIX I.
"VICECOMITES" AND "CUSTODES."
(See pp. [107], 108.)
Dr. Stubbs writes: "A measure dictated still more distinctly by this policy may be traced in the list of sheriffs for A.D. 1130. Richard Basset and Aubrey de Vere, a judge and a royal chamberlain, act as joint sheriffs in no less than eleven counties; Geoffrey de Clinton, Miles of Gloucester, William of Pont l'Arche, the treasurer, are also sheriffs as well as justices of the king's court" (i. 892). But this statement requires a certain qualification. For though they appear as sheriffs (vicecomites) on the Roll, and have been always so reckoned, we gather from one passage in the record that they were, strictly speaking, not vicecomites, but custodes. The difference is this. By the former a county was held ad firmam; by the latter it was held in custodia. In the Inquest of Sheriffs (1170) the distinction is clearly recognized. We there find the expressions used: "sive eos tenuerint ad firmam, sive in custodia." By the true sheriff (vicecomes) the county was, in fact, leased. He, as its farmer (firmarius), was responsible for its annual rent (firma). It was thus, virtually, a speculation of his own, and the profit, if any, was his. But by a process exactly analogous to that of a modern landlord taking an estate into his own hands, and farming it himself through a bailiff, the king could, under special circumstances, take a county into his own hands, and farm it himself through a bailiff (custos). Henry II., in his twentieth year, did this with London, putting in his own custodes in the place of the regular sheriffs, and, in later days, Henry III. and Edward I. did the same. It was this, I contend, that Henry I. had done with the counties in question. The proof of it is found in this passage:—