Geoffrey de Mandeville: A study of the Anarchy

by John Horace Round

We have a curiously close parallel to this use of "London and Middlesex" in the expression "turris et castellum," on which I have elsewhere dwelt.[1020] Just as the relative importance of the "Tower" of London to the encircling "castle" at its feet led to the term "turris" alone being used to describe the two,—while, conversely, in the provinces, "castellum" was the term adopted,—so did the relative greatness of London to the county that lay around its walls lead to the occasional use of "London" as a term descriptive of both together, a usage impossible in the provinces. Whether a "turris et castellum" were destined to become known as a "turris" or a "castellum," whether "Londonia et Middelsex" were described as "Londonia" merely, or as "Middlesex," in each case the entity is the same. For fiscal, and therefore for our purposes, "London and Middlesex," under whatever name, remain one and indivisible.

The special value of the charters granted to Geoffrey de Mandeville lies not so much in their complete confirmation of the view that the firma of "Middlesex" was that of "London and Middlesex" (for that would be evident without them), as in their proof of the fact, so strangely overlooked, that this connection was at least as old as the days of William the Conqueror, and in their treatment of Middlesex (including London) as an ordinary county like Essex or Herts, "farmed" in precisely the same way. The firma of Herts was £60, of Essex £300, and of Middlesex (because containing London) £300 also.

But now let us leave our record evidence and turn to geography and to common sense. What must have always been the salient feature which distinguished Middlesex internally from every other county? Obviously, that the shire was abnormally small, and its chief town abnormally large. Nor was it a mere matter of size, but, still more, of comparative wealth. This is illustrated by the taxation recorded in the Pipe-Roll of 1130. Unlike the firma, the taxes were raised, as elsewhere, from the town and the shire respectively, the town contributing an auxilium, and the shire, without the walls, a Danegeld. We thus learn that London paid a sum about half as large again as that raised from the rest of the shire.[1021] The normal relation of the "shire" to the "port" was accordingly here reversed, and so would be also, in consequence, that of the shire-reeve to the portreeve. Where, as usual, the "port" formed but a small item in the corpus comitatus, it was possible to sever it from the rest of the county, to place it extra firmam, and to give it a reeve who should stand towards it in the same relation as the shire-reeve to the shire, and would therefore be termed the "portreeve." But to have done this in the case of Middlesex would have been to reverse the nature of things, to place a mere "portreeve" in a position greater than that of the "shire-reeve" himself. This is why that change which, in the provinces, was the aim of every rising town, never took place in the case of London, though the greatest town of all. I say that it "never took place," for, as we have seen, the city of London was never severed from the rest of the shire. As far back as we can trace them, they are found one and indivisible.

What, then, was the alternative? Simply this. The "reeve," who, in the case of a normal county, took his title from the "shire" and not from the "port," took it, in the abnormal case of Middlesex, from the "port" and not from the "shire." In each case both "port" and "shire" were alike within his jurisdiction; in each case he took his style from the most important part of that jurisdiction. Such is the original solution I offer for this most interesting problem, and I claim that its acceptance will explain everything, will harmonize with all existing data, and will dispose of difficulties which, hitherto, it has been impossible to surmount.

My contention is, briefly, that the Norman vicecomes of "London," or "Middlesex," or "London and Middlesex" was simply the successor, in that office, of the Anglo-Saxon "portreeve." With the sphere of the vicecomes I have already dealt, and though we are not in a position similarly to prove the sphere of the Anglo-Saxon "portreeve," I might appeal to the belief of Mr. Loftie himself that "Ulf the Sheriff of Middlesex is identical with Ulf the Portreeve of London"[1022] (though he adds, contrary to my contention, that "as yet their official connection was only that of neighbourhood"),[1023] and that Ansgar, though one of the "portreeves" (p. 24); "was Sheriff of Middlesex for a time there can be no doubt" (p. 127).[1024] But I would rather appeal to the vital fact that the shire-reeve and the portreeve are, so far I know, never mentioned together, and that writs are directed to a portreeve or to a shire-reeve,[1025] but never to both. Specially would I insist upon the indisputable circumstance that such writs as were addressed to the "portreeve" by the Anglo-Saxon kings, were addressed to the vicecomes by the Norman, and that the turning-point is seen under the Conqueror himself, whose Anglo-Saxon charter is addressed to the "bisceop" and the "portirefan," and whose Latin writs are, similarly, addressed to the episcopus and the vicecomes. More convincing evidence it would not be easy to find.

The acceptance of this view will at once dispose of the alleged "disappearance of the portreeve," with the difficulties it has always presented, and the conjectures to which it has given rise.[1026] The style of the "portreeve" indeed disappears, but his office does not. In the person of the Norman vicecomes, it preserves an unbroken existence. Geoffrey de Mandeville steps, as sheriff, into the shoes of Ansgar the portreeve.[1027]

The problem as to what became of the portreeve, a problem which has exercised so many minds, sprang from the delusion that in the Norman period the City must have had a portreeve for governor independent of the Sheriff of Middlesex. I term this an undoubted "delusion," because I have already made it clear that the City was part of the sheriff's jurisdiction and contributed its share to his firma. There was, therefore, no room for an independent portreeve; nor indeed does a "portreeve" of London, I believe, ever occur after the Conqueror's charter.

But we must here glance at the contrary view set forth by Mr. Loftie:—

"The succession of portreeves is uninterrupted. We have the names of some of them in the records of the Exchequer. Occasionally two or three, once as many as five, came to answer for the City and pay the £300 which was the farm of Middlesex. In 1129, a few years only after the retirement of Orgar and his companions, we read of 'quatuor vicecomites' as attending for London. The following year we hear of a single 'camerarius.' The 'Hugh Buche' of Stowe may be identified with the Hugo de Bock of the St. Paul's documents, and his 'Richard de Par' with Richard the younger, the chamberlain. 'Par' is probably a misreading for Parvus contracted. In the reign of Stephen two members of the Buckerel family hold office, and we have Fulcred and Robert, who were related to each other. Another early portreeve was Wluardus, who attends at the Exchequer in 1138, and who continued to be an alderman thirty years later" (Historic Towns: London, p. 34).

Where are "the records of the Exchequer" from which we learn all this? The only Pipe-Roll of the period is that of 1130, in which "the farm of Middlesex" is not £300, but a much larger sum, a fact which, as we shall find, has a most important bearing. The "quatuor vicecomites" appear "as attending," not in 1129, but in 1130. The "camerarius" does not (and could not) appear "in the following year," but, on the contrary, belonged to a preceding one ("Willelmus qui fuit camerarius de veteribus debitis"); nor does he account for the firma. The firma was always accounted for by "vicecomites," and not (as implied on p. 108) by a chamberlain, or by a "prefect." The "Hugh Buche" is given in Mr. Loftie's former work (p. 98) as "Hugh de Buch." He is meant (as even Foss perceived) for the well-known Hugh de Bocland (the minister of Henry I.), who cannot be shown to have been a "portreeve." No "Hugo de Bock" occurs in the St. Paul's documents, which only mention "Hugo de Bochelanda" and "Hugo de Bock[elanda]," the latter imperfection being the source of the error. "Richard, the younger, chamberlain" only occurs in these documents a century later (1204-1215), and "the younger," I presume, there translates "juvenis," and not "parvus." It is, moreover, quite certain that Stowe's "de Par" was not "a misreading for 'parvus' contracted," but for "delpare," as may easily be ascertained. No member of the Bucherel family occurs in these documents as holding office "in the reign of Stephen," though some do in the next century. Fulcred was not a "portreeve," but a "chamberlain;" and Robert, Fulcred's brother, was neither one nor the other. But what are we to say to "Wluardus" the portreeve, "who attends at the Exchequer in 1138"? Where are the "records of the Exchequer for 1138"? They are known to Mr. Loftie alone.[1028] Moreover, his identification, here, of the vicecomes with the portreeve is in direct antagonism to the principle laid down just before (p. 29), that, on the contrary, it was the justitiarius who should "evidently" be identified with the portreeve (see p. 350, supra).