The following list represents an attempt to identify the returns to this great Inquest in the ‘Testa,’ and to give the relative abstracts in the ‘Liber Rubeus.’ Out of 39 English counties (then recognised), the ‘Testa’ seems to have returns or fragments for 25, and the ‘Liber Rubeus’ abstracts for 31.
| Notts and Derbyshire. | |
| Testa, pp. 17b-19a. | Liber Rubeus, p. 565. |
| Northamptonshire. | |
| Testa, p. 36. | Liber Rubeus, p. 532. |
| Worcestershire. | |
| Testa, pp. 43–4. | Liber Rubeus, p. 566. |
| Salop and Staffordshire. | |
| Testa, pp. 54–6. | Liber Rubeus,[550] p. 509. |
| Herefordshire. | |
| Testa, pp. 69b-70b. | Liber Rubeus, p. 495. |
| Gloucestershire. | |
| Testa, pp. 77a. | |
| Oxfordshire and Berkshire. | |
| Testa, pp. 115,[551] 128a-129a,[552] 129a-131b,[553] 133b-134b.[554] | |
| Somerset and Dorset. | |
| Testa, pp. 160b-166a. | Liber Rubeus, p. 544. |
| Devon. | |
| Testa, pp. 194–195. | |
| Surrey. | |
| Testa, pp. 224b-226a. | Liber Rubeus, p. 560. |
| Sussex. | |
| Testa, pp. 226b[555]-227b. | Liber Rubeus, p. 553. |
| Hants. | |
| Testa, pp. 236a,[556] 239b.[557] | |
| Essex and Herts. | |
| Testa, pp. 269b[558]-271a.[559] | Liber Rubeus, p. 498. |
| Norfolk and Suffolk. | |
| Testa, pp. 293a-296a. | Liber Rubeus, p. 475. |
| Lincolnshire. | |
| Testa, pp. 334b[560]-348a.[561] | Liber Rubeus, p. 514. |
| Middlesex. | |
| Testa, p. 361. | Liber Rubeus, p. 541. |
| Cumberland. | |
| Testa, pp. 379a[562]-380a. | Liber Rubeus, p. 493. |
| Northumberland. | |
| Testa, pp. 392a-393b.[563] | Liber Rubeus, pp. 562–4. |
| Lancashire. | |
| Testa, p. 401b-408a. Cf. | Liber Rubeus, p. 568. |
The above list can only be tentative, and does not profess to be exhaustive. It is believed, however, that genealogists and topographers will find it of considerable assistance.
XIII
Castle-ward and Cornage
I propose to deal in this chapter with two subjects which are wholly distinct, but which it has now been proposed, by a singular confusion, to connect. Speaking of certain miscellaneous returns in the ‘Red Book of the Exchequer,’ Mr. Hall writes:
The first group in importance comprises the so-called Castle-guard Rents,’ lists of military services in connection with the Constableship of Dover Castle ... the Constableship of Windsor Castle, the Wardship of Bamburgh Castle, and the Cornage Rents of Northumberland (p. ccxxxvi.).
The corrupt but curious list of the Dover “wards” and their fees is printed virtually in duplicate on pages 613, 717, though dated by the editor in the former instance ‘1211–12’ throughout, and in the latter, ‘1261–2,’ and even ‘Temp. Edw. I.’ (pp. 721–2). The first of these, from internal evidence, is probably the right date; the remaining list (pp. 706 et seq.), though headed in the MS. 46 Hen. III., is merely this old list rearranged, with a money payment substituted for the military service. I mention this because, as printed, these lists are most misleading to any one unacquainted with their real date.
The ‘Constable’s Honour,’ for which, alone, we have six or seven slightly varying returns, is one of the most interesting in the whole Book, and leads me to say something on this important subject, on which a wholly erroneous belief has hitherto prevailed.
The first point to which I desire to direct attention is that the nine wards (custodiæ), named in the ‘Red Book’ lists—The Constable’s, ‘Abrincis,’ Foubert de Dover,[564] Arsic, Peverel, Maminot, Port, Crevequer, and Adam Fitz William[565]—are all reproduced in the names still attached to towers, including even Fulbert’s Christian name. This coincidence of testimony leads one to believe that these names must have become fixed at a very early period, and to enquire what that period was. Looking at the history of the families named, it seems probable that this period was not later, at least, than the reign of Henry II.
But it is in the Constable’s “Ward” that the interest centres. For the time-honoured belief, preserved by Lyon, and reproduced by Mr. Clark, is that “three barons of the house of Fiennes held the office under the Conqueror, Rufus, and Henry I.” After stating that these barons “held the office of constable” under Henry II., Mr. Clark informs us that “of these lords, the last, James Fiennes, was constable at the accession of Richard I., and in 1191 received, as a prisoner in the castle, Geoffrey, Henry II.’s natural son.”[566] Professor Burrows repeats, though guardedly, the old story: