It is very remarkable that the Norman witnesses are only entered after these Englishmen, although the first is “earl William,” in whom we must see the Conqueror’s friend, William Fitz Osbern, already, apparently, earl of Hereford. Sufficient attention has hardly been given to this early creation or to the selection of so distant a county as Herefordshire for William’s earldom.
In addition to this charter, there is known to me another, little later probably, the last witness to which is entered as “Ego Ingelricus ad hoc impetrandum obnixe studui.” This brings me to the third charter that I shall deal with in connection with Ingelric. This is the one I mentioned at the outset as granted by the Conqueror at his request, and edited with so much care and learning by Mr. W. H. Stevenson. This, in its stilted, antique form, has much in common with the one preceding, while its style combines those of the two others. I place the three together for comparison:
(1) Ego Willelmus dei beneficio rex Anglorum.
(2) jure hereditario Anglorum patrie effectus sum Basileus.
(3) Ego Willelmus Dei dispositione et consanguinitatis hereditate Anglorum basileus.
Mr. Freeman looked with suspicion on this third charter, which he termed “an alleged charter of William.”[53] His criticism that, though dated 1068, its list of witnesses closes with the two papal legates who visited England in 1070, is a perfectly sound one. Mr. Stevenson ignored this difficulty in his paper; and, on my pointing it out, still failed to explain the positive “huic constitutioni interfui” of Cardinal John. Awkward, however, as the difficulty is, the other attestations are so satisfactory that we must treat these as subsequent additions rather than reject the charter.
The remarks which immediately follow are intended only for students of what is uncouthly known as ‘diplomatic,’ a study hitherto much neglected in England. In this charter, as printed in Mr. Stevenson’s paper, there is appended the clause:
Scripta est hec cartula anno ab incarnatione Domini MLXVIIIo scilicet secundo anno regni mei.
A corresponding clause is found in the old English version of the text which follows it. But in the Latin text the clause is followed by these words:
Peracta vero est hec donacio[54] die Natali Domini; et postmodum in die Pentecostes confirmata, quando Mathildis conjux mea ... in reginam ... est consecrata.