[554] Earls, till this time, had apparently been official; each having charge of a county, and receiving certain emoluments therefrom: but these created by Stephen, seem to have been often merely titulary, with endowments out of the demesnes of the crown. Rob. Montensis calls these persons Pseudo-Comites, imaginary earls, and observes that Stephen had completely impoverished the crown by his liberalities to them. Henry the Second, however, on being firmly seated on the throne, recalled their grants of crown lands, and expelled them the kingdom.
[555] The term “miles” is very ambiguous: sometimes it is a knight; sometimes a trooper; sometimes a soldier generally. In later times it signified almost always a knight; but in Malmesbury, it seems mostly a horseman, probably of the higher order.
[556] “Roger, the chancellor of England, was the son of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, by Maud of Ramsbury, his concubine.”—Hardy.
[557] The author of the “Gesta Stephani,” says, the king ordered both bishops to be kept without food, and threatened, moreover, to hang the son of bishop Roger. Gest. Stephani, 944. The continuator of Flor. Wigorn. adds, that one was confined in the crib of an ox-lodge, the other in a vile hovel, A.D. 1138.
[558] It has before been related that Stephen made many earls, where there had been none before: these seem the persons intended by Malmesbury in many places, when speaking of some of the king’s adherents.
[559] It would seem from this passage that he had seen Livy in a more complete state than it exists at present.
[560] Horat. Epist. i. 1, 100.
[561] The meaning of vavassour is very various: here it seems to imply what we call a yeoman.
[562] This he effected by means of scaling ladders, made of thongs of leather. Gest. Stephani, 951.
[563] Several MSS., as well as the printed copy, read 1142, but one has 1141, which is right.