NORMAN MEASURES AFTER THE CONQUEST, AND THE FUSION OF THE RACES.
Source.—Richard, son of Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. Hughes, Crump, and Johnson, p. 99.
Master.—The proper definition of “murder” is the secret killing of a man whose slayer is unknown.... In the original condition of the realm after the Conquest, the conquered English who were left used to lie secretly in wait for the distrusted and hated Norman people, and everywhere, when opportunity offered, killed them by stealth in the woods and in remote places; and when, to avenge them, kings and their ministers had for years with exquisite kinds of torture cruelly entreated the English, and the latter none the less had not altogether unlearned the habit, the following plan was devised; the so-called “hundred,” in which a Norman was found thus killed, when the compasser of his death was not found and through flight could not be traced, was condemned to pay a large sum of tested silver to the treasury, some 36l., some 44l., according to the size of the district and the frequency of the slaying. They say that this was done in order that the infliction of a general penalty might ensure safety for travellers, and that all men might make haste to punish a crime so great, or to bring to justice the man through whom so enormous a loss fell on the whole neighbourhood....
Disciple.—Ought not the secret killing of an Englishman to be reputed as murder equally with that of a Norman?
M.—No, not by the original institution, as you have heard; but now, through the dwelling together of the English and the Normans and by intermarriage, the races have become so mixed that one can hardly tell to-day—I speak of freemen—who is of English and who of Norman birth; except in the case of those bound to the soil who are called villeins, who are not free to change their condition against the will of their lords. On that account almost always when any one is found so slain to-day, it is punished as murder, except in the case of those whose servile condition, as we have said, is apparent by obvious proofs.
D.—I wonder that a prince of such unique excellence and a man of so stern a mould should have shown such mercy towards the English people, conquered and distrusted by him, that he not only saved harmless the husbandmen by whom agriculture might be practised, but left even to the nobles their estates and wide possessions.
M.—These questions are not relevant to the matter in hand, to which I am pledged; still I will gladly tell you what I have heard hereon from the natives themselves. After the conquest of the realm, after the just overthrow of the rebels, when the king himself and the king’s barons traversed the new country, a careful enquiry was made touching those who fought against the king in battle and saved themselves by flight. To all of these, and to the heirs also of those who had fallen in battle, all hope of the lands and estates and revenues which they had before possessed was denied; they thought it much to enjoy the privilege of continuing to live under their enemies. But as for those who were summoned to the war and had not yet assembled, or had not been present through domestic or any necessary occupations, when in the course of time they had won the favour of their lords by devoted service, they began to acquire possessions for themselves only, without hope of passing them on to an heir, at the will of their lords. But as time passed and they became hateful to their lords and were everywhere driven from their possessions, with none to restore what had been taken away, a general complaint of the natives reached the ear of the king, that if they were thus hated of all and spoiled of their goods, they would be forced to cross to alien peoples. Counsel was at length taken hereon, and it was decreed that what their merits might earn from their lords by a lawful covenant should be granted to them by inviolable right, but that they should claim nothing for themselves by right of heredity from the time of the conquest of the race. The wise discretion of this provision is manifest, the more so as they would thus be bound in every way in their own interests to strive henceforth to win the favour of their lords by devoted service. So, therefore, any member of the conquered people who possesses estates or any such thing, has acquired them not because they were thought to be due to him by hereditary right, but because he has gotten them by his merits or by covenant.