CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
Nullus distringatur ad faciendum majus servicium de feodo militis, nec de alio libero tenemento, quam inde debetur.
No one shall be compelled to perform greater service for a knight’s fee, or for any other free tenement, than is due therefrom.
For military tenants, the transition from scutage to service was a natural one; since it was not enough to protect themselves from exactions in money, if they were still exposed to arbitrary exactions in kind. John, therefore, declared that no freeholder should be constrained to do more service for his lands than he was legally bound to do. Disputes might arise, however, as to what extent of service actually was due in each particular case, and Magna Carta did nothing to remove such ambiguities. The difficulties of definition, indeed, were enormous, since the duration and conditions of service might vary widely even among tenants-in-chivalry, in consequence of special exemptions or special burdens which appeared in title deeds or rested upon immemorial usage. The barons would be unwilling to enter on so intricate and laborious a task, fearing that the introduction of such complications might do more harm than good. The necessity for accurate definition may never have occurred to them: the main purport of their grievance was so vividly present to their own minds that they did not acknowledge the possibility of any mistake. The military Crown tenants had frequently objected to serve abroad, particularly during John’s campaigns in Poitou, which involved a long expensive journey to a region in which they had nothing at stake.[[530]] They regarded themselves as not legally bound to make expeditions to such portions of the Angevin Empire as had not belonged to the Norman kings when their ancestors got their fiefs. To force them to enter on campaigns to the south of France, or to fine them heavily for staying at home, was, they argued, to distrain them ad faciendum majus servicium de feodo militis quam inde debetur. When they inserted these words in the Charter, they doubtless regarded them as an absolute prohibition of compulsory service in Poitou, at all events.[[531]] The clause was wide enough, however, to include many minor grievances connected with service. The barons did not confine its provisions to military service even, but extended it to other forms of freehold tenure (“nec de alio libero tenemento”). No freeholder, whether in socage, serjeanty, or frankalmoin, could in future be compelled to render services not legally due.
If the barons thought they had thus settled the vexed questions connected with foreign service, they deceived themselves. Although this chapter (unlike those dealing with scutage) remained in full force in all subsequent confirmations, it was far from preventing disputes. Yet the disputants in future reigns occupied somewhat different ground. From the days of William I. to those of Charles II.[Charles II.], when the feudal system was abolished, quarrels frequently arose, the most famous of which culminated in 1297 in Edward’s unseemly wrangle with the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford, whose duty it was to lead the royal army as hereditary Constable and Marshal respectively, but who refused point-blank to embark for Gascony except in attendance on the king’s person.[[532]]
It has been shown in the Historical Introduction[[533]] how the obligations of a military tenant fell naturally into three groups (services, incidents, and aids), while a fourth group (scutages) was added when the Crown had adopted the expedient of commuting military service for its equivalent value in money.
Feudal grievances also may be arranged in four corresponding groups, each redressed by special clauses of Magna Carta: abuse of aids by chapters 12, 14, and 15; abuse of the feudal incidents, by chapters 2 to 8; abuse of scutage, by chapters 12 and 14; and abuse of service, by the present chapter, which thus completes the long list of provisions intended to protect tenants against their feudal lords.
[530]. See the authorities cited supra, p. 85, nn. I and 2.
[531]. In the so-called “unknown Charter of Liberties” (see Appendix) John concedes to his men “ne eant in exercitu extra Angliam nisi in Normanniam et in Brittaniam,” a not unfair compromise, which may possibly represent the sense in which the present chapter was interpreted by the barons.