The policy of the Conqueror had been to bring each county as far as possible under his own direct authority; many districts had no earls, while in others the connection of an earl with his titular shire was reduced to a shadow, the only points of connection being the right to enjoy “the third penny” (that is, the third part pro indiviso of the profits of justice administered in the county court) and the right to bear its name. It is true that in addition the earl usually held valuable estates in the shire, but he did this only as any other landowner might. For purposes of taxation the whole of his lands, whether in his own county or elsewhere, were reckoned as one unit, here described as baronia comitis integra, the relief on which was taxed at one hundred pounds.
Very gradually in after ages, the conception of an earldom suffered change. The official character gave way before the idea of tenure, and later on the modern conception was formulated of a hereditary dignity conferring specific rank and privileges. The period of transition when the tenurial idea prevailed is illustrated by the successful attempt of Ranulf, earl of Chester and Lincoln, in the reign of Henry III. to aliene one of his two earldoms—described by him as the comitatus of Lincoln.[[374]] Earls are now, like barons, created by letters patent, and need not be land-owners. Thus the words “barony” and “earldom,” so diverse in their origin and early development, were closely united in their later history.
III. Liability of Church Property to “Relief.” The Great Charter of John, unlike the Charter of Henry I. makes no mention of the lands of vacant sees in this connection, probably because the main question had long been settled in favour of the church. The position of a bishopric was, however, a peculiar one. Each prelate was a crown tenant, and his fief was reckoned a “barony,” entitling its owner to all the privileges, and saddling him with all the feudal obligations of a baron.[[375]]
It was not then unnatural that, when a prelate died, the Crown should demand “relief” from his successor, in the same way as from the heir of a dead lay baron. Such demands, when made by William Rufus and his minister Flambard, met with bitter opposition. The Crown in consequence, unwilling to forego any of its feudal dues, endeavoured to shift their incidence from the revenues of the see to the shoulders of the feudal under-tenants. After bishop Wulfstan’s death on 18th January, 1095, a writ was issued in William’s name to the freeholders of the see of Worcester, calling on each of them to pay, as a relief due on their bishop’s death, a specified sum, assessed by the barons of the exchequer.[[376]]
In revenge for such extortions from church lands and tenants, the historians of the day, all necessarily recruited from the clerical class, have heartily recommended Rufus and Flambard to the opprobrium of posterity. Anselm compelled Henry I. to promise amendment in his coronation Charter, which undertook to exact nothing during vacancies either from the demesne of the church or from its tenants.[[377]] No corresponding promise was demanded from John, a proof that such exactions had ceased. The Crown no longer extorted relief from church lands, although wardship was, without protest, enforced during vacancies.
[354]. Glanvill’s words (IX. c. 4) are unfortunately ambiguous. He distinguishes three cases: (a) the normal knight’s fee, from which 100s. was due as relief (whether this extends to fees of crown tenants does not appear); (b) socage lands, from which one year’s rent might be taken; and (c) “capitales baroniae,” which were left subject to reliefs at the king’s discretion. Now “barony” was a loose word: baronies, like barons, might be small or great (cf. infra, c. 14); all crown fiefs being “baronies” in one sense, but only certain larger “honours” being so reckoned in another. Glanvill leaves this vital point undetermined, but evidence from other sources makes it probable that even smaller crown holdings should for this purpose be classed under his capitales baroniae, and not with knights’ fees held from mesne lords. Two passages from the Dialogus de Scaccario (II. x. E. p. 135 and II. xxiv. p. 155) clearly support the distinction between all crown tenants (small as well as great) on the one hand, and tenants of mesne lords on the other: only the latter had their reliefs fixed, while the former were at the king’s discretion. (The second passage shows how the exchequer officials held the onus of proof to lie on the heir to a crown fief to show that he was worthy to succeed his father, and suggests rich gifts to the king as the best form of proof.) Madox (I. 315-6) cites from the Pipe Rolls large sums exacted by the crown. Usually the number of knights’ fees paid for is not specified, but in one case a relief of £300 was paid for six fees—that is, at the rate of £50 per fee, or exactly ten times what a mesne lord could have exacted. (See Pipe Roll, 24 Henry II., cited by Madox, ibid.) There is further evidence to the same effect: where a barony had escheated to the crown, reliefs of the former under-tenants would in future be payable directly to the crown; but it was the practice of Henry II. (confirmed by c. 43 of Magna Carta, q. v.) to charge, in such cases, only the lower rates exigible prior to the escheat. A similar rule applied to under-tenants of baronies in wardship; see the case of the knights of the see of Lincoln in the hands of a royal warden in Pipe Roll, 14 Henry II. (cited by Madox, ibid.). It would thus appear that all holders of crown fiefs (not merely barones majores) were in Glanvill’s day still liable to arbitrary extortions in name of reliefs. The editors of the Dialogus (p. 223) are also of this opinion. Pollock and Maitland (I. 289), however, maintain the opposite view—namely, that the limitation to 100s. per knight’s fee was binding on the crown as well as on mesne lords.
[355]. Madox, I. 316.
[356]. Madox, I. 317.