TENURE OF THESE ASSEMBLIES.

293

legislation, in ecclesiastical affairs, in questions of peace and war, in extraordinary taxes, in the succession of the crown, in the domestic affairs of the king, his marriage, the nuptials of his children, dissensions in the royal family, in one word, in all matters of government, says Florence of Worcester, whenever the king did not feel himself strong enough to settle them without the assistance of the general assembly, or when the mode in which he had settled them had excited complaints in sufficient number to admonish him of the necessity of taking the advice of others.

As to the holding of these assemblies, they were not regular: the Whigs have attached too much importance to the three periods mentioned as the times of their annual convocation: these gatherings were rather of the nature of solemnities, or festivals, than public assemblies. The king at that time considered it very important that he should exhibit himself surrounded by numerous and wealthy vassals, species multitudinis; his force and dignity were thereby displayed, just as that of every baron was exhibited in his own dominions. Besides, under Henry II. and Stephen, these three epochs ceased to be regularly observed. The Tories, on the other hand, not considering the gatherings called Curiæ de more and Curiæ regis as political assemblies, have represented them as extremely infrequent, which they were not; there is not a single reign, from the Conquest to the times of King John, in which several instances of them are not to be found; only there was nothing settled and fixed in this respect.

The question of the constitution of these assemblies remains. Historians and charters say nothing definite on this point: they speak of their members as magnates, proceres, barones, sometimes as milites, servientes, liberi homines. There is every reason to suppose that the feudal principle was here applied, and that, as a matter of right, all the immediate vassals of the king owed to him service at court as well as in On the other hand, the number of the vassals attached to the crown under William I. exceeded 600; and there is no reason for believing that all these would present themselves at the assembly, nor are there any facts to indicate that they did so. It had already become, for the most part, rather an

war.

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CONSTITUTION OF THESE ASSEMBLIES.

onerous service than a right; accordingly they only presented themselves in small numbers.

The word most frequently employed is barones: it would appear to have been originally applied to all the direct vassals of the crown, per servitium militare, by knightly service; we find that the use of the word was limited more and more till it was applied almost exclusively to those vassals of the crown who were sufficiently wealthy and large proprietors to have a court of justice established in the seat of their barony. It is even difficult to admit that this last principle was generally followed. The name of barones was finally applied only to those immediate vassals who were so powerful that the king felt himself obliged to convoke them. There was no primitive and constant rule to distinguish the barons from other vassals; but a class of vassals was gradually formed who were more rich, more important, more habitually occupied with the king in affairs of state, and who came at last to arrogate to themselves exclusively the title of barons.

The bishops and abbots also formed part of these assemblies, both as being heads of the clergy, and as immediate vassals of the king or of the barons.

No trace of election or of representation is to be found, either on the part of the king's vassals who did not present themselves at the assembly, or on the part of the towns. These last had in general suffered very greatly by the Norman Conquest. In York the number of houses was reduced from 1607 to 967; in Oxford from 721 to 243: in Derby from 243 to 140; in Chester from 487 to 282.

These, then, are the essential facts which we may gather with reference to the constitution and power of the King's Court, or general assembly of the nobles of the nation.

see how little influence must have been exerted by an assembly of so irregular a character; and we shall see this still more strikingly illustrated when we have brought it into comparison with the rights, the revenues, and all the powers which were at that time enjoyed by royalty.

WEALTH OF THE KING.

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LECTURE V.

The Anglo-Norman royalty: its wealth and power.-Comparison of the relative forces of the Crown and of the feudal aristocracy.-Progress of the royal power.-Spirit of association and resistance among the great barons.-Commencement of the struggle between these two political forces.

IN order to judge accurately of the power and importance of royalty at the period we are considering, we must first ascertain its actual position and resources; and we shall see by the extent of these resources, and by the advantages of this position, how feeble in its action on the royal power must have been the influence of the assembly of barons.

The riches of the Norman king were independent of his subjects; he possessed an immense quantity of domains, 1,462 manors, and the principal towns of the kingdom. These domains were continually being augmented, either by confiscations, causes for which were of frequent occurrence, or by the failure of lawful heirs. The king gave lands on a free tenure to those cultivators who would pay for them a determinate rent (free socage tenure). This was the origin of most of the freeholders, whether in the king's domains or in those of his barons. The king, in his domains, imposed taxes at will; he also arbitrarily imposed custom-house regulations on the importation and exportation of merchandize; and he fixed the amount of fines and of the redemption money for crimes. He sold public offices, among others that of sheriff, which was a lucrative one on account of the share in fines which belonged to it. The county sometimes would pay for the right to nominate its sheriff, or to avoid a nomination already made. Lastly, the sale of royal protection and justice was a source of considerable revenue.

As to the immediate vassals of the king, they owed him, First, a military service of forty days whenever it was required; Secondly, pecuniary aid under three circumstances, -to ransom the king when made prisoner, to arm his eldest

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DUTIES OF THE ROYAL VASSALS.

son as a knight, or to marry his eldest daughter. The amount of this aid was undetermined up to the reign of Edward I.; it was then fixed at twenty shillings for the fief of a knight, and as much for every twenty pounds sterling value in land held in socage tenure. Thirdly, the king had a right to receive possessor from his vassals a relief or fine on the death of the of a fief; he was guardian if the heir were a minor, and enjoyed all the revenues of the fief till the majority of the heir; he also had a control over their marriages, that is to say, the vassal of a king could not marry without his consent. All these rights were indeterminate, and negotiations were substituted for them in which the greater force always had the advantage. Fourthly, the dispensation from feudal military service gave rise to an impost termed escuage, a kind of ransom-money fixed arbitrarily by the king, as representative of a service to which he had a claim; and he even imposed it in many cases on his vassals when they would have preferred to serve in person. Henry II., by his purely arbitrary will, levied five escuages in the course of his reign.

In addition to these taxes levied by the king, another must be mentioned called the danegeld, or tax paid for defence against the Danes; this tax was raised several times during this period on all lands throughout the kingdom. The last example of it is to be found in the twentieth year of the reign of Henry II.

By means of these independent revenues and arbitrary taxes, the Norman kings constantly kept up bodies of paid troops, who could enable them to exercise their power without restraint, which did not take place till a considerably later period on the Continent.

Lastly, from William the Conqueror till Henry II. the judicial power tended always to concentrate itself in the hands of the king. In this last reign the work was very nearly accomplished: how this came to pass, I will endeavour to show.

Originally the jurisdictions that co-existed were as follows: 1. The courts of hundred and the county-courts, or meetings of the freeholders of these territorial subdivisions, under the presidency of the sheriff: 2. The courts-baron, or feudal jurisdictions: 3. The grand court of the king, where

THE COURT OF EXCHEQUER.

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the king and the assembled barons administered justice to the barons in cases between any of themselves, or in cases of appeal, which could only take place when justice had been refused in the court of the manor or county.

The Court of Exchequer, instituted by William the Conqueror, was, at first, only a simple court for receiving the accounts of the administration of the king's revenues, and those of the sheriffs, bailiffs, &c., and for judging the suits that arose on this subject. It was composed of barons, chosen by the king to form his council, and to aid him in his government. In proportion as the larger assembly, the Curia regis, came to be held less frequently, so did the Court of Exchequer gain in importance. The barons who composed it began to judge on their own responsibility, and alone, in the absence and before the convocation of the assembly; this change was introduced by necessity, confirmed by custom, and finally sanctioned and established by law. About the year 1164, another royal court of justice, distinct from the Court of Exchequer, arose out of it, the members of which, however, were the same as those composing the Court of Exchequer. The kings lent their assistance to this change, because it benefited their revenues. At this period were established writs of chancery, which gave to purchasers the right to apply at once to the royal justice, without previously passing the subordinate courts of justice. Soon the ignorance of the freeholders, who composed the county-courts, necessitated the same extension of the royal justice there also, and, in the reign of Henry I., itinerant justices were sent into the counties, in order to administer there in the same way as was done by the Court of Exchequer. This institution was in full vigour only during the reign of Henry II.

In this way the predominant influence of the king, in judicial order, was established; this was a powerful instrument in producing centralization and unity, and yet, as the royal judges only interposed their services as supplementary to the institution of the jury, and did not substitute them for it, for questions of fact and questions of right remained distinct, the germ of free institutions, that existed in the judicial order, was not entirely destroyed.

A king invested with such powerful resources could with