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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2023
‘The whole neighborhood knows this’: the problem
A fragment of a plea from the court of the archbishop of Canterbury, remanded from the vacant see of Chichester around the year 1200, summarizes the collection of testimony in a marriage suit. The surviving inquisitio reads in part:
[The witnesses] all say the same thing about the affinity, to wit, that Agnes, the wife of Stephen, was formerly the wife of Elias, a cook. And Isabel, once the concubine of Stephen, was the daughter of Elias’ mother's sister.
Thirteen people affirm this, states the record, which goes on to assert: ‘The whole neighborhood testifies to this, and it is well known to all.’ Finally, many of the witnesses recall in detail how Isabel, at the request of her cousin Elias, became godmother to Elias and Agnes’ son, taking him from the sacred font following his baptism on the Sunday just after the feast of All Saints some years earlier.
While no other details of the filing or outcome of this suit survive, the issues – affinity as a potential impediment to a valid marriage – are clear enough. Let us turn to a second suit, in a different venue entirely: the court of the king at Westminster, six years later and sixty miles away, in the third week after Michaelmas in the eighth year of the reign of King John:
William de Stodham was directed to get homage from Herman, son of Ralf Faber, for a tenement which he held of him in Stodham; yet William came [to the assize] and said that he could not secure homage, because Herman was a villein. And he produced a group of people [secta], that is, Simon and Walter, who were the sons of William, the son of Ailward: and this Ailward was brother of Baldwin, grandfather of the said Herman. And he also produced Gilbert son of Edith – this Edith being sister of Emma mother of Herman. And he produced Hamo son of Alviva, who was daughter of Godith; and this Godith was sister of Seghive, maternal grandmother of the said Herman. And he produced Levric son of Edith, who was maternal aunt of Emma mother of Herman. Who all admitted to be villeins and accustomed to villein service [consuetudinarii].
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