¹ The quotation is from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (hereafter ASC) s.a. 1086 (recte 1087), see Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C. (2 vols., Oxford, 1892–1899), i. 218Google Scholar: ‘Ac swa man swydor spaec embe rihte lage. swa mann dyde mare unlaga.’ I would like to thank those who have toiled their way through this essay for me and saved me from myself on a number of occasions: namely Christopher Brooke, Janet Nelson, Jonathan Shepard, and, in particular, my supervisor Jim Holt, who has nurtured these thoughts through a long period of gestation. Although he never saw any of this, I hope that some imperfect and flickering reflection of the profound influence of my late supervisor, Walter Ullmann, may also be detected in what follows.

² ed. Plummer, i. 200: the English came ‘7 bugon pa for neode, pa maeest waes to hearme ge dón. 7 paer wæs micel unraed paer man æeror swa ne dyde. pa hit God betan nolde for urum synnum. 7 gysledan 7 sworon him adas. 7 he heom behet bæer he wolde heom hold hlaford beon. 7 peah onmang bisan his heregedan eall baer hi ofer foron.’ See also Florentii Wigomiensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (1848–1848)Google Scholar (hereafter Flor. Wig.), i. 228, which, however, draws on a text very like that of ASC (D). For less emotive evidence of the ravaging, see Baring, F., ‘The Conqueror's footprints in Domesday’, English Historical Review (hereafter EHR), xiii (1898), 17–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ For the date of the coronation—Pentecost 900—see The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, A. (Nelson's Medieval Texts (hereafter NMT), 1962), 51Google Scholar. For the date of Alfred's death–26 Oct. 899–see Stevenson, W. H., ‘The date of King Alfred's death’, EHR, xiii (1898), 71–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Beaven, M. L. R., ‘The regnal dates of Alfred, Edward the Elder, and Athelstan’, EHR, xxxii (1917), 517–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 526–31.

⁴ For proof of the date of Æthelstan's coronation—4 Sept. 925—see Beaven, , ‘Regnal dates’, 522–5Google Scholar, basing his argument on Regnal List /β, which is printed in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (Rolls ser., xxiii, 1861), i. 232–3Google Scholar, and discussed by Dickens, B., The Genealogical Preface to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Dept. of Anglo-Saxon, Cambridge, Occasional Papers, ii, 1952)Google Scholar and ed. and trans, in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Whitelock, D., with Douglas, D. C. and Tucker, S. I. (1965), 4–5Google Scholar with notes. For the date of the coronation see also Sawyer, P. H., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography (Royal Historical Society, Guides and Handbooks, viii, 1968)Google Scholar, no. 394. Beaven placed Edward's death wrongly in 925, but this was corrected to 17 July 924 by Robinson, J. A., The Times of St Dunstan (Oxford, 1923), 25–36Google Scholar.

⁵ Edward the Martyr was murdered on 18 Mar. 978. ASC (E) s.a. 979 deceptively claims that Æthelred's coronation was performed ‘swioe hraedlice’ after Edward's death, but in fact it did not happen until 4 May 979: see Keynes, S., The Diplomas of King Mthelred'the Unready'978–1016 (Cambridge, 1980), 174CrossRefGoogle Scholar and app. I, 233 n. 7.

⁶ Edward, was elected before Harthacnut's funeral, ASC (E) s.a. 1041Google Scholar (recte 1042), and Harthacnut died on 8 June. Edward, was anointed on 3 Apr. 1043, ASC (C) and (D) s.a. 1043, (E) s.a. 1042 (recte 1043)Google Scholar.

⁷ See Whitelock's, D. comments to this effect in Councils and Synods with other Documents relating to the English Church, ed. Whitelock, D., Brett, M. and Brooke, C. N. L., I (2 pts, Oxford, 1981), i. 183Google Scholar n. 3. Also Nelson, J. L., ‘Inauguration rituals’ in Early Medieval Kingship, ed. Sawyer, P. H. and Wood, I. N. (Leeds, 1977), 50–71, at 66Google Scholar.

⁸ Select English Historical Documents of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, ed. Harmer, F. E. (Cambridge, 1914), no. xi, pp. 15–19Google Scholar; and compare Asser's Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, W. H. (Oxford, 1904), ch. 16, pp. 14–15Google Scholar.

⁹ See Keynes, Diplomas, Table I: ‘The subscription of aethelings 993–1015’.

¹⁰ See above, n. 6.

¹¹ Sawyer, no. 998. I have the additional assurance of Simon Keynes that this is a reliable piece of evidence.

¹² For hints of English doubts about Harold's accession see ‘Heremanni Miracula Sancti Edmundi’; in Ungedruckte Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, ed. Liebermann, F. (Strassburg, 1879), 245–6Google Scholar, a description of the events of 6 Jan. 1066: ‘Quo [scil. Edward] regali tumulato more ante diei missam, Theophaniorum die, statim cum introitu misse inthronizatur in solio regni Haroldus filius comitis Godwini, callida vi veniens ad regnum.’ Liebermann established in his introduction that the author was in the service of Abbot Baldwin of Bury St Edmunds, Edward the Confessor's physician. It is, therefore, the closest we can get to an eye-witness account of Harold's consecration, and much more detailed than any other record. For resistance to the accession, see The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbuiy, ed. Darlington, R. R. (Camden 3rd ser., xl, 1928), 22–3Google Scholar, which is closely based on a non-extant, nearly contemporary source. Apart from the Danish invaders of the early 11 th century, Harold was the first king of the West Saxons not to claim to be of the line of Cerdic. The uncustomarily elaborate description of Harold's designation, ‘election’, and consecration in the ASC possibly protests too much.

¹³ On this see Chadwick, H. M., Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (Cambridge, 1905), 355–66Google Scholar. For some idea of the form which the ceremony may have taken see Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F., 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916), i. 396Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Gesta Guillelmi ducts Normannorum el regis Anglorum, ed. Foreville, R. (Paris, 1952)Google Scholar, (hereafter GG), 218: William agreed to be crowned ‘… praesertim sperans, ubi regnare coeperit, rebellem quemque minus ausurum in se, facilius conterendum esse.’

¹⁵ GG, 222. See also Recueil des actes des dues de Normandie 911–1066, ed. Fauroux, M. (Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de Normandie, Caen, xxxvi, 1961)Google Scholar, no. 224: ‘Postquam vero consul, Deo adjuvante, de consule rex Anglie est factus…’; and the obituary poem printed in Scriptores rerum gestarum Willelmi Conquestoris, ed. Giles, J. A. (1845), 73Google Scholar. That the Carmen locates this change in title immediately after the battle of Hastings, rather than at the coronation, lends further weight to the case that it is neither trustworthy as a source nor contemporary with the conquest, despite the hypothesis advanced in Jäschke, K. U., Wilhelm der Eroberer: sein doppelter Herrschaftsantritt im Jahre 1066 (Sigmaringen, 1977)Google Scholar. See The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio of Guy Bishop of Amiens, ed. Morton, C. and Muntz, H. (Oxford Medieval Texts (hereafter OMT), 1972)Google Scholar, U.595–6. Davis, R. H. C., ‘The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio’, EHR, xciii (1978), 241–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, gives an almost conclusive critique.

¹⁶ GG, 216: ‘After this the bishops and lay magnates begged him to assume the crown. “We are accustomed to obey a king”, they said, “and we wish to have king as lord.”’.

¹⁷ The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, M., 6 vols. (OMT, 1969–1981), ii. 186Google Scholar: ‘… nisi coronato regi servire hactenus erant soliti’.

¹⁸ For references on Capetian regnal dating, see Lewis, A. W., Royal Succession in Capetian France (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 257Google Scholar n. 158. For calculating regnal years from the coronation in an early charter of William, see Regesta Regum Anglo-Norman-norum (hereafter Reg.), i, ed. Davis, H. W. C. and Whitwell, R.J. (Oxford, 1913)Google Scholar, no. 22, which is discussed, with reference to the edn., below n. 115.

¹⁹ Episcopi, S. Fulberti Carnotensis, ‘Tractatus contra Judaeos’, in Patrologia Latina ed. Migne, J.-P. (hereafter PL), cxli, col. 508Google Scholar.

²⁰ In peculiar circumstances an attempt was made by Stephen to have his son Eustace anointed during his own lifetime, but it was unsuccessful. The first association in post-conquest England occurred in 1170.

²¹ Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. Bouquet, M. et al. , 24 vols. (Paris, 1738–1904), xv. 144–6Google Scholar.

²² GG, 218: ‘… however muc h they might desire to increase their ow n wealth an d estates through his advancement.’

²³ The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. Searle, E. (OMT, 1980), 182Google Scholar, cited by Holt, J. C., ‘Feudal society and the family in early medieval England: I. Th e revolution of 1066’, ante, 5th series, xxxii (1982), 193–212, at 207Google Scholar.

²⁴ Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Gestis Regum Anglorum, ed. Stubbs, W., 2 vols. (Rolls ser., xc, 1887–1889)Google Scholar, ii, 361–2: ‘for the same man had made him king as had made them dukes.’

²⁵ GG, 238: ‘Nothing was given to any Frenchman which had been unjustly taken from any Englishman.’

²⁶ GG, 148: ‘decreed that his injury should be avenged, and his inheritance re-covered with arms’.

²⁷ GG, 158.

²⁸ The best edition is in Councils and Synods, I, ii. 581–4Google Scholar.

²⁹ This is the opinion of Martin Brett, the editor in Councils and Synods. It is independently corroborated by Cowdrey, H. E. J., ‘The Anglo-Norman Laudes Regiae’, Viator, xii (1981), 37–78, at 59 n. 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Councils and Synods, I, ii. 583Google Scholar, the preamble to the Penitential. Note that in the earliest extant provisions for the truce of God in Normandy only the ruler was permitted to wage war: ‘in hoc pace nullus nisi rex aut comes huius patriae caballicationem aut hostilitatem faciat’, in Concilia Rotomagensis Provinciae, ed. Bessin, G. (Rouen, 1717), 39Google Scholar. According to Bouard, M. de, Sur les origines de la treve de Dieu en Normandie’, Annales de Mormandie, ix (1959), 169–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 186, this rule was found nowhere else in France.

³¹ Councils and Synods, I, ii. 584Google Scholar, cl. 5.

³² Ibid., cl. 7.

³³ cl. 8: ‘not out of need for supplies, but because they were plundering’.

³⁴ cl. 9.

³⁵ Orderic Vitalis often referred to rebels as ‘publici hostes’: see Orderic, i v. 46Google Scholar, 84; vi. 20, 344, etc. For another regulation about penance for homicide committed ‘in publico bello’ see Leges Henrici Primi, 68, 12, in Liebermann, , Gesetze, i. 587Google Scholar.

³⁶ See above, n. 14; but note that a contradictory argument to the effect that it would be better to delay the coronation until the country had been pacified is used to emphasize the duke's modesty—in contrast to Harold—in the same chapter, 216.

³⁷ GG, 190–2: ‘he charged against the people who deserved death for their rebellion against him, their king’ (my italics).

³⁸ GG, 200, 204, etc.

³⁹ GG, 90.

⁴⁰ GG, 158.

⁴¹ Orderic, iv. 92 makes King William say to Robert Curthose, with reference to his earlier designation of his eldest son as successor to the duchy, ‘… quia primogenitus est et hominium pene omnium huius patriae baronum iam recepit concessus honor nequit abstrahi’. See Sheehan, M. M., The Will in Medieval England (Toronto, 1963), 109Google Scholar; and Fauroux, Recueil, no. 158 of c. 1063 which makes the same point about Curthose's designation, ‘… quern [scil. Robert] elegerant ad gubernandum regnum post obitum suum’.

⁴² See De Moribus et actis primorum Normanniae Ducum auctore Dudone Sancti Quintini decano, ed. Lair, J. (Caen, 1865), 297Google Scholar; William, of jumieges, , Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. Marx, J. (Rouen—Paris, 1914), 72Google Scholar, 97, 100, 111–12. These ceremonies occur prior to the death of the reigning duke, but do not associate the heir in the duchy. In the charter which is always cited to prove the opposite, it should be noted that whilst Richard III subscribes with the title of duke, he is not associated with his father in the actual grant: Fauroux, Recueil, no. 55. Doubts are cast on the dependability of other charters cited to establish this association (nos. 34 and 36)—but in which Richard III does not subscribe with the ducal title—in Werner, K. F., ‘Quelques observations au sujet des debuts du duche de Normandie’, in Droit privi el institutions regionales: Etudes historiques qffertes a Jean Tver (Paris, 1976), 691–709Google Scholar, at 703 n. 35. On Fauroux no. 55 and the succession of Richard III, see Douglas, D. C., ‘Some problems of early Norman chronology’, EHR, lxv (1950), 289–303Google Scholar, at 302. For the implausibility of the story of the assembly of witan consenting to the designation of William, as related by William of Poitiers, see Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor (1970), 108Google Scholar. There was no tradition of such assemblies in England.

⁴⁴ See Cowdrey, H. E.J., ‘Bishop Ermenfrid of Sion and the Penitential Ordinance following the Battle of Hastings’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xx (1969), 225–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 236–40. Such an analysis can be seen clearly in Burchard of Worms' Decretum, PL cxl, cols. 770–1, 952.

⁴⁴ William takes some time to make up his mind about the guilt of the English. In his desire to show that bloodshed was unavoidable, and to be blamed on Harold, he makes the duke propose single combat to Harold for the following reason: ‘… non duco justum ut homines mei vel sui concidant praeliando, quorum in lite nostra nulla culpa est’, GG, 176–8. But when battle had been joined, they were guilty: GG, 194.

⁴⁵ GG, 146. The witan had gathered for the consecration of Westminster abbey.

⁴⁶ GG, 180.

⁴⁷ Initially Harold does not have a title, and is only referred to as ‘rex’ when English messages to the duke are being quoted, GG, 170. Later, he is called ‘rex’, 180, 204.

⁴⁸ See English Historical Documents, ii, 1042-nlk), ed. Douglas, D. C. and away, G. W. Green (2nd edn., 1981), 271Google Scholar pi. xxxiii, where he is entitled ‘rex Anglorum’; 287 pi. lvii; 289 pi. lx.

⁴⁹ See above, n. 29.

⁵⁰ Davis, ‘Carmen’, 247 n. 4, shows that the case against papal involvement put by Morton, C., ‘Pope Alexander II and the Norman Conquest’, Latomus, xxxiv (1975), 362–82Google Scholar, at 372–3, rests ultimately on an unconvincing interpretation of Gregory VII's letter of 24 Apr. 1080. She fails to take account of important pieces of evidence for papal involvement—such as the fragment of a letter of Alexander II in Councils and Synods, I, ii. 563Google Scholar —which is detailed in Cowdrey, ‘Laudes Regiae’, 59 n. 57.

⁵¹ Round, J. H., Feudal England: Historical Studies of the Xlth and XIM Centuries (1909), 422Google Scholar.

⁵¹ It is printed by Round: ‘mina preost… mi5 sace & mid socne swa full and swa for5 swa his furmest on hondan stodan Harald kinge on aellan pingan…’; and is calendered as Reg., i, no. 9. Ibid., no. 23 also refers to Harold as king, but for doubts as to its authenticity see Harmer, F. E., Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), 276Google Scholar. Note that a later writ to Regenbald, Reg., i, no. 19, just confirms his holdings as they were in the time of King Edward.

⁵³ See the inspirational discussion in Galbraith, V. H., Domesday Book: Its Place in Administrative History (Oxford, 1974), 175Google Scholar–83, at 176.

⁵⁴ GG, 264–8; Patourel, J. Le, The Norman Empire (Oxford, 1976), 40Google Scholar. For his claim, see Barlow, , Edward the Confessor, 109Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Reg., i, no. 45, with reference to the printed version: ‘swa full and swa ford swa Harold is firmest hafde on alien thngen thas daege the he was cwicu and dead.’ I have the assurance of David Bates, who has dealt with a remorseless series of queries from me with great generosity, that this is a secure piece of evidence. For a careless reference to the same date, see Domesday Book seu Liber Censualis, 4 vols. (1783–1816) (hereafterDB), i. 180aGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁶ Reg., i, no. 87, with ref. to the printed version. I am indebted to David Bates for confirming my argument about the relation between this and Reg. i, no. 86.

⁵⁷ That Windsor had been given to Westminster by Edward the Confessor shortly before his death is confirmed by Harmer, , Writs, 327–8Google Scholar and 516–7 discussing no. 97.

⁵⁸ DB, i. 32b.

⁵⁹ DB, ii. 14b, 15a.

⁶⁰ ‘… swa full and swa forth swa itt hi thder inn firmest se unnen habbe on alien thngen…’

⁶¹ Reg., i, no. 86, printed in the appendix of unpublished documents, p. 120: ‘with everything which pertained thereto on the day when King Edward was alive and dead, to hold it as well and as fully and freely as Earl Harold held it at that time’.

⁶² Reg., i, nos. 162, 163, and 164, printed in app. pp. 123–4. David Bates tells me that these writs contain many of the ‘forger's phrases’ characteristic of ‘improved’ Westminster writs of the 1130s and 1140s, and that they have (no. 164 excepted) witnesses who appear in various permutations in 12th-century texts, but are highly unusual in genuine writs of William I.

⁶³ See above, n. 59.

⁶⁴ For use of this phrase in Exon Domesday, and the tendency to abbreviate it in the Exchequer version, see Galbraith, , DB in Admin. Hist., 69Google Scholar; and his The Making of Domesday Book (Oxford, 1961), 109Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ DB, i. 135d, 175d, 197b, etc.

⁶⁶ GG, 230.

⁶⁷ Facsimiles of English Royal Writs to A.D. 1100 presented to V. H. Galbraith, ed. Bishop, T. A. M. and Chaplais, P. (Oxford, 1957), pi. xivGoogle Scholar: ‘eallra paera laga weor5e pe gyt waeran on Eadwerdes daege kynges’.

⁶⁸ See Harmer, Writs, no. 51 of Edward the Confessor to the cnihtengild of London; also nos. 31 and 44. For the same phrasing in an early writ of William, see Reg., i, no. 14. For a similar instance in an Anglo-Saxon law code, see IV Edgar 2a in Liebermann, , Gesetze, i. 208Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Harmer, Writs, no. 71: ‘swo ful 7 swo forth swo he furmest was on Edward' kinges dage on alle pingan.’

⁷⁰ See, for instance, the will of King Alfred cited above, n. 8.

⁷¹ See Hazeltine, H.D., General Preface to Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Whitelock, D. (Cambridge, 1930), esp. pp. xiGoogle Scholar, xxii.

⁷² Reg., i, no. 45, cited above, n. 55. See also Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J. (Cambridge, 1939)Google Scholar, app. I, no. 4, a record of dues pertaining to Taunton. Simon Keynes tells me that he does not know of any other instance of this phrase in Old English, and it does not appear in the Toronto Old English Concordance. The phrase ‘alive or dead’ does occur in Anglo-Saxon legal sources, but never ‘alive and dead’: see Liebermann, , Gesetze, ii. 44Google Scholar. For ‘alive or dead’ see also Vita Ædwardi Regis, ed. Barlow, F. (NMT, 1962), 22Google Scholar. One can see ‘alive and dead’ being interpolated into a source when it was adapted to fit post-conquest circumstances in Leges Henrici Primi, 70, 18, in Liebermann, , Gesetze, i. 589Google Scholar.

⁷³ See, for instance, the Inquisitio Eliensis, which sought to define tenures as they had been in Edward's time, and which may be dated 1071–5, ed. in Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis; subjicitur Inquisitio Eliensis, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (1876), 192–5Google Scholar. Reg., i, no. 155 gives a good summary of what would happen at one of the land pleas of the Conqueror's reign: ‘Quibus in unum congregatis eligantur plures de illis anglis qui sciunt quomodo terrae iacebant praefatae ecclesiae die qua rex aedwardus obiit et quod inde dixerint ibidem iureiurando testantur. Quo facto restituantur ecclesiae terrae que in dominio suo erant die obitus aeduardi exceptis his quas homines clamabunt me sibi dedisse…’ It is printed by Hamilton, p. xviii. Note that there is no intention to restore all the lands as they were TRE, but only such as no one claimed had been granted to them by William. The prefiguring of Domesday terms of reference in the land pleas of the reign—see, for instance, Hamilton, 97—is dealt with in Douglas, D. C., ‘Odo, Lanfranc and the Domesday Survey’, in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait, ed. Edwards, J.G., Galbraith, V. H. and Jacob, E. F. (Manchester, 1933), 47–57, esp. 55–7Google Scholar. Harvey, S. P. J. has pursued this theme in ‘Domesday Book and Anglo-Norman Governance’, ante, 5th ser., xxv (1975), 175–93, esp. 183Google Scholar; and in her ‘Domesday Book and its predecessors’, EHR, lxxxvi (1971), 753–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which shows how administrative documents recording the Edwardian tenurial situation may well lie behind parts of Domesday Book. She notes that at least one such document— the Kentish assessment list (I)—contains obvious alterations and discrepancies which suggest that the list as it stands was valid for a date subsequent to Edward's death and prior to 1086 (p. 758), and hints that others may have ‘been drawn up at a date when the Edwardian tenurial situation was of more interest than a contemporary one’ (p. 763). She does not, however, consider that the stress in a post-conquest document on Edward's last day is rather different from a general reference to the time of Edward and that, as in the case of the Taunton document (above, n. 67), there is ample evidence for the necessity of establishing what the facts were at this precise point. It shows that much of the interest must have been subsequent to Edward's reign.

⁷⁴ Orderic, ii. 256.

⁷⁵ Patourel, J. Le, ‘The reports on the trial on Penenden Heath’, in Studies in Medieval History presented to F. M. Powicke, ed. Hunt, R. W., Pantin, W. A. and Southern, R. W. (Oxford, 1948), 15–26Google Scholar, at 23: ‘by command of the king… in order that he might declare and expound the ancient practice of the laws’.

⁷⁶ The Letters of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Clover, H. and Gibson, M. (OMT, 1979), no. 7, p. 62Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ See, for instance, Flor. Wig., ii. 6–7: ‘… Agelricus Suthsaxonum pontifex non canonice degradatur, quem rex sine culpa mox apud Mearlesbeorge in custodiam posuit; abbates etiara quamplures degradantur.’

⁷⁸ DB, i. 38b.

⁷⁹ DB, i. 162d: ‘Earl Harold stole these five lands after the death of King Edward.’ Compare ibid., 132c, 134c; and ‘post mortem regis E … antequam rex W venisset’, ibid., 43b.

⁸⁰ Reg., i, n. 9, above, n. 52. DB, i. 68b: ‘Two men held these two manors in the time of King Edward; Earl Harold joined them together.’

⁸¹ DB, i. 137a, 208b, etc.

⁸² DB, ii. 10b.

⁸³ Ibid., 124b. Compare Le Patourel, ‘Penenden Heath’, 21: ‘Tempore magni regis Willelmi qui regnum anglicum armis conquisivit…’

⁸⁴ See DB, ii. 12b, 94b, and throughout the whole survey. For an example in an early writ of the Conqueror, see Reg. i, no. 31.

⁸⁵ DB, i. 1 a. For an examination of whether this was 28 or 29 Sept. see Orderic, ii. 170 n. 2. For an unusual reference to how Harold held at this time, see below, n. 162.

⁸⁶ DB, ii. 14b. For a reference to the naval battle see ASC (E) s.a. 1066 in ed. Plummer, , i. 197Google Scholar. Ailric gave Kelvedon to Westminster according to Domesday, but the monks forged writs of Edward and William granting it to them, perhaps because a grant from a known opponent of William who had probably died before William's arrival and after Edward's death, was not thought to give secure title: Harmer, , Writs, no. 74, and pp. 302–3Google Scholar and 494.

⁸⁷ Reg., i, no. 40, printed in Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, ed. Douglas, D. C. (British Academy Records of Social and Economic History, 1932), no. 1Google Scholar: ‘alle ρo londe me to hande ρat ρo men aihten ρe on orreste stoden to ihnes me and ρer ofslagen weren ρe heorden into seynt Eadmundes sokne.’

⁸⁸ Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed Stevenson, J., 2 vols. (Rolls ser., ii, 1858), ii. 3Google Scholar; i. 484.

⁸⁹ DB, i. 153b: ‘…held in the time of King Edward, and it is said by he who now holds that Alric forfeited through King William's arrival’ (my italics).

⁹⁰ WDB, ii. 200a: ‘after King William came into England this Eadric was outlawed to Denmark.’ For details see Stenton, F. M., ‘St Benet of Holme and the Norman Conquest’, EUR, xxxvii (1922), 225–35, at 227 and 233Google Scholar. Compare DB, ii. 48a: ‘Hanc terram tenuit iste libere, et quando rex venit in hanc terrain utlagavit et R accepit terram suam…’

⁹¹ See, for instance, the case of King Harold's huscarl Scalpi who continued to hold land TRW for a short time at least: DB, ii. 59a. It is discussed by Williams, A., ‘Land and power in the eleventh century: the estates of Harold Godwineson’, Proc. of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, iii (1980), 171–87, at 178–9Google Scholar.

⁹² Richard Fitz Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario and Constitutio Domus regis, ed. Johnson, C., corrCarter, F. E. L. and Greenway, D. E. (OMT, 1983), 53–4Google Scholar.

⁹³ For details of some of those who managed to survive, see Davies, R. H., ‘The Lands and Rights of Harold, Son of Godwin, and their Redistribution by William I’, (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Wales, 1967), 157Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Reg., i, no. 76.

⁹⁵ See c. 9 of the Whitsun legatine council at Windsor in 1070; c. 9 of the Easter council at Winchester in 1072; and also William's ordinance on ecclesiastical courts: Councils and Synods, I, ii. 581, 606, 624.

⁹⁶ See above, n. 44.

⁹⁷ DB, i. 208a.

⁹⁸ (Exon) DB, iv. 165, cited by Galbraith, , Making of DB, 76Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ Reg., i, nos. 295 and 296.

¹⁰⁰ DB, i. 60c; DB, iv. 165, etc.

¹⁰¹ DB, i. 217d.

¹⁰² DB, ii. 242a; DB, i. 203d. For some discussion, see Vinogradoff, P., English Society in the Eleventh Century (Oxford, 1908), 220 and 233–4Google Scholar with further refs.

¹⁰³ This is shown clearly by Reg., i, no. 155, quoted above, n. 73.

¹⁰⁴ DB, ii. 240a.

¹⁰⁵ DB, i. 44d.

¹⁰⁶ For discussion, see Bishop and Chaplais, p. xi. For the importance of such a writ, see DB, i. 35b. For the king himself acting as deliverer, DB, ii. 249b.

¹⁰⁷ DB, i. 44d: ‘did not wish to accept any law other than that of King Edward until it had been denned by the king’.

¹⁰⁸ DB, i. 50a.

¹⁰⁹ DB, ii. 71b, 312b–313a. For discussion, see Stephenson, C., ‘Commendation and related problems in Domesday Book’, EHR, lix (1944), 289–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁰ See above, n. 22.

¹¹¹ DB, i. 137c, 142a.

¹¹² Letters of Lanfranc, no. 39, p. 130–2: ‘I neither promised on my own behalf, nor can I discover that my antecessores ever performed it to your antecessores.’

¹¹³ Reg., i, no. 26, in Bishop and Chaplais, p. xxviii; Reg., i, no. 53; Reg., i, no. 22 had ‘praedecessor’. For an edn., see below, n. 115.

¹¹⁴ Fauroux, , Recueil, no. 15, p. 95Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Reg., i, no. 22, ed. in Stevenson, W. H., ‘An Old English charter of William the Conqueror in favour of St Martin's-le-Grand, London’, EHR, xi (1896), 731–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁶ Reg., i, nos. 12, 33, 41 etc.

¹¹⁷ Orderic, iv. 90: ‘I assumed a royal crown, although no antecessor of mine had worn one; it came to me by divine grace, not hereditary right.’

¹¹⁸ Letters of Lanfranc, no. 3, pp. 38–48, at 42: ‘Not many days later Lanfranc required and received professions of obedience from all those bishops of the English realm who, in the time of Stigand, had been consecrated at various times and in various places by other archbishops or by the pope.’

¹¹⁹ Canterbury Professions, ed. Richter, M., (Canterbury and York Soc., lxvii, 1973)Google Scholar, nos. 31, 32, 33.

¹²⁰ Barlow, F., The English Church 1000–1066 (2nd edn., 1979), 303Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Professions, no. 32—that of Remigius: ‘he expelled archbishop Robert, partly by force, partly by intrigue, invaded the metropolitan see, and did not hesitate to usurp the pallium, which Robert had brought from the apostolic see, along with everything else.’

¹²² English Church, 304. On his usurpation of the pallium see also Flor. Wig., 1. 221.

¹²³ Professions, no. 32: ‘by papal authority he cannot be considered your [Lanfranc's] antecessor, nor you his successor…’

¹²⁴ Professions, p. lxi.

¹²⁵ Letters of Lanfranc, no. 24, p. 106–8. For the discovery that Trinity College MS B. 16. 44 (405) was Lanfranc's personal copy, and that it had been used in the drafting of some of his letters, see Brooke, Z. N., The English Church and the Papacy from the Conquest to the Reign of King John (Cambridge, 1931), 57–83Google Scholar, with discussion of this letter at 68–9.

¹²⁶ See, for instance, Ivo of Chartres' Decretum, Bk v, c. 302, in PL, clxi, col. 416. For discussion of a similar problem in relation to archbishop Dunstan, see Whitelock, D., ‘The appointment of Dunstan as archbishop of Canterbury’, in Otium et Negotium. Studies in Onomatology and Library Science presented to Olof von Feilitzen, ed. Sandgren, F. (Stockholm, 1973), 232–47Google Scholar, at 238. On forcing one's way into office as tyranny, regardless of whether it happened to be vacant or not, see The Letters and Poems ofFulbert of Chartres, ed. Behrends, F. (OMT, 1976)Google Scholar, no. 26.

¹²⁷ Trinity MS B. 16. 44, p. 328.

¹²⁸ ‘… with tyrannical presumption should have usurped the throne of the kingdom—let him be cursed in the sight of God and the angels, and made a stranger to the Catholic Church which he has profaned with perjury and excluded from all Christian fellowship…’

¹²⁹ See King, P. D., Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom (Cambridge, 1972), 45 n. 5Google Scholar; Collins, R., ‘Julian of Toledo and royal succession in late seventh century Spain’, in Early Medieval Kingship, 30–49, esp. 35 and 45Google Scholar. For this meaning of tyranny in the Anglo-Norman period, see Chibnall, M., The World of Orderic Vitalis (Oxford, 1984), 192Google Scholar.

¹³⁰ Bk xvi, c. 26, PL, clxi, col. 908.

¹³¹ Bk xv, c. 25, PL, cxl, col. 901.

¹³² GG, 206–8: ‘…how rightly you were elevated by the gift of Edward on his deathbed…’; ‘…and you will be abominated by subsequent generations of both Normans and English.’

¹³³ GG, 40, 204, 230.

¹³⁴ Trinity MS B. 16. 44, p. 336.

¹³⁵ Councils and Synods, I, ii. 606. See above, n. 95.

¹³⁶ Reg., i, no. 76, which equates the perjury of breach of fealty with treason.

¹³⁷ Letters of Lanfranc, nos. 33A and 33B.

¹³⁸ King, , Law and Society, 48 n. 5Google Scholar, links this canon with the introduction of royal anointing in Visigothic Spain.

¹³⁹ GG, 128: ‘the happy memory of the emperor Theodosius who, on the point of going into battle against tyrants, was encouraged by the prophetic responses of the monk John.’

¹⁴⁰ GG, 234.

¹⁴¹ Orderic, ii. 142.

¹⁴² Eadmtri Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, M. (Rolls ser., lxxxi, 1884), 24Google Scholar.

¹⁴³ GG, 188.

¹⁴⁴ For instance, the claim that it was duke William who, as a minor, forced the English to make Edward the Confessor king. This contradicts all the English sources, and is highly unlikely given the insecurity of William's position at that time: GG, 28–30. There are plenty of other disprovable claims, particularly with regard to England, in both William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges.

¹⁴⁵ For a few instances, see Barlow, , Edward the Confessor, 108, 221–5Google Scholar. Note also that when William gives detailed descriptions of Harold's supposed oath to the duke, he never mentions the marriage agreement which plays such a large part in other accounts (GG, 104, 176), but later it is referred to in passing as if its significance will be readily appreciated (230). For the use he made of his known sources, see Davis, R. H. C., ‘William of Poitiers and his History’, in The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to R. W. Southern, ed. Davis, R. H. C. and Wallace-Hadrill, J. M. (Oxford, 1981), 71–100, esp. 80Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁶ In the mid twelfth century Sigebert of Gembloux believed that Lanfranc had written a ‘res gestas Guillelmi Northmannorum comitis’: PL, clx. 583. Davis, , ‘William of Poitiers’, 79Google Scholar, believes that both William of Poitiers and William of Jumièges may have been following a lost common source at the places where there are verbal similarities between them.

¹⁴⁷ Maitland, F. W., Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897), 168Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁸ DB, i. 38b.

¹⁴⁹ DB, i. 2b: ‘by means of Harold's violence, Alnod Cild took Merclesham and Hawkhurst away from St Martin's, for which he gave the canons an unequal exchange’.

¹⁵⁰ See above, p. 100.

¹⁵¹ See for instance DB, i. 38a, 64b, 87a. The last reference is to Congresbury which Harold had supposedly seized together with Banwell from Giso, bishop of Wells. That this was a post-conquest gloss on a very different and more complicated situation is shown by Green, J. R., ‘Earl Harold and Bishop Giso’, Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society Proceedings, xii (1863–1864), 148–57Google Scholar. The evidence is discussed with regard to Harold's only genuine extant writ as king in Harmer, , Writs, 275–6Google Scholar.

¹⁵² See the activities of the family of the earls of Mercia with regard to the Worcester manor of Salwarpe, contrasting evidence in Heming's cartulary with the whitewash in DB, i. 176a in Williams, , ‘Estates of Harold Godwineson’, 182Google Scholar.

¹⁵³ Vita Ædwardi, 5, 54, 75; see also the preamble to a charter of Æthelred, Sawyer, no. 911, quoted by Barlow, , Edward the Confessor, 3Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁴ See Historia Novorum, 9–10; in more detail, Orderic, ii, pp. xxxviii–ix, 202, 270–2, 312–14; Gesta Regum, ii. 482.

¹⁵⁵ See above, n. 116.

¹⁵⁶ ASC (D) s.a. 1066. The same word is used to describe Edward the Confessor at the time of his accession in order to stress the return of the line of Cerdic to the throne of England: ASC (C) s.a. 1042. See Plummer, i. 199, 162.

¹⁵⁷ Plummer, i. 220.

¹⁵⁸ For a full discussion of its meaning, see Dumville, D., ‘The Ætheling: a study in Anglo-Saxon constitutional history’, Anglo-Saxon England, viii (1979), 1–33Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁹ Reg., i, nos. 22, 30.

¹⁶⁰ Reg., i, nos. 423, 468. In the latter, tenure on the date of William the Conqueror's death is specifically equated with that recorded in Domesday Book. See also Reg., ii, no. 1375; Reg., iii, nos. 10, 286, 428 etc. I hope to deal with this issue at much greater length in a proposed book on coronation rituals and royal succession in England.

¹⁶¹ Reg., i, no. 177. David Bates tells me that this must be dated to 1080–2.

¹⁶² Reg., i, no. 214; see also no. 47 which defines tenure as Harold held it at this time. It should be compared with the early writs I examined above, pp. 99–100. It must be dated after 1077 according to Bates, D. R., ‘The origins of the justiciarship’, Proc. of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, iv (1981), 1–12Google Scholar and notes 167–71, at 4 n. 25. For the date of William's adventus, see above, n. 85.

¹⁶³ Reg., i, nos. 188, 189, 190.

¹⁶⁴ See Glanvill: Tractatus de Legibus, ed. Hall, G. D. G. (NMT, 1965), 180Google Scholar, for a discussion of periods of limitation in the various assizes. Apart from novel disseisin they all refer to the reign of Henry I or to Henry II's coronation, thus following the precedent set by the evidence I have been examining. But note that Stephen is not subject to damnatio memoriae. He could not be, because he had made Henry his heir and successor in 1153.

¹⁶⁵ The ‘novissime’ in Reg., i, no. 291, does not mean, as Davis thought it did, that the writ had to be dated to 1087. It is far more likely that it refers to one of Rufus' subsequent crossings, since the word is used in this way in the writs of other kings.

¹⁶⁶ Liebermann, , Gesetze, i. 521–3Google Scholar.

¹⁶⁷ 7If, after the death of my brother King William, anyone seized any of my property or of the property of anyone else, let him speedily return the whole of it without “emendation”. And if anyone still retains any part of it, he in whose possession it is found shall make heavy “emendation” to me.’

¹⁶⁸ ‘pacem firmam in toto regno meo pono et teneri amodo praecipio.’

¹⁶⁹ For brief discussion of different sorts of king's peace see Harmer, , Writs, 80Google Scholar; Hurnard, N. D., ‘The Anglo-Norman franchises’, EHR, lxiv (1949), 289–323, 433–60, esp. 303–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷⁰ ‘… nor, on the death of an archbishop, bishop or abbot, will I take anything from the demesne of the church or from its men until a successor has entered.’ Note, however, that there is an implied distinction between what the king might take (‘accipere’) as lord, however unjustly, and what anyone—not necessarily a lord— might seize (‘capere’).

¹⁷¹ Reg., i, no. 396; see now Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to Glanvill, ed. van Caenegem, R. C. (Selden Society, 1959 for 1958), no. 67Google Scholar: ‘…and if they have been disseised of anything after his death, I order that they should be reseised without delay. And if anyone disseises them or does them injury henceforth, I want you to know that he will commit against them a breach of my peace; and he will make ‘emendation’ to me for the breach of my peace.’

¹⁷² See Historia Novorum, 40; Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi De Geslis Pontijicum Anglorum ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (Rolls ser., lii, 1870), 83–4Google Scholar; and the letter in Anselmi Opera Omnia, ed. Schmitt, F. S., 6 vols. (Edinburgh, 1938–1961), iv, no. 176Google Scholar.

¹⁷³ ASC (E) s.a. 1085, in Plummer, i. 217. The link between the oath of Salisbury, Domesday Book, and the final conquest settlement is hinted at by William, of Malmesbury, , Gesta Regum, ii. 317Google Scholar, and explored by Holt, J. C., ‘Politics and property in early medieval England’, Past & Present, lvii (1972), 3–52, at 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷⁴ See cl. 2.1; 4.2; 11.

¹⁷⁵ Holt, ‘Politics and property’, passim.

¹⁷⁶ The definition occurs in the Dialogus de Scaccario, 91; see also the discussion about whether reliefs paid by tenants-in-chief were voluntary offerings for something which could be withheld. For analysis of this issue see Milsom, S. F. C., The Legal Framework of English Feudalism (Cambridge, 1976), 161–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Thorne, S. E., ‘English feudalism and estates.in land’, The Cambridge Law Journal, 1959, 193–209, esp. 196–7Google Scholar.

¹⁷⁷ See Plucknett, T. F. T., A Concise History of the Common Law (4th edn., 1947), 698n.Google Scholar, cited by Holt, , ‘Revolution of 1066’, 199Google Scholar.